Presented at the 2010 Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference. Abstract: As emphasis shifts from print to electronic, a library's organizational capacity or ability to manage workloads with sufficient numbers and levels is strained. R2 Consulting comments on the most salient trends and recommendations regarding library operations. University of Colorado Denver Auraria Library provides local examples of reinventing staffing and workflow.

1. Copyright Denise Pan and Rick Lugg 2010.
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Scaling Organizational Capacity to Meet E-Resources Needs:
ER&L February 1-3, 2010 1
Centralize or Decentralize?

2. Scaling Organizational Capacity to
Meet E-Resources Needs
Centralize or Decentralize?
Denise Pan
University of Colorado Denver Auraria Library
Rick Lugg
R2 Consulting LLC

3. Presentation Outline
• Organizational Capacity
– How has e-resources changed technical services?
– What skills are needed?
– What tools are needed?
• Organizational Realities
– How do you change workflows with a
static workforce?
– What organizational structure is needed?
– How do you create your own knowledge?
Scaling Organizational Capacity to Meet E-Resources Needs:
ER&L February 1-3, 2010 3
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4. About R2
• Selection-to-access workflows
• Organizational redesign
• Helping libraries shift priorities and activities
• From print to electronic
• From commonly-held to unique
• Strategies for legacy print collections
Scaling Organizational Capacity to Meet E-Resources Needs:
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5. R2 Experience
Libraries Vendors
• University of Cincinnati • ABC-CLIO
• University of Lethbridge • Blackwell Book Services
• Auraria Library • Casalini Libri
• USMA West Point
• UC-Riverside • CAVAL Collaborative Solutions
• UC-Santa Cruz • Common Ground Publishing
• University of Oxford • Eastern Book Company
• University of North Carolina • Ebook Library (EBL)
• Wellesley College • Follett Library Resources
• Colorado State University • HARRASSOWITZ
• University of Michigan • Innovative Interfaces
• Oberlin College • Ingram Digital Group
• MIT Libraries • OCLC
• University of Utah
• Wesleyan University • RR Bowker
• Colby College • Sage Reference
• East Carolina University • University of California Press
• George Washington University • Xrefer (now Credo Reference)
• YBP Library Services
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6. Organizational Capacity
• In most libraries, an obvious imbalance
Staff Level Budget Level
Print Print
Electronic Electronic
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7. Trends in E-R Workflows & Workloads
• It is the mainstream activity, but mostly
organizations and priorities don’t reflect this
reality
• In a rational world, library managers would:
• Accord E-R the highest priority in staffing and support
• Make certain this work gets done first and well
• Train as many people in this work as needed
• Let other tasks slide correspondingly
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8. Changing work in Technical Services
• Quantity – size and variety of “batches”
• Erosion of consolidated workflows
• Profession and industry won’t stop changing
• Complexity of deals, resources, packages
• Cross-departmental tasks
• Invisible workloads and workflows
• Timing and task tracking: can be months between
steps
• Work cycles and patterns change
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9. E-Resource Life-cyle
Oliver Pesch
EBSCO
(Influenced by work by Ivy Anderson)

10. E-resource life cycle
Libraries
License
terms Order
Trial use
Price Pay
Assess
need/budget Evaluate IP Addresses
Register
User
feedback Acquire Proxy Servers
Usage stats Catalog
Evaluate Portals/Access
Downtime Monitor Provide Access lists
analysis
Campus
Review authentication
problems
Holdings lists
Problem log
Provide Support Administer
User IDs
Hardware
needs Admin module
information
Software
needs Preferences
(store)
Contact info
Holdings lists
Troubleshoot/ Access
triage restrictions
New processes introduced View rights for Claiming
use

