Two Libraries, One Plan: Combining and Refining Technical Services Across Two Campuses

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Two Libraries, One PlanCombining and Refining
Technical Services Across Two Campuses

• Living the Future 6 Wow! Where Next?
• April 5-8, 2006

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Representing the Library Technical Services
Denison-Kenyon Work Redesign Team

• Andrea Peakovic
• Library and Information Services
• Kenyon College
• Gambier, OH

• Ellen P. Conrad
• William Howard Doane Library
• Denison University
• Granville, OH

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Our Context

• Both are members of the Five Colleges of Ohio
  consortium (plus Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan,
  College of Wooster)
• Share an online catalog joint storage facility
• All are members of OhioLINK
• Statewide union catalog
• Direct, patron-initiated borrowing from any
  institution
• Consortial purchase of 100 databases
• Denison and Kenyon are similar in size,
  acquisitions and technical service staffing

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Andrew W. Mellon Foundation GrantJanuary 1,
2004 August 15, 2005

• Goal of the Project
• To improve access to information resources and
  create value-added services for our patrons
  through the cooperative efforts of the libraries
  of Denison University and Kenyon College

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Planning Groups

• Pre-planning committee
• Study and brainstorm
• Reengineering the Corporation (Hammer Champy)
• Planning task force
• Charge To create a robust system for combined
  library technical services in which the focus in
  on constantly evolving patron information needs,
  research patterns, and desires. The system must
  be flexible, transferable, malleable, and
  adaptable.
• And so they did!
• Implementation team

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Objectives of the Project

• Apply dramatic efficiencies to 80 of what we
  currently purchase
• Streamline receipt and delivery
• Reallocate resources to enhance our collections
  so they better serve our users
• Empower our technical services division to create
  new services and manage information in all
  formats
• Enable our users to fully realize the liberal
  arts in an age of electronic information

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Key Planning Processes

• Vision Statement
• Planning Assumptions and Principles
• Workflow Model
• Final Plan

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Significant Task Force Activities

• Task force retreat
• All-staff retreat
• Workflow evaluation by outside Consultants
• Background information
• Reading plans
• Web searches
• Conferences
• Living the Future 5
• Information exchange
• All-staff meetings
• Minutes monthly reports
• Email distribution list
• Drafting final plan

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Task Force Retreat

• Two-day retreat, Roscoe Village
• Task Force, Directors, and Consultant
• Key Outcomes
• Work redesign principles
• Planning assumptions
• List of questions
• Environmental assessment
• Visionthe ideal
• Development of initial work redesign
• What we need to know and learn
• Group agreements
• Timeline

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Evolution of a Vision

• "The organizational restructuring of the four
  libraries was discussed to allow for the
  consolidating of technical services functions.
  Monographs could be purchased and cataloged
  through a single monographic department for the
  four colleges. Serials might be acquired and
  processed through a single department. Standards
  for cataloging would need to be accepted by each
  of the four colleges, however, membership in
  OhioLINK would bring about this standardization."
• May 31, 1994
• Paul Gherman, Kenyon College

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Evolution of a Vision

• Grant Proposal A single collection management
  unitresponsible for paraphrased
• Acquiring resources in all formats
• Managing resources to maximize usefulness
• Improving users access to resourcesboth
  physical and virtual
• Leading the Ohio5 consortial collection
  development initiatives
• Managing the Ohio5 off-site storage facility
• Continuously adopting, adapting and innovating
  ways to make research more comprehensive
  efficient to use.
• This unit will organize its work process around
  the current and future needs of our patrons,
  making no assumptions about existing processes,
  while fully embracing technological and
  managerial innovations in our field.

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Vision Points from All-Staff Retreat

• Categories we identified
• Staff and staffing issues
• CONSORT Catalog
• Service
• User needs/desires
• Use of space
• Technical resources (vis-à-vis use of systems)
• Miscellaneous

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Final Vision Statement

• BE COURAGEOUS!
• Act as a collaborative unit to best serve users
  at multiple locations
• Provide intellectual representation of collection
  as a whole
• Foster a culture of staff empowerment that
  effectively utilizes and rewards individual
  strengths
• Enable research and development capacity for
  entire organization
• Appreciate that as we combine our processes,
  there may be activities best implemented
  separately

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Developing Key Processes

• Process Map
• Grant proposal
• Key Work Activities Map
• Retreat
• Work Process Model
• Task force
• Staffing Model
• Implementation team

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The Workflow Model
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Implementation

• Three member implementation team began January,
  2005
• Workflows refined
• Staff involvement integral part of workflow
  refinement
• Frequent meetings with staff to encourage
  involvement and participation in the process
• Combined approval plan initiated
• Daily delivery between Denison and Kenyon
• Staffing allocations and recommendations made

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Combining Workflows

• Implement workflows in phases, beginning with
  books
• Largest portion of our workflow
• Easiest to begin with
• Use YBP for major vendor
• Use of GOBI for all ordering
• Utilize PromptCat records
• Materials arrive shelf-ready
• Received and cataloged at Denison
• All non-YBP materials are ordered and cataloged
  at Kenyon
• Online electronic order form developed

