Category: University Librarian Report

Last week we tried something new with the Libraries Town Hall. We shifted our focus north to Rutgers University–Newark and spent some time looking at the relationship between the mission of the University and the planning and activities within the libraries.

We were fortunate to have Sherri-Ann Butterfield, who will assume the position of executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer in July, provide us with an overview of the Rutgers–Newark initiatives where Dana Library plays a central role: the Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC), Express Newark, and the P3 Collaboratory (Pedagogy, Professional Development, and Publicly-Engaged Scholarship). Dr. Butterfield gave us a whirlwind tour through these initiatives, highlighting the role of the library from teaching one of the foundation courses in the HLLC, to being one of the founding pillars of the P3 Collaboratory, to the amazing “Records at Play: The Institute of Jazz Studies @50” exhibit currently on display at Express Newark.

Rutgers–Newark has made remarkable progress under the leadership of chancellor Nancy Cantor. In her short tenure, the university has achieved a distinct identity as an anchor institution in the community. Its focus on excellence in student inclusion and success and community-engaged scholarship is setting Rutgers–Newark as a national model. She has a robust and active strategic planning process as demonstrated by regular updates of the strategic plan, with the newest released in Spring 2017.

Following Dr. Butterfield’s presentation, Consuella Askew and Adriana Cuervo gave us an overview of Dana Library’s year-long planning process and the resulting document, “Framework for Change: Vision and Goals for the John Cotton Dana Library.” The framework describes an evidence-based approach to the development of services, collections, and spaces that contribute to the success of the university’s students and faculty and to the perception of Dana Library as a valuable and active campus partner.

As part of the annual RCM process, we have received new funding for a full-time archivist and the renovations necessary to develop an archive in Dana Library. In 2016 we also received $100,000 for renovations and new furniture in Dana Library and will receive another $100,000 in 2017. The chancellor has also acknowledged the work of librarians with seed grants to Adriana Cuervo for the Citizen Historian Project (2015), Bonnie Fong for Boot Camps for Graduate Students (2016) and Krista White for Digital Storytelling as 21st-Century Pedagogy (2017). Under Consuella’s leadership, Dana Library will house and be full partners in the P3 Collaboratory.

The energy surrounding the Rutgers–Newark transition is contagious and the university is gaining national recognition for its innovation. What is best, however, is that the library is at the center of these important campus initiatives. Kudos to the efforts of our colleagues in Dana Library and the Institute of Jazz Studies.

What does this mean for RUL? In the March Agenda, I talked about Rutgers University Libraries’ planning process. I would like to take some time now and talk about how the process that Consuella has undertaken in Newark fits within the library-wide planning environment. The risk of being first under the spotlight is that you become an example. However, if they are not in development now, each of our locations—Rutgers–Camden, Rutgers–New Brunswick, and RBHS—will all have plans or frameworks that describe how the libraries fit into the broader University environment. These efforts will directly tie us to the distinct missions of our campuses and provide the foundation for our planning.

The challenge is that even at the very highest levels, our four university environments are different. For example, the Overarching Goals for Dana Library are to:

• Innovate to support 21st-century library use.
• Increase community engagement.
• Increase operational excellence, efficiency, and fiscal sustainability.

Short-term objectives include developing the Dana Archives and selective weeding of the collection to make space for study and collaboration. Longer-term objectives include enhanced educational technology, rethinking strategies related to Government Documents, and improved digital services (e.g., digital humanities). These goals and objectives are tailored to meet the needs of the Rutgers–Newark environment and mission, and we cannot simply transplant them to RBHS or Rutgers–New Brunswick. Simply put: unique university goals require unique library goals. In the February Agenda, I discussed the challenges that we face as we support the multiple unique missions of the University.

As we go into Phase 2 of our planning, we will have to determine how to balance the finite central infrastructure to meet the needs of Rutgers–Newark, while continuing to advance the wider university. Ultimately, we will be most successful when we can find broad-based initiatives or areas of focus that support more than one campus. Those of us not in Dana know that there are needs in each of the campuses, including data management, research information management, digital humanities, improved instructional objects, improved collections, and Open Access initiatives. Internally, we know, for example, that we need improved support technology support for Special Collections, improved discovery, an improved website, improved ability to track internal policies and procedures, and improved collection assessment capacity. In our current environment, it is highly unlikely that we will receive increased funds for central services. Instead, we will need to create scalable, reusable infrastructure to extend our existing capacity.

