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Minutes: April 5, 2011
All-Libraries Meeting
Reorganization Planning Team Report
Dean Williams provided an initial campus update. The budget for FY 10-11 on the Boulder campus is set and there should be no revisiting it during remainder of this fiscal year. However, the budget for FY 11-12 has not yet been determined. The governor proposed a 4% reserve, and potential cuts for K-12 education, but there has been no official decision on these matters. The other discretionary part of budget is higher education, and if the budget remains relatively stable, the campus operating budget will absorb the necessary shortfall.
Next Dean Williams introduced the work of the reorganization team and the structure of the plan the Reorganization Team has come up with after many hours of deliberation.
The members of the reorganization planning team include John Culshaw, Suzanne Larsen, Bethany Levrault, Thea Lindquist, Rice Majors, Jack Maness, Greg Robl, Janet Swan-Hill, Jina Wakimoto, and Jim Williams.
He reiterated the goals of the strategic plan --
- Client centered focus
- Library as destination
- Optimal organization
-- and noted that the team focused on this third element.
He noted that the libraries lost positions and fiscal resources to the tune of 1.2 million dollars in one year. As result of economic change, the libraries must make a change in operations structures in order to be more practicable and flexible. He reminded the group that constant change was occurring in all research libraries, driven by patron needs for content in a variety of formats. In a recent communication, the Dean announced that effective May 1, 2011, the Libraries will move to a two-AD interim structure, pending the outcome of the work of an Implementation Team on a permanent reorganization structure later this year. The interim two-AD structure will be composed of John Culshaw as Senior Associate Dean for Administration, and Suzanne Larsen as Associate Dean for Collections and Services. Further, in addition to John's current portfolio, he will assume responsibility for Access Services and the Preservation Department. Likewise, in addition to Suzanne's current portfolio, she will assume responsibility for the Acquisitions Department, and Cataloging & Metadata Services.
One prescriptive that the Dean provided to the reorganization team was that he wanted a flatter decision making process at the administrative level. His vision is to include more people around the table (i.e. the cluster heads) than we currently have and to provide these leaders with more authority and meet more frequently. In the revised structure, the Executive committee consisting of Dean Williams, John Culshaw and Suzanne Larsen will meet on a bi-weekly basis. The larger management team will also meet bi-weekly.
Among the tasks of the reorganization team was an environmental scan of tasks performed in every department and division, an ARL Scenarios Workshop for both the committee and the libraries staff and faculty, a review of current organizational charts of CU libraries and those of peer institutions (those with similar budgets and staff numbers) with a focus on functions and their interrelationships, consideration of all comments received and lots of conversation and thought about the proposed model.
The Dean emphasized that this is a conceptual framework and that assignments and reporting lines are not finalized. The focus of this plan is around functions and does not include conversations about people and their specific roles. That is the role of the implementation process which will require a great deal of flexibility.
The Dean presented an image of Borromean Rings that have provided a visual symbol of strength in unity and interrelationship. The image comes from an Italian aristocratic coat of arms, but was seen as early as the 7th century in stones from Sweden. The image shows three rings that are inseparable...if you remove any one, the other two fall apart. Other places one might encounter this image are the Olympic rings, physics, math, chemistry, psychology, theology, and mythology.
This was followed by the presentation of Clusters which were defined as communities of practice within the Libraries - each involved with the lifecycle of information from its creation to preservation to access.
The Clusters presented were:
Business Services- This group will be split into three teams: Financial Services (such as accounting and procurement), Human Resources and Building Services (including building issues, emergency planning and security).
Jack Maness described four interrelated clusters aimed at moving beyond the silos of research, instruction and collection development. The focus would instead be on diagnosing information needs from various library users and embedding the libraries information gathering and providing functions in various university communities and redefining how we view the services we provide.
The four areas include:
Scholarly Communications for STEM- Science, earth science, maps, math/physics and engineering
Scholarly Communications for Social Sciences - Business, Government Information and liaisons to social science disciplines
Scholarly Communications for Arts and Humanities – Liaisons to Art, Architecture and Humanities disciplines
Scholarly Communication for Archives, Music and Special Collections (AMSC)
Among the functions common to all of these areas will be to educate clients about resources, understand users experience contextualized within teaching learning and research, provide education about the current unsustainable nature of things happening in scholarly communication and propose alternative methods and to act as a conduit to share information among campus departments. Proposed descriptive terms are linked to current functionality. For example, scholarly communication would include bibliographic tasks, library as destination would include reference options and teaching and learning would incorporate instruction.
Materials Management and Preservation – This group includes circulation, preservation, stacks management, and document delivery (paging of books, scanning articles).
Resource Management - Acquisitions, Gifts and Collection Development- three functional groups that will (1) identify what is needed in collection and what isn’t; (2) operational processes needed to get information resources (order/pay/receipt); resources budget oversight including consortial and cooperative relations connected to resources budget acquisition.
Resource Description and Discovery– This group is split into four teams including cataloging for new acquisitions including Asian materials, cataloging for hidden collections(ARV, Gov Info, SPC), metadata team for digital resources, and an electronic resources and serials access team.
