To write my Dean's Blog/midyear memo or my LS "what's up," I started with a review of the mid/late summer early email from 2009 so that I could give you the status of those issues. Therefore, the first part of this email is your update from fall 2009 using the specific content from the summer…THEN, I will move into what is newer information.
Summer 2009 Content - 1. Timing/Team Membership … Last year the Head Librarians requested that we move Team appointments earlier/to midsummer to provide a longer lead time for reviewing old goals/accomplishments and for proposing and getting approval for goals for FY' 10. LLT members felt this timeline worked out well this past year and we met last week to discuss Team membership for this coming year. As I understand it, LLT members had discussions with librarians and the recommendations are to leave FY '10 LS Team membership as it is now for this coming year. This is fine with me for now. When we receive information about new staffing positions for Round Rock as well as dollar amounts for print/media purchases, we will review - as we typically do when we get new resources - how business is done and what else may need to change. Last year the budget was passed in mid-July. FYI only...Since our budget year ends on 8/31, but the semester begins the week before, we ask for - if we open a new site in a fall of an academic year - one to two months of money for the site in THIS fiscal year. I will let you know as soon as I know.
Also - just as last year - when accomplishments, etc. are reported out from teams "ongoing" is not a word to be used. What should you say? If it is ongoing but is up-to-date then say something like "completed for the FY'09 year." If it is ongoing but is NOT up-to-date say something like "X is outstanding for the FY '09 year and is to be completed by x" and if necessary, say "why."
As stated this summer, we have been taking a careful look at how we accomplish work with an eye to how many new positions we have coming up. That is, we always assess collection areas, both in terms of how many areas do people buy and how many dollars they spend as well as formats purchased. We have also been looking at communication and management of information within teams, among teams and from teams and facilitators. To recap some things we all know:
- We are continuing our practice of appointing facilitators and have added back in the reference facilitator, the reserves facilitator, and created an assessment facilitator. We will continue this and - as usual - will assess functional areas for their need of a facilitator. As any growing organization we often change our minds. For example, we had a circulation facilitator in our early years, then changed to a team and have now returned to a facilitator. Coordinating functions for attention needed, ensuring uniqueness and allowing consistency is always an evolving process. We will continue to explore the team and facilitator process. As always, teams and facilitators are posted in the LLT wiki project.
- Another group we are beginning this year is our MAM group to assist in our MAM Service. Take a look in the LS wiki TSLA project at their activities, minutes, Q and A, etc. as they move through the process of integrating modules to meet the needs of students, faculty and staff.
- We have "grown" the wiki as a major management and communication tool and now know that we need to assess and - as appropriate - begin to weed project content as well as standardize what is placed on the wiki, how content is removed, how it is labeled etc. The wiki is also nearly maxed out for users; therefore we will be looking at assignment of contributor logins, etc. this spring.
- We expand our web presence almost every day. As part of this process we have devoted a collection management area to a new e-resource reference librarian and have integrated her work with other areas.
The newbie (fewer-than-five-years) group has requested that we address two things this spring:
- review of the wiki to assess, weed and standardize wiki content (tags, etc.) to better organize access,
- and the formation of a group - parallel to the web group who deals with our web structure - to deal specifically with web content.
There are several ways to accomplish these two activities that include creating ad hoc and/or permanent workgroups, teams, facilitators or possibly a new designation. We will prioritize what needs to be done and discuss the best way to get these activities going early this spring.
One thing we are changing is the approach to leaders meeting with leaders. Typically the Library Leadership Team meets twice a month or every other Tuesday.
Beginning this spring, the LLT will meet as is, one Tuesday a month, then the next Tuesday meeting will include LLT members AND facilitators, team leaders, etc. to discuss issues. This meeting will be organized to allow discussion on everyone's function rather than their role in the organization. LLT decided this mid fall, however, since reference schedules were set, we felt we couldn't free up reference desk schedules to include leaders, facilitators as needed. I will be sending out a schedule of days and times and dates on Tuesday or Wednesday of this next week so that reference schedules and IL can be scheduled to allow people to attend.
2. Curb Appeal, Design on a Dime, Trading Spaces... A number of libraries are receiving the items they ordered as a result of our transforming discussions we began last fall. When new furniture has arrived and has been installed and libraries feel their vision has been completed, we will take pictures and post them to the website. Those of you who are still in progress, let us know when you have decided what you want...Those of you not yet discussing or stalled, feel free to call a design consultant team (Ellie, Saidah, Leigh, Pam...or put your LS dream team together and invite them over to review and suggest!)
Changes to our library facilities this last year have been exciting and some have been planned and some unexpected.