With three senior level interim positions, FY2018 will likely be another year of building infrastructure. It will also be a great time to step back and connect with our campuses to determine where our libraries fit and how we can become further integrated into campus needs and missions. Thanks to Consuella and Adriana’s presentation at Town Hall, we know this works. In Rutgers–Newark, we see that this is a great time for libraries. Through careful planning and collaboration with administrators, the expertise of the library is central to almost every aspect of research and education. We need to learn from this experience and find ways to replicate this success across four very different campus environments, while also maintaining the balance and economies of scale that our infrastructure units provide.

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In recent months, we have spent a lot of time talking about organizational changes and the advantages of breaking down silos. This month, I want to discuss a shining example of what we accomplish when we work together—the outcome of our FY2018 budget request.

As noted in the meeting minutes for cabinet on April 11, we recently received our FY18 permanent budget allocation and there is a lot of good news to share. Overall our budget is increasing, even if the increases are small. There are, of course, also some disappointments, so let’s delve into the specifics.

Let’s start with the very good news: we received a commitment of $500,000 to purchase Elsevier backfiles. This is a major collections purchase—possibly the largest in the Libraries’ history—and it required a lot of effort from Tao Yang, Gracemary Smulewitz, Abbey DiPaolo, and others to make it happen. Having these backfiles will dramatically expand our support for the university’s academic programs and bring us in line with our Big Ten peers.

Each year, at minimum we ask for two budget items: funds to cover inflation for subscriptions to journals and databases and funding to cover negotiated salary increases. These items are areas where we have annual contractual increases in expenses. When our expenses increase in these areas and our budget does not, we must find other places to cut. The difficult problem is that both the contractual salary increases and inflation are ongoing, so we have to cut an ongoing expense. Here, we got a mixed response.

We finally received funding for inflation. This is good news for us and even better news for our faculty and students. As you know, the costs of journal and database subscriptions go up each year, but in previous years, we have had to accommodate these increases within our existing budget. With inflation costs covered, we won’t have to have to cut existing subscriptions in order to cover the higher ongoing costs. We have new ongoing funding to cover the higher costs for materials.

Unfortunately, we did not get funds to cover salary increases. This means that we will have to permanently use funding from some open positions. The total number of positions that will be affected is small with most having been open for a long time. The good news is that we remain committed to supporting salary increases for the excellent faculty and staff that we have, even if we have a small reduction in the number of employees.

Lastly, a surprise! In addition to our requests to cover expenses, we also ask for additional funding to cover new services in the libraries. We limit these requests to items where the campus administrations have indicated support. This year we asked for funding for archives in Dana Libraries. Initially, we were disappointed to learn that our funding request was denied. However, we just received a revised budget from Rutgers University-Newark and they have decided to fund a full-time archivist and the renovations necessary to create an archive space. In addition, they are providing $100,000 to purchase new furniture for Dana Library

This reversal is the result of the work of Consuella Askew and many of the faculty and staff in Newark in developing strong local relationships and an understanding of local needs, as well as their conscientious and creative use of earlier funds. The RU-N administration is committed to building an archive in Newark. Consuella recognized the need and was able to make a case for archives being in the library rather than in a separate unit. The resources that will come to Dana to create an archive will relieve some of the pressure that we have across the university for stewarding this important content. However, in order to benefit, all of the units with special collections must work together to create infrastructure that supports the broader system. I expect that this will be one of the priorities that come from our planning this year.

Our initial budget request was deliberately targeted on items that would bring a demonstrable improvement or impact to our constituents. And as we continue to shift our priorities and strategies toward addressing the unique local needs of our libraries, it becomes more important than ever for us to find ways to work together to build common, reusable infrastructure that has noticeable benefits for our campuses.

March 29^th, Cabinet had our first of three retreats designed to set priorities for [2017-2019] and action plans for 2018. The time we spent together reminded me of how important and at times challenging collaborative work is. In the face of rapid changes in higher education, the scholarly information environment, and user expectations, the kind of problem solving and innovation that comes from working together is more important than ever.

Working together is not new for those of us working in the libraries. We have decades of experience with councils, committees, and task forces that have made libraries examples of organizational cooperation within the broader higher education community. Almost everything we do in the libraries requires expertise from multiple units.

I have challenged myself to come up with examples of services that we provide that do not benefit from multiple perspectives and can’t think of one. Everything from designing the discovery interface to making a sign is improved when people with different ideas and points of view work together.