Technology Services – This group proposes three teams -technical support, user experience/web and digitization services. This cluster will centralize IT infrastructure including web development and digitization, as well as the operational aspects of Norlin Commons and support of libraries’ faculty research.
Please see the SharePoint site for full descriptions of the clusters and the entire plan.
The transition to implementation will be based on the framework you have seen today. The goal for the implementation team is to be practicable, flexible, and consistent with strategic plan. When reviewing the plan, they will consider what the issues and benefits are and if we should put what has been recommended into action. The implementation team will include some members of reorg team and participation will be very broad among libraries personnel. After the implementation team is appointed, the rollout of plan will be phased and there is no solid timeline for completion.
Questions
(These are paraphrased and condensed. If you feel your question was not completely answered, please feel free to pose it again through the SharePoint site)
- If this is a proposal, it doesn’t feel like it. There is a sense that a determination has already been made and that there is no formal comment period.
There will be many sessions of open discussion and the comment period opens as soon as implementation team is announced. There are still many decisions to be made and some of what is in the plan may need to be modified.
- What is the vision of the leaders regarding managers, budgets and personnel? Do you know who those folks will be and what they will be responsible for? What is extent of their authority?
Issues of managers, budgets and personnel are implementation issues and were not addressed by the reorganization team. The structure is flexible and while the base elements are solid (the two administrative directors and some form of clusters reporting to them) the placement of specific functions is still negotiable and will be discussed by the implementation team. For example, some may question why gov info is located in social sciences? Should they be in the cluster with special collections? Our goal today is to present a framework that allows us to talk about this.
- Can a library faculty exist in professorial positions and abide with academic requirements according to this plan? Will we have staff and faculty competing between two managers within the clusters?
3a. Faculty status is off the table – we will have faculty.
3b. Discussion about the workflows between clusters will be part of the implementation process.
- I am looking for reassurance …Will some department heads be demoted?
All of these issues will be discussed at a later date.
- Are all clusters going to be harmonized or just the scholarly communications?
The three clusters were once one cluster during our initial discussions. The goal is to identify natural allies who interact on an intellectual or business basis and to consider where the lines of communication naturally flow. While it was not exposed in this presentation, there is a major shift occurring in research libraries. We need to remain aware of national trends and consider the direction of the profession. For example, digitization is happening now. How do we acknowledge this? Can principles who work with incoming materials be called bibliographers when this is only one thing faculty do? We need to work toward an expansion of the user experience that includes copyright issues, building collections, technology applied as capability and access to content among others. One thing is certain – morphing is everywhere.
- Can we get a copy of the presentation?
The slides will be available on a special SharePoint site we are setting up for the reorganization and implantation process.
- How will we manage digital projects?
One of the areas that the implementation process will be addressing is how to build robust digital directions. They will be also considering how to manage outreach to the rest of the campus and to make various departments feel included.
- How do we change the concept of communication as only being within one unit…who will pull it all together? What is our recruitment plan? Is this something to put in current employee portfolio?
Our hope through this reorganization is to encourage communication across departments and to work toward a culture of interrelated teams with members from various departments and to discourage silos.
We will work on recruitment at a later time.
- Where is communication and outreach? It is not listed on the plan as it stands.
Don’t worry – the department is not going away. It will be part of the implementation team’s role to determine where these functions fit into the organizational structure.
- Will current searches be halted? Will jobs disappear?
We will continue with the searches that are in progress. When the Provost asks for a recruitment plan, we will forward one and not wait for the implementation team reports. If we have opportunity for new faculty lines…we won’t pass that up…
- Is there a soft time frame for the implementation process?
The cabinet will be discussing this soon. Some of the reorganization team will be on the implementation team so we won’t be starting from scratch.
- If people retire, will we lose those positions? Will funding be pulled back as people leave?
We will fill all those positions that are reasonable to fill and for which we can get permission. We currently have special collections and metadata librarian positions posted and we will fill those. Last year, the campus decision on budgets determined that we would lose ¾ of a million dollars in three faculty positions and $800,000 in materials. Given the current budget situation, we should have moderate expectations moving forward.
- Regarding amorphous terminology, could the implementation team set up definitions? For example, what is a bibliographer or a manager or a librarian? How do we redefine titles and descriptions?
Yes, good idea.
- What is the relationship between AD’s, senior to junior?
It is not a difference in status between the two administrators. One is named senior as an indicator to the campus as who to contact when the Dean is away.
- Could two clusters describe one position? Would a person have two bosses…one in subject area and one corresponding to their function?
The idea here is about communication and working in teams and partnering with folks for different projects. This does not dictate reporting lines. The idea is to take away silos (standing side by side, but never talking). For example, when asking what should be digitized, it would be important to talk to IT, to metadata, to various colleagues, the Dean, the Provost, and the faculty in the effected department. The idea is not to emphasize one group over another.
- If both AD’s are out, who would replace them? I wish that the proposal was circulated in advance.
16 a. The Dean will still be there : )
16 b. Once the reorganization slides are posted on SharePoint, the site will be open for comments immediately.
This has been brave work and the reorganization team paid attention to the charge with hours of analysis, disagreement, heart ache, and headaches. Remember that the proposed framework is in continuous development.
