Milner Library Staff Retreat

November 1, 2010

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

--- AD

--- Dept Head

--- Unit Head

--- Admin Reporting

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

Updated on 10/29/10

Illinois State University MILNER LIBRARY ORGANIZATION CHART 2010 - 2011

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.”

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

REORGANIZATION Q & A’s• DEAN AND ADMIN• LEGACY & HERITAGE COLLECTIONS - GRIFFITHS• ACCESS & DELIVERY SERVICES - LONG• CONTENT MANAGEMENT & SCHOLARLY RESOURCES

- SCHWITZNER• MULTIMEDIA SERVICES - KUBIAK• LIAISON & REFERENCE SERVICES - STOFFEL• GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS - BONNELL• COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT - BUCKLEY• INFORMATION USE AND FLUENCY - SHARKEY• TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES-SATCHWELL

Updated on 10/29/10

When will this reorganization be implemented?

Trial begins on January 1, 2011.

Updated on 10/29/10

What is the significance of the dotted line around “Teaching with Primary Sources”?

It explains that this department is not formally a permanent part of this organization.

Updated on 10/29/10

Is there a plan to evaluate and adjust all job descriptions (and salaries) to reflect changes in job responsibilities?

Once we have adopted a plan, departments and unit heads will evaluate and revise job titles and descriptions to reflect changed job responsibilities. Administration will look at salary levels at that time as well. We hope to have this work done sometime in 2011.

I thought there were supposed to be three people to a "unit", but according to the chart, some "units" seem to have only have one person. Does this mean that units of one or two are ok now? Units are composed necessary number of faculty & staff required to fulfill the unit’s functional responsibility. While many units were originally envisioned as multi-functional in nature & with multiple staff, not every function of the library fit together cleanly with other functions for a variety of reasons. Units with fewer than three people represent areas that focus on core purposes while remaining flexible & cooperative with larger departments.

“We cut $40,000 from the student budget and start adding in more upper management. We're getting rid of foot soldiers & replacing them with more generals.”

Funding for student assistants does not necessarily come from the same funding sources as faculty or staff positions. Funding for student assistants has declined each year across campus for many years. This is not an experience unique to Milner. While it may appear that the headcount for FT library faculty & staff is increasing under the organizational structure, it is because many vacant positions had remained unfilled for some time. This has not been done at the expense of students assistants.

Updated on 10/29/10

Where is the responsibility for the library’s daily operational needs (Admin, department heads, department heads & unit heads together, etc.)?

While final responsibility for this resides at the Dean/AD level, actual management of daily operational needs depends greatly on the department/unit heads.

Updated on 10/29/10

The box for Content Acquisitions unit head is blank. When will that position be filled and how (i.e., by what level faculty member, AP, TT, NTT)?

When budget allows at any level we will be able to get that funding

Updated on 10/29/10

Will anyone be appointed as interim head?

Ted Schwitzner has served and will continue to serve as de facto acquisitions librarian until a permanent hire can be made.

Updated on 10/29/10

We need to have the Original Cataloging Librarian position filled now, so that work needing that level of attention doesn’t get deferred for a year or more.

All vacant positions will be evaluated after we are done analyzing our needs and chart a clear plan. If needed, it will be filled when budget is available.

Having six newly created but open positions throughout the Content Management & Scholarly Resources Department acknowledges that we have less staff than we need to do the work of the division.

Filling positions for both faculty & staff in various areas has lagged behind the actual work to be performed. New tasks & workflows have been added without strategically eliminating less important tasks. The new department & unit structures should open opportunities for identifying those tasks that can be removed in favor of those that best utilize the talents of the faculty and staff we have while we have them.

Updated on 10/29/10

How does this represent moving forward, if, “We don’t have enough crew to man the oars of the ship”? How can Content Acquisitions be moved forward without a unit head to direct the transition? What guarantees are there that new positions can be filled next fiscal year or ever, as long as there is a hiring freeze in effect?

Options for supplementing faculty & staff efforts with those of materials vendors will be explored in the next year.

Updated on 10/29/10

Priscilla’s position appears to be reorganized. If she retires, will her position be opened under its new alignment, or will we look at what the needs of the department are in hiring?

We will examine the needs of the department and hire the position and faculty/staff level that best meets those needs.

Some of the job titles seem vague or seem to say less about what people will do than they do. For instance, “Information use & fluency” doesn’t convey instruction, and actually seems to say “teaching people to read.”The role of Instructional Services will be expanding & moving away from organizing one-time sessions for the COM 110 & ENG 101. The expansion will include examining ways students use information & exploring multiple types of teaching models that could be provided to all levels of students (from freshman to graduate). The dept will work closely with the subject liaisons to develop targeted teaching programs relevant to the information needs of students in a particular discipline or major. Information Fluency is a newer concept intended to represent an expansion from the typical Information Literacy model of “Find, Use, & Evaluate” to incorporate managing, integrating, creating, & communicating information in different ways and with a variety of different tools.

Is “multimedia services” checking out ear-buds and equipment?

Multimedia Services will be doing more that checking equipment. We will provide stations for audio editing, voice over capabilities, film editing, scanning, and lamination. The center will provide opportunities for students to interact with media, media equipment, and emerging formats; experiment with audio and video editing; and develop creative curricular multimedia projects. Programming, tutorials and hands-on instruction will be a vital component of the unit.