- You've seen some pictures of South Austin and the shelves are finally up! There are other changes coming for the wall in back of reference at SAC as well.
- The Pinnacle student body and faculty have grown by leaps and bounds. Changes to the library have focused on student, collection, and staff areas - including moving the entire circulating book collection & stacks, relocating student seating areas, creating a quiet study area, increasing student computers & laptops, increasing circ desk space and providing staff workspace for circulation desk employees.
- Rio Grande received an unexpected gift from facilities and the old carpet was replaced with carpet squares over the break. Taking advantage of the last minute gift, the staff swung into action and not only achieved the re-carpeting, but also moved some staff areas in back of circulation, took back the small e-resources room and that is being divided into an office for the Head Librarian (which is where I started out if you were here to remember!) and the other ½ of the room will be a small group study room - which has been requested constantly over the past decade. This change is taking place with no loss of seating or hardware for student use so it's a win-win situation.
- I know other things are planned…NRG painting? & we will continue to make the best use of our library spaces.
3. Circulation Services - Assessment Two years ago we decided to create a lead Senior Library Assistant, Jon Sprecher, who has been working to train SLA's and LA's and assess and standardize - where appropriate - circulation services throughout ACC libraries. Last year we "retreated" and spent a day on standardized SLA training and a number of things requested based on that meeting have been happening. Just coming to closure is the process of assessing other Austin and central Texas area library circulation services (public, academic and special.) These visits will come to closure this summer and Jon Sprecher and Maria Taylor will be creating a report of the visits and assessments and recommending best practices. These recommendations will come to LLT with further comments on what we need to implement here at ACC.
A lead SLA (…the first year Jon Sprecher served as lead and now he and Maria Taylor are co-leads…) to coordinate hiring and training of SLA's and LA's as well as design of circ desk content for standardization for best possible services for students has been a very successful program. This past year we created a "five things everyone needs to know about circulation" and we tried to standardized deposits, etc. We have far to go on standardizing ALL employee knowledge, however, and our training focus for this January meeting - instead of our security theme we began in August - will focus on:
- Confidentiality of our patron records
- Handling money
- Customer Service for circulation desk services
- Communication
Please note that these issues are critical for all employees and not just circulation desk employees.
4. Round Rock... We completed RRC design of the facilities and created and submitted a staffing plan. Periodically we have a few decisions to make and just this last week, I had a "front door" question to resolve. In addition, I talked with ACC facilities because I looked for and couldn't find any RRC pix on the website. They will be posting some construction pictures soon.
ACC is moving ahead quickly on a number of construction projects. Visit http://www.austincc.edu/faoadmin/projects.php to get recent pictures of Round Rock (specifically Building #1000) as well as the RGC parking garage and the gymnasium renovation.
I was very pleased to find out in October we received all the RRC personnel we requested. This happens due to - our need for these personnel - but also due to the support of Richard Smith and Mary Hensley. Therefore this spring we will be hiring a Head Librarian, three reference librarians, a senior library assistant, two library assistants and one administrative assistant. I will be putting together committees early in the spring. The HL will start employment on July 1st and all other library employees will be scheduled to begin on August 1st.
5. Office Productivity Software... Also brought up in the fall 2008 LS Transforming summit, we are finalizing the consistent accessibility and identification of Office on the public service library terminals. The Ad Hoc LS team that reviewed what was needed declared that nothing was needed in the way of announcement, more labeling, training, etc. I am pleased that staff members are pleased with how this has rolled out.
IRT staff members are preparing hardware and software designated for technology trade out.
6. Future... This coming year we will have expanded communication discussions, a resurrection of a facilitator position and a few other new/revised areas. They include:
- We will be further standardizing our email communication this fall with a goal to cut down on individual emails. This will include a review and expansion - if necessary - of our email subject heading and more grouped content group emails (Teresa Ashley will be grouping Net/Web information and distributing in a timely manner and Steve Self is already grouping and expanding tech suggestions. In addition, Ellie will continue to group and distribute staff/professional development materials.)
- In the past we have grouped and standardized reference activities in a variety of different ways. These ways have included reference coordinators at each campus, then a reference committee or team, then facilitators...We have decided to return to a standardized approach to managing our general reference materials. In review of librarian jobs/responsibilities (and LS ongoing vacancies ...Cypress HL,) needed coordination and facilitation, project management expertise and availability of librarians, we have chosen Sylvia Owens to facilitate general reference activities. To "design" this responsibility we gathered three 'job descriptions' and designed a new approach that combines a number of older activities and new needs. Jonathan Buckstead has managed the reference selection function for new campuses through the AdHoc groups formed out of the standing Collection Development Team. He will continue to work on the RRC reference collection development initiative in partnership with Sylvia for this year, transitioning processes to her. Thanks to Jonathan for doing such a good job on our new campus collections. Sylvia's has been learning the ropes and reviewing how this happened in the past and reviewing how other institutions do this, therefore "official notification" of her work on LS library-wide reference initiatives should be this email.
