Information Services Open Forum session
January 24, 2001 3:00-4:30
This all staff session was held to solicit staff input concerning the Information Services organizational restructuring efforts. The Coordinator for Information Services outlined a tiered reference model that has been suggested for development within this service unit. Staff responses and comments to the initial model are briefly noted below.
Are Information Resources (IR), Information Services (IS), and Information Literacy (IL) completely distinct? Would they be mutually exclusive, would there be staff sharing?
What is upper level Bibliographic Instruction?
Web development & tutorials coordinated with which group?
Upper level Bibliographic Instruction -- is there enough expertise for each subject area?
How will Minority Culture Collection & Government Document serviced? Will some one retain these subject expertise? Are we forcing parallel subject expertise in each area, i.e., Information Resources, Information Services, and Information Literacy?
Is there enough staff (librarians and support staff) for this? Is there enough money for new positions?
What are additional types of outreach that will be expected? Would Library Assistants be involved with any outreach activities?
Would tier two reference librarians available at weekend? Are they available 24 hrs if we utilize cell phones?
There is some inequity among subject librarians since the level of difficulty varies among disciplines.
Training, training, training, is necessary!
Customer service problem – funneled too much. Service expectation is immediate need. The tiered service conflicts with this. Tier will impede social expectations
2nd tier is really already in place currently – why not continue this way & omit layers. Librarians’ desk hours have already been reduced. The approval plan also helps with more efficiency in Collection Development.
2nd tier lose subject specialty, don’t want to lose faculty contact or shared liaison – takes too long to gain faculty acceptance.
When one librarian loses Collection Development responsibility, he/she must learn some new faculty and subject areas – another balancing act. Collection Development is the way to get foot in the door with departments.
Information Service librarian’s Collection Development responsibilities will still be mandatory to keep expertise, will merely lose order placement task.
Will subject teams (IR, IS, IL) work together? Collection Development will be too layered now. Devaluation of skills and users will suffer!
How will this be better?
Subject librarians spread too thin, too much subject coverage
Proximity to desk is important for Tier two people
How could Library Branches be included in this model of service?
Would need to triple staff
An opportunity for cross training
Add another reporting layer
Why now
Not flattening
What does it mean to be coordinator? Is it the same as dept head?
Integrity of service compromised?
Why not choose alterative models – use new people to focus on new areas and not shuffle and dilute expertise
Increase Information Service staff to cover more subject areas so that more intense Collection Development and Information Literacy tasks can be done by each person.