Updated on 10/29/10

Since we are adding a copyright officer under the Dean, suggest that we also hire an in-house attorney for license negotiation, so that we don’t have to wait weeks for Hovey to handle negotiations.

Recent legislation adopted into law will require that most purchases involving negotiation of prices and terms will need to receive the approval of Purchasing and/or University Counsel.

Updated on 10/29/10

Will the Copyright Officer job description be a requirement or preference of a “J.D.” degree?

As the Dean is the official Copyright Agent of the University, the Dean and the Copyright Officer need a direct reporting line for clear communication and information on timely and complicated campus issues. The Copyright Officer will have the background and training necessary to inform university policy and procedures in regards to copyright and scholarly communication issues, which includes reviewing and negotiating licensing agreements.

The new structure fails to address those concerns adequately. For instance, where is responsibility for North Storage in this chart?

No organizational structure or chart will be perfect, nor address every outstanding issue. The purpose and daily operations of North Storage will be examined & articulated in the future, as we decide what we want from an off-site storage facility & how it best fits with Milner’s needs & the needs of our patrons. Until we have a more comprehensive program & plan in place for North Storage, retrieval of items will remain Jim Caselton’s responsibility.

Isn’t this just “A lot of bother about the same old stuff”? It may be difficult to perceive the meaningfulness of these changes from simply reviewing or a chart or from discussions, but we will see the benefit of these changes in the longer term when we are able to do our daily work more effectively and flexibly. Meaningful change requires patience and trust to see it through and see it through well. We hope that you will grace us with your patience & work through this with us.

Feeling that Collection Development is out of place under Public Services. Collection Development should be connected to Content Management: possibly as the AD for information assets, possibly as a parallel dept to Content Management, possibly as the Content Acquisitions unit head.Placement of Collection D. varies greatly in other academic libraries with no single model prevailing. From a listserv survey conducted by Chad Buckley, it was located in Public Services in 12 libraries, in Technical Services in 16 libraries,& in a hybrid/both/neither model in 8 libraries. A proposal has been made to merge the unit with Content Acquisitions. Combining these units should not require any changes to liaison relationships or selection duties held by public services faculty, but instead should help streamline workflows & communications between collection specialists & content acquisition.

Also a lot of concern about why so much change appears to be in the air right now.

Conditions in higher ed & academic libraries are changing rapidly due largely to changes in information and communication technologies. Change has been accelerating in the last several decades, & the trend will likely continue. For the library to best respond to changing technologies & patron preferences, we need to regularly assess & then realign our organization to take best advantage of our finite resources. There is never a perfect time to do this.

Updated on 10/29/10

Also unexpected strong feelings from the staff about how the 6th floor needs to have a service desk even if it is not a point of circulation activity – that it should be a second reference desk. This is vestiges of their original disagreement with closing the desks on the floors several years ago, but also a genuine understanding that many students require assistance on the floors and there is often no one available to help.

The proposed organizational structure has been modified to accommodate a service point on Floor 6. The Reference and Multimedia Services Department includes two units (Liaison and Reference Services and Multimedia Services) that will jointly operate service points on Floors 2 and 6. Having both service points administered through a combined unit will provide flexibility in how librarians, staff, and student assistants are deployed. This structure will allow for realignment of staffing assignments in reference services and multimedia to best respond to changing patron needs.

Updated on 10/29/10

Why some of what we were told in the past has been found to be not true. They can accept that some of IRMA’s “harms” were political tactics, but they’re unsure about trusting new developments too. “Can’t trust Admin – years of experience that mistrust is healthy.”

Milner Library is not acting alone with this reopening—it is being done with the guidance (and approval) of campus Health and Safety who are the authorities in determining what conditions are acceptable. Library personnel with lingering concerns about the IRMA space are welcome to meet with Ross to view the health and safety report from summer 2010 as well as the details and progress of the upcoming stabilization/repair projects. We need to give students access to all possible material not only ½ of what the library owns.

Collection development responsibilities should remain with subject specialists, because the subject specialists are best qualified to purchase materials in their subject areas, given their interactions with campus departments and knowledge of curricula.

Recent legislation adopted into law will require that most purchases involving negotiation of prices and terms will need to receive the approval of Purchasing and/or University Counsel. This legislation will require the documentation of sales- and trial-related contacts with vendors and publishers. While selection efforts can certainly remain with subject specialists, focusing purchasing efforts to a select number of librarians & staff should help to keep the Library & University in compliance with purchasing regulations.

Updated on 10/29/10

The plan underestimates the amount of work needed to do collection development properly. Expecting two collection assessment librarians to purchase materials for all funds is unreasonable.

The addition of dedicated collection assessment librarians should create opportunities for examination of and selection toward interdisciplinary collection efforts.

If civil service positions in instructional services and government documents are approved, how will those positions be filled? Will all civil service staff members be given the opportunity to apply? Will human resource guidelines and union rules be followed when filling the positions?

A new civil service position in instructional services and a vacant civil service position in gov docs were included in a previous version of the reorganization plan. However, in the most recent version, these positions have been omitted due to funding limitations. If the positions are added back to the plan at a later date, HR & union rules will be followed when filling them.