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YBP work processes

• Electronic invoicing
• Shelf-ready materials
• Change PromptCat profiles
• Design new property stamps
• Transition orders to GOBI
• Change shipping addresses
• Develop mechanisms for quality control

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Non-YBP work processes

• Develop online order form
• Create and modify vendor accounts
• Train staff in invoicing and Millennium
• Materials non-mainstream
• Foreign language and/or publishers
• Scores
• Art
• Identify local cataloging practices

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Lessons Learned

• Details, details, details!
• The devil is in the details!
• Property stamp
• Spine labels
• PromptCat profiles
• CatDate field in order records
• Trial and Error
• Communicating while testing new processes
• Time-consuming process
• Expect work imbalances

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Staffing Model
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Staffing Recommendations

• Collected staff preferences in new workflow
• Job positions/FTEs were not defined
• Staff expressed interest in multiples areas
• Comparison of staff preferences and staffing
  allocations in model
• Loose assignment of job duties
• Full job descriptions forthcoming

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Team Structure

• Two-tiered team structure
• Each staff assigned to two teams
• Process teams based on the staffing model
• Ordering/Receiving/FastCat
• Cataloging
• User Access
• Material Type Teams based on materials streams
  defined in the plan
• Books/CDs/Gifts
• Electronic/Gov Docs/Serials
• A-V Media

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Professional Staff Roles

• Professional staff structured differently at
  Denison and Kenyon
• Denison Head of Cataloging, Head of
  Acquisitions, Deputy Director
• Kenyon Head of Technical Services
• Title change to Head of Collection Development
• Focus on work processes
• Professional staff positions were not included in
  allocations
• Some direct involvement in work processes
• Electronic resources and original cataloging

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Managing the New Combined Unit

• Associate Director of Collection Services
• Newly created Kenyon position
• Manages combined unit
• ½ time at Denison and Kenyon
• Supervises Kenyon support staff

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Words to the Wise (from the Weary )

• Define and study concept of redesign
• Develop group agreements for task force and
  working criteria
• Use consensus for decision-making
• Balance size of task force with good subject/work
  area coverage
• Open and frequent sharing of information
• Hire professional consultants
• Realize change brings about conflict and hurdles

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Reflections from Staff Retreat

• Develop communication system first
• Keep momentum moving
• Dont sacrifice doing it right
• Expect things wont go smoothly
• Plan for surprises
• Outcomes not immediate
• It takes time and iterations
• Retreat for all TS staff early in process

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More reflections

• Hire or appoint a project leader early in the
  process
• Keep selectors and other staff apprised of
  changes and contacts
• Be upfront about real goals, even if it means
  downsizing
• Remember and revisit your inspiration
• Be courageous!

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• Radical redesign means getting to the root of
  things not making superficial changes or
  fiddling with what is already in place, but
  throwing away the old...inventing completely new
  ways of accomplishing work.
• Hammer and Champy, p. 36

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Stay Tuned for Updates

• www.denison.edu/collaborations/ohio5/libres/lwrtf/
  lwrtf.html

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Bibliography

• Application to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  Library Technical Services Work Redesign. Grant
  proposal 2003. http//www.denison.edu/collaborati
  ons/ohio5/libres/lwrtf/proposal.html
• Cochrane, Lynn Scott and Christopher D. Barth.
  Cooperative Work Redesign in Library Technical
  Services. submitted in October 2005 for
  publication in Library Administration
  Management.
• Conrad, Ellen P. and Andrea Peakovic. Denison
  University Kenyon College Library Technical
  Services Work Redesign. OVGTSL 2005 Annual
  Conference. 12 May 2005. http//www.denison.edu/co
  llaborations/ohio5/libres/lwrtf/2libraries_1plan.p
  pt
• Greever, Karen E. and Debra K. Andreadis.
  Technical Services Work Redesign Across Two
  College Libraries. Technical Services Quarterly.
  24.2 forthcoming 2006.
• Hammer, Michael. Reengineering Work Dont
  Automate, Obliterate. Harvard Business Review.
  68.4 (1990) 104-112.
• Hammer, Michael and James Champy. Reengineering
  the Corporation. New York HarperCollins, 2001.
• Hayes, Jan and Maureen Sullivan. Mapping the
  Process Engaging Staff in Redesigning Work.
  Wheeling, IL North Suburban Library System,
  2002.
• Plan for Library Technical Services Work
  Redesign. Final plan 2004. http//www.denison.ed
  u/collaborations/ohio5/libres/lwrtf/planning_repor
  t.pdf
• Snyder, Monteze M. et al. Building Consensus
  Conflict and Unity. Richmond, IN Earlham Quaker
  Foundations of Leadership Program, 2001.

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• Radical redesign means getting to the root of
  things not making superficial changes or
  fiddling with what is already in place, but
  throwing away the old...inventing completely new
  ways of accomplishing work.
• Hammer and Champy, p. 36