I think our standardized organized emails we began this past fall have worked out well. I am grateful to Teresa Ashley, Ellie Collier and Steve Self - among others I'm sure - for organizing and recommending content for us. If you miss the emails, visit the wiki where the majority of this good information is posted. More content on this will be presented at the Spring All-LS meeting January 14th.
7. New Initiatives and Stimulus and Recovery... In partnership with the ACC Humanities Department, we are involved with the college's Big Read and our first programs and online displays will begin this fall. Terese Morgan/the South Austin Campus is the primary partner for this and Terese will keep us posted and advertise the program as we get closer to the events. I have also been talking to ACC grants and monitoring statewide reaction to the federal monies and possible statewide dollars. I am meeting with Mary Harris week after next to discuss the college's plans and two other initiatives to see if Library Services might play a supporting role. (Example...ACC's Distinction project)
We participated in the English/Humanities Grant program - The Big Read - this past fall. We thank Terese for participating with the Humanities Department planning team and Saidah who did a great job of photographing authors and creating posters as well as publicity.
Our participation in college partnerships is always good advertising for the critical supporting role we play in the college.
8. Recession...When the FY '10 budget is passed, we will have a better idea of what we will need to do to tighten our belt for the future. More later.
So far so good. We are being careful with our dollars and are making sure to spend as we need and to spend economically and efficiently. To ensure we ARE carefully watching our dollars we are assessing how our projects are going more often.
We have a VERY busy spring getting ready for the new Round Rock collection and librarians have their usual money to spend as well as dollars for new resources for the Round Rock collection. As usual, this spring we will send out emails asking for people to meet all of their deadlines including collection management - spending money on new materials and weeding.
Meeting deadlines will be very important this spring and summer.
I am very excited about the technology survey project being launched this spring. Determining what we think people NEED has always been - in my opinion - one of our strengths, however, determining what people want and what people think they need is something we have done as needed but never on such a grand scale.
Thanks to Ellie and Adrian and others working with them, for requesting this initiative and making it happen.
9. Community Access Policy... By all reports this Policy and all policy implementations have gone VERY well. Thanks to everyone. In a related note, my theme for next year will be 'safety and security' and our all-LS event - including all hourly workers - will feature this content. I am working with ACC police on this program now. More later but all staff are required to attend the Thursday, August 20th morning training. Mark your calendars now.
We have had a few issues with community members related to our new Community Access Policy. These have included community members not liking where their assigned computers were located and the amount of time they spend as a guest on ACC computers.
It's our job to keep enforcing the policy consistently across Library Services and report any problems.
What's New and what to look for in this spring ...
Open LS Positions
We are still in the process of interviewing and hiring for the Head Librarian at the Cypress Creek Campus. I am hopeful we make a decision and move it on up the chain of command successfully, this spring.
New After-LS-Hours Chat Reference Pilot
We have agreed to join "Ask Academic" this Spring for a pilot project to supplement our existing Live-Chat service. The new service provides live-chat for ACC students AFTER LS is closed. Other Ask Academic partners will answer those chat calls. Sylvia Owens, Reference Facilitator, will be working with Ask Academic, and our Staff Development Team to coordinate training and information on this service and pilot. So, more info will be coming soon. Robert Bermea, Distance Learning Director is very excited about this supplementary reference after hours' service in support of ACC Blackboard users and we are pleased to offer all online and/or after hours users assistance
Round Rock Campus
Planning for Round Rock is in full swing. Floor plans have been finalized and the RR team is reviewing where tech/network connections/drops will go. In earlier emails I have sent links to floor plans, construction drawings and some great information Teresa Ashley forwarded to me. The information about RR grows weekly so visit back to the original links off the ACC Facilities page and see the progress. The timeline remains the same - classes begin Fall 2010 so August of 2010. When you look at this timeline, of course, it means that this year will be a very busy one for us as CDT orders materials and TS manages this huge project. Thanks to all the LS RR Team in advance. It's always exciting to have new space - but a great deal of work goes in to creating this space ...and it will be our largest.