Unfortunately, the same forces that make working together so important also create organizational and logistical challenges. These include the need for clarity related to decision-making; accountability and authority to assign work; group norms that enable productive work; and time. Each of these could (and may) be its own topic for The Agenda. But for today, I want to reaffirm the value of and need to work together.

A few years ago, I went in search of examples of effective teams from outside of libraries. During that search, I read Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. Ed Catmull is (among other things) the cofounder of Pixar Animation Studios. In the book, he describes how teams worked together to create Oscar-winning movies like the Toy Story series and Up.

When I began reading the book, I thought that there would be little that libraries could learn from an animation studio. As I read, I saw many parallels between the unseen forces that the folks at Pixar faced and what we face as an organization. I realized that the similarities made perfect sense—providing information resources and support for faculty and students in a time of such rapid change require true inspiration.

Toy Story happened to come out at a period in my life where I was following Disney animation. It was interesting to hear the messy, non-linear process that went into developing the movie. When I watched Toy Story and other animated films, I assumed that they began with a script and added animation and voices. They don’t. They start with an idea (a loosely define goal) and the details of the story emerge through a collaborative development process.

Catmull’s idea for a script seems to map well to the libraries’ goal for a project or the purpose of an initiative. The book describes the approach that Pixar used to move from an idea to a complex and convincing story. What I liked about the book was that he didn’t just describe ‘what they did good’ at Pixar. He talked in depth about serious challenges and how the group worked together to produce consistently excellent results. It was shocking to me that the didn’t start a project knowing what the outcome would be.

He talked a lot about the importance of sharing expertise, valuing perspectives, and still making progress. He believes that the ability for groups to have open, honest discussions ultimately results in the best outcomes. At one point in the book, Catmull states that “The healthiest organizations are made up of departments whose agendas differ but whose goals are interdependent. If one agenda wins, we all lose.”

In this time of rapid change, many of the carefully designed formal communication structures and group processes that we have developed over the years may be a thing of the past. But we still need to work together. We live in a time of multiple competing priorities, continuous reexamination of goals against our intentions, and digging deep to ensure that we understand the evolving information and education landscape. We need the kind of creativity and problem-solving that can only happen with active exploration of problems from multiple perspectives.

Our challenge will be to develop an organizational culture that supports the way we need to function in this environment. We can’t feel like we are always stumbling into the future. We have to appreciate that we are learning to do new work that lacks established models and best-practices and to value openly exploring issues and group problem-solving. Catmull’s approach “is to accept that we can’t understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus, instead, on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints. If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse.”

We addressed some difficult issues at the Cabinet retreat. We had multiple perspectives at the table and we had some difficult but productive discussions. We didn’t make any decisions, but I think we made progress toward developing a clearer understanding of the issues that we are facing. We will be looking for your insight as we make decisions regarding priorities. These may be small steps towards creating a more open and collaborative culture, but I think we are heading in the right direction.

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Say it isn’t so!

Believe it or not, the 2018-2019 planning process is beginning.  This will be our third planning cycle under the RCM model, so we are gaining an understanding of the flow of things.  Over the last few weeks, Cabinet has developed a planning calendar to guide our strategic discussions and budget requests.

Based on what we have learned in past years, our planning process can be thought of in three phases.  In each of the three phases, we have to address library planning for the upcoming fiscal year (2018) and future year (2019) budget requests.  (I know, this is where everyone’s eyes glaze over, but it isn’t as bad as it sounds!)

Why three phases?  Rutgers Libraries serves the needs of three distinct campuses and a health system.  We need to support the unique needs of each of the communities with a single shared infrastructure.  In the first phase of the process, we address the feasibility of initiatives and look for ways to optimize our infrastructure.  By doing this together, we have a transparent process with many voices at the table. The second and third phases address two necessary parts of planning – creating a plan and creating a budget.

Phase 1: Environmental scan.  During this part of the process, the library directors will assess the needs of their local communities, identify gaps, and develop a list of local priorities for their collections, services, and spaces.  It will be up to each library director to determine how they conduct their local process, so if you have questions, be sure to ask your director.

At the same time, infrastructure units will be assessing their capacity.  What projects are starting and ending, are there projects waiting to start?  Are elements of the infrastructure outdated or at capacity?  This analysis will result in a better understanding of the capacity of our infrastructure and whether we can take on new services.

In late March, Cabinet will meet in an all-day retreat to review priorities and activities and to identify themes and overlap. We will look at the capacity of our infrastructure and determine which priorities we can accomplish with our existing infrastructure, which will need additional funding, and which should be tabled until the next planning process.  This meeting will result in list of priorities that have been vetted for feasibility for further consideration.

