Category: Rutgers University–Camden

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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