The RRC is ahead of schedule in its construction and we will open for the fall 2010 semester, this August. As stated in other sections this spring and summer we are:
- Busy completing designs for the facility
- Making decisions on furniture and fixtures
- Advertising and hiring staff
- Building the collection
The college now has THREE categories for posting positions. We used to have two and the internal approach for posting was often confusing. Their three approaches now include:
- Internal - employees apply and then - if selected - there is a direct move to identical jobs/positions
- External - open application from both internal and external employees
We now have a new internal approach and this includes any internal employees - qualified of course - applying for positions and - if selected - moving to similar, completely different or the exact job at the new location. This is the one I have chosen for our first round of postings. Postings should begin this end of February or March.
ACC Facilities - Future Plans
I gathered our facilities needs from library managers and met with Bill Mullane, our ACC Facilities Administrator. During our conversation of existing needs, Bill talked about future facilities and current discussions include: building four more campuses in the next 5 to 7 years and using the RRC template as the future template for facilities. This is exciting for us as RRC will be our first campus library of this size and staffed fully from day one. I am thrilled to hear this and we will move forward to carefully assess RRC to make any changes needed in the facilities/staffing plan. This proves to be an exciting future for us.
Training Issues - Confidentiality; Money Handling
My original choice was to focus on Emergency Management for this year's training program for all LS employees with an emphasis this fall. While we had a great kickoff meeting this past August, other issues steered us in a different and more greatly needed direction - confidentiality of information we house/maintain and handling money. Therefore, our first all-LS meeting since these issues arose will be devoted to these topics. Please note:
Our need for safeguarding the confidentiality of the information entrusted to us is of paramount importance. We have zero tolerance for employees who misuse the information or their access to student, patron/customer information.
Any money we handle in our jobs is public money. Our need for careful procedures and policies in place regarding this public money managed through our circulation desks is of paramount importance. We have zero tolerance for employees who do not follow the college's policies and procedures and any IRT/LS policies and procedures for the money we handle/are responsible for daily.
ANY dollars spent are public money. Most activities we "do" are tied to spending public money, that is…buying materials, weeding materials, buying furniture, contracting with vendors, subscribing to resources or services…even buying food for ACC all-LS meeting, using the P-card for purchases, all bidding processes - even sole source processes, tracking and reimbursing for travel, in-district and out- of-district , as well as petty cash reimbursements is managed and there are policies and procedures in place…other areas these are always under (and should be) great scrutiny. We also consider how we spend our hourly money as a process for spending public money wisely…Spending money in IRT/LS is a transparent process and there are many checks and balances in the college for the dollars we spend including management of money at a number of levels AND approvals through LS and on up through the administration as well as through ACC's budget office.
We are continuing to monitor money closely even though the college is making ends meet in these poor economic times. Again, emails pointed out required deadlines for spending our dollars will be coming out this spring as usual.
Training Issues - Customer Service
Staff Development survey results have indicated a need for more customer service training. While good customer service is something the library always scores high on in ACC's internal surveys we always need to remember that longstanding employees can always use refreshers, we have new staff as well as hourly employees who aren't with us every day.
Training/Staff Development
We are - once again led by our expert SD team, offering a diverse array of staff development and training opportunities this spring. They include:
Forums for librarians held on the 2nd Friday of every month. "Reference" is the February 12th Forum topic.
Webinars including a iii series, the DuPage series (titles posted in the wiki) and product webinars such as the Booklist program.
Training for services and functions as well as products such as the EBSCONet training on March 19th and LibGuides and Wiki trainings planned for this spring.
Staffing Patterns/Services
We are always exploring our services and - most often our staffing patterns for services we provide. Sometimes the best of services simply can't be paid for because we may not have the money or the college infrastructure doesn't support the service request.
I am most reminded of the comments gathered at every open student forum. It is not uncommon for students to request 24/7 hours at library locations. We receive these comments gathered from Student Services in one large table and each area dean/manager must answer the questions or respond to comments. I always respond - as I did above - that we closely watch usage during the year and usage during holiday times, we monitor budget dollars to see what we CAN do to serve students, we focus on creating a robust online environment for meeting student needs and we always talk about the infrastructure of the college, that is, the greatest cost to open services on any campus is the cost of police presence at these times. 24/7 costs are prohibitive not only for us, but for police and - by all accounts of surveys we have conducted - no location would be used much after 10 pm and really 9 pm.
As always we are gathering data on what happened this last semester and I will be distributing that to see if managers wish to explore - for example - two campuses open during semesters to meet patron needs. We'll see.
To this end, however, we do have a unique opportunity to add a reference service after hours or from 10 pm throughout the night/in line with data on Blackboard student use. As a pilot, for this spring and summer we will be using such a service. As always we'll be assessing set up, use, impact on us, etc. More on that later after ACC librarians complete their work on this.