One of the challenges we face is that because we have yet to receive our working budget for 2018, we can’t be certain which priorities will be covered by our 2018 plan and which may have to become part of a future budget request. So, for the time being, we will include all priorities in a master list so we don’t miss anything important. In April, we expect to receive our working budget for 2018, which will give us essential information into the staging of the priorities.

Phase 2: Develop a 2018 plan.  At this point of the process, we will have all the information we need to establish our plan for 2018, which we will do at a late May retreat.  We will use the working budget to separate the master list of priorities into two categories: priorities that have 2018 funding and are therefore part of the 2018 plan, priorities for which we do not have capacity.Before finalizing, the 2018 plan will be returned again to the units giving directors a chance to discuss these activities more broadly on campus. Since many items on this plan will take more than a year to accomplish, the 2018 plan is then incorporated into the Library Priorities spanning 2017-2019 that will be announced at the State of the Libraries meeting in December 2017.

Once we have made our plan for 2018, we are left with a list of priorities for which we do not have capacity. This is where things become more difficult as we have limited resources and must decide which priorities will be included in the 2019 budget request and which will be postponed.  I have learned in my time at Rutgers that it is difficult for us to say that we are not going to do something.  We have a talented, capable group and I have seen amazing things accomplished; but it is important for us to be clear about what is possible. Which brings us to developing our 2019 budget request.

Phase 3: Develop a 2019 budget request.  In this phase, we take the list of priorities that do not have funding and determine what we should do.  Are the priorities important enough to develop budget requests?  We have learned that the most successful budget requests are based on data.  For example, we received funding for new information resources because we could provide evidence of use of similar resources.  If the priority is not well suited for an external budget request, is it something that we might internally fund through the reallocation of resources?  Or is it something that has to be put on hold?  At a Cabinet retreat in August we will finalize the budget requests.

After a few months, the entire process will commence again with the plan for 2018 and budget request for 2019 quickly seguing into the plan for 2019 and the budget request for 2020. The planning calendar that cabinet has developed will help us stay on top of this process and  ensure that we are doing the right things to make Rutgers better. The process takes months and is continuous, but this has hidden benefits – there are breaks throughout the process that give Cabinet members time to communicate and seek feedback about the progress and because the process is thorough and transparent, we will end up with a cohesive and targeted plan that we can all support.

When I arrived at Rutgers, I was charged with clarifying central vs. local functions. In the October and November issues of The Agenda, I talked about changes in the organizational structure that (among other things) moved central and shared librarieswide functions from purview of the AUL for Research and Instruction to central units.

In December, Cabinet reviewed the Committee Concept Map—a now historical document developed in late 2014 to better understand decision-making responsibilities and flows in the libraries. The diagram showed many different types of groups, including committees, working groups, taskforces, etc. and their reporting relationships. During the review process, we discussed each group—what work it was assigned, whether that work was complete, where it falls within the current organization’s footprint, and who ultimately is responsible for the output of the group. As a result of this work, some groups were sunsetted or moved to new reporting structures. These outcomes were already communicated via the cabinet minutes.

Finalizing the review of the Committee Concept Map enabled us (among other things) to clarify a few more areas where the lines between central and local responsibility were not clear—especially in the area of public services. Coordination of shared public services—LCC, Ask a Librarian, and Webscale Discovery—were all moved to Shared User Services (SUS). An additional 3 groups on the Committee Concept Map—Access Services, Disabilities, and ICOP—did not fit under the SUS umbrella. Instead, the work of these groups needs some level of central coordination even though their functions are local and the responsibility of the library director.

Access Services, for example, used to report to the AUL for research and instruction in her central coordinating role, even though they were addressing local policies (e.g., bulletin boards). While the committee itself has representatives from many locations, this reporting structure essentially meant that central was creating policies to govern local services and spaces (a perception further complicated by the former structure where the AUL for research and instruction was also the director of New Brunswick Libraries).

Under the new system, Access Services, along with Disabilities and ICOP, will report to a newly formed Directors Group that is composed of the library directors—Consuella Askew, Katie Anderson (in her role as interim director of Robeson Library), Judy Cohn, and Jeanne Boyle (in her role as interim director of New Brunswick Libraries)—and Rhonda Marker, the director of shared user services. This will align the important work of these committees more closely with their local units and clarify the director’s role in decision-making, while ensuring two-way flow of information about the needs and resources required for the work.

Since I know there have been a lot of questions, it is worth spending a little more time talking about the purpose and goals of the Directors Group. The directors convene to address local concerns, discuss shared issues and how they can work together to establish best practices and avoid duplicating effort. This group does not extend the responsibility or authority of the Library directors. Instead, it provides a means for Library directors to work together collectively to solve problems and to benefit from each other’s experience. Ultimately, each Library director is responsible for providing the vision, leadership, and management necessary to deliver collections, services, and spaces that are tailored for their local community.

Some of the comments that I heard noted that the Directors Group seemed to have taken on many of the responsibilities that USC used to have. As I think about the changes that are occurring at the University-level, and of my charge to clarify local vs. central function, I realize that the comments accurately reflect the changes in the libraries. In the past, decisions related to public services occurred centrally with a goal of developing the most cost-effective library system possible. Rutgers Libraries had a long history of successful internal collaboration. Now, each campus expects services that are tailored to meet local needs. Directors are being held accountable on their campuses for ensuring that the library system provides services (and collections) that directly support local initiatives and programs. The shift from a large, representative decision-making body to a more federated model that favors local decision-making is necessary to support the changes within the broader University context.

Before ending, I do want to acknowledge the hard work that went into finalizing the Committee Concept Map. We originally worked from a single-page document with over 40 administrative and faculty groups. On the administrative side, we now have a structured list 17 active committees, taskforces, and working groups with clearly defined “homes” in the Libraries. The faculty have also made substantial progress refining their committee structure. This project required a lot of heavy lifting and input from our colleagues, so please accept my thanks for your efforts.

If you have additional questions about these changes, please speak with your AUL or Director.

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Hello all –

My message this month is simple. I wish you all the happiest of holidays and the joy of the New Year as we enter this festive season.

As you all know, 2016 has been an incredibly productive and busy year and I am grateful for all of your efforts in moving the Libraries plans and priorities forward. In a few weeks, we will circulate our annual report which paints a vibrant picture of our accomplishments of the last 12 months. The theme of the annual report is “Transform,” which is a nod to the internal changes the Libraries have undertaken in 2016, as well as a reflection of the transformative effect our activities have on our students, faculty, and the university at large. We have truly made a difference this year and our good work will continue in the coming months.

I hope you enjoy time with your family and friends this month and look forward to seeing all the good things 2017 brings our way.

Thank you so very much,

Krisellen

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In this column last month, I talked about changes in the organization that were designed to separate central and local responsibilities and to improve our information control functions, particularly in relation to the website, discovery infrastructure, and collections. Shifting the coordinating functions for shared users services from RIS to the newly formed Shared User Services department has created an independent central unit that will work equally with all of the Directors to establish priorities for the website, discovery, shared reference services, and digital projects across the University.

This month, I want to follow up on a second round of organizational changes designed to similarly clarify central/local responsibilities and this time to also focus on the coordination of information related to collections. Previously, the AUL for Collection Development and Management (CDRM) did not have a direct reporting relationship with the units that acquired and managed collections. This reduced opportunities for coordination and accountability.

The changes announced in October will significantly improve the transparency of our practices and decisions by creating teams that are focused on different aspects of collections—acquisitions, holdings management, interlibrary loan, and collections processing.

So, what happened and who is affected?

• DTS has been redefined as Collection Services and Resource Sharing (CSRS). This new unit, reporting to the AUL/CDRM, will include ILL and provide an integrated view of acquisitions where ILL is considered a strategy for providing access to content. Shifting the ILL unit from RIS to CDRM has the added benefit of further clarifying central and local decision-making.
• To keep the efforts of the newly defined CSRS focused on the complexities of acquisitions, the Holdings Management Unit (HMU) will move from the department to report directly to the AUL/CDRM. In the future, we will look for ways to use the mountains of valuable information that is captured in CSRS to formalize an assessment function. When it is established, this function will work closely with the HMU which relies heavily on information about collection use for its operations.
• Not all of the DTS employees moved to CSRS. Some employees became a part of CTS, thus consolidating most of the physical resource workflow processing in that department.

With these changes, we have created an organization that aligns much better with the University’s structure and with our RCM budget requirements. We have created a single unit that is completely focused on managing the central components of collections from acquisitions to holdings management. And, while there are still some details related to access services and some committees that need to be addressed, the major universitywide functions of RIS have officially shifted to central units. Although RIS did an excellent job coordinating shared services, there was always ambiguity regarding decision-making within the unit. Hopefully, these changes will provide more clarity and allow New Brunswick Libraries, together with Special Collection and University Archives, to establish their unique identity.