11. Many Variables Affect Workloads
• Serial/Not Serial
• To Catalog/Or Not to Catalog
• ERMS/No ERMS
• Dynamic update/Batch update
• Knowledgebase/No Knowledgebase
• Dependencies with print counterparts
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12. What are the pain points?
• Complexity of processes
• Need for new skills
• New systems
• New vendors, agents, kbase providers
• Same players returning in new roles
• Print/Electronic interdependencies
• Serial holdings updates
• Multiple access paths to maintain
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13. What skills are needed?
• Legal and negotiating skills (and authority)
• Communication and collaboration
• Big picture: how decisions and actions
propagate throughout the workflow
• Small picture: details matter at every stage
• Multi-tasking:
implementing/maintaining/troubleshooting
and evaluating
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14. What tools are needed?
• A way to make the process visible to all
• Access to selection, acquisitions, and other
metadata
• Automatic notification upon completion of
specific steps
• Shared knowledge of resources, status, and
issues—for staff and users both
• KBART – UKSG/NISO Recommended Practice
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15. What structure is needed?
• Centralized model
• Advantages
• Disadvantage
• Distributed model
• Advantages
• Disadvantages
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16. Spectrum of E-R Control
Specialists Only Integrated into
Mainstream
Hub Factor High Moderate Minimal
Process Moderately Very
Less Formal Formal Formal
Requirement
Minimally Moderately Highly
Scalability Scalable Scalable Scalable
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17. E-R staffing: Stage One
• Find or build an expert
• Centralize processes around scarce expertise
• License review and negotiation
• Central repository of signed licenses/signing authority
• Trials, activation, A-Z lists, proxy, trouble-
shooting, knowledgebase maintenance
• Requires knowledge of
• Consortial relationships, deals
• Package composition and overlap
• Serials holdings
• Discovery layer capabilities
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18. E-R staffing: Stage One
• Strong bias toward control
• A sort of priesthood/elite
• Small, self-contained, highly-trained
• Issue: this “hub” model is very hard to
scale, even when supported by third-party
services, ERMS, and other tools.
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19. E-R staffing: Stage Two
• Wailing and gnashing of teeth
• Integrate E-R tasks into mainstream workflows
• Some specialized tasks remain (e.g., licensing, t-shooting)
• Selectors select; Acquisitions acquires; Catalogers catalog
• Staff capacity transferred from analagous print tasks
• Emphasize similarities, but also expand skills – it’s just
another format
• Requires
• Training, re-training, persuasion, overcoming fear
• De-mystification and relinquishing some control
• Reliance on systems and procedures rather than individual
expertise
• A transition from expert to manager
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20. E-R Staffing: Stage Two
• Increased capacity – highly scalable
• De-centralization, dispersion of tasks
• Corresponding loss of direct control
• A mainstream operation for a mainstream
activity
• Issue: the best individual contributors are not
necessarily the best managers
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21. E-R Staffing: Stage Three?
• Expand the yield of the specialist group
• Broader resource base- more titles under
management
• More libraries benefit from scarce expertise
• Consortial/Collaborative management of
e-resources (CDL/UC Model)
• E-Resource workloads are easier to share than
print workloads
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22. Recommendations
• Treat E-Resources as the mainstream
• Explore alternate policy choices
• Stop cataloging e-journals; rely on links and A-Z list
(look at how users find this material now)
• Move to e-only for current subscriptions wherever possible –
to eliminate confusion, complexity
• Focus on timely maintenance of preferred access
paths—make those work first, fast, and well
• Minimize customization of batch loads
• Get the e-resources work done first;
manage print with what’s left
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23. About Auraria Library
• Located in downtown
Denver, Colorado
• Academic library for
– University of Colorado
Denver
– Metropolitan State College
of Denver
– Community College of
Denver
• FTE 28,000 undergraduate
& 2,000 graduate students
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24. R2 Report
• E-Resources and Serials:
– “E-Resources needs to be
recognized as the mainstream
workflow, and staffed accordingly”
– “needing more staff hours and
experience with serials and
eresources”
• Staffing and Organization:
– “Auraria has been managed as a
topdown, hierarchical organization”
– “opportune time to realign the
organizational structure and staffing
levels to support those changes”
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25. Reorganization Recommendations
Recommended Structure – Functional View
Original Structure – Functional View
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26. Organizational Realities
How do you..
recognize e-resources
as the library’s
mainstream and
expand e-resources staff
in both number & level
with a static workplace?
N.Y. Playground (Library of Congress)
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27. Re-framing the Organization
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28. Appreciative Inquiry is a strategy for
change that begins with the identification
of the “best of what is” to enable
stakeholders to pursue their dreams and
visions of “what could be.”
4-D Cycle: Discover, Dream, Design, Destiny
Sullivan, M. (2004), “The Promise of Appreciative Inquiry in
Library Organizations”, Library Trends, Vol. 53 No. 1, p. 219.
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29. Becoming a Learning Organization
• Reasons for Change
– New technology & formats
altering established processes
– Limited library materials budget
& staffing
• New Opportunities
– Break down traditional silos
– Work collaboratively &
cross-functionally
– Create more efficient
workflow processes N.Y. Playground (Library of Congress)
– Backup training for continuous
service
– Greater communication within
Technical Services and with
Library and patrons
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30. Technical Services Today
• 1 Full-time Staff • 2 Full-time Staff
• With help from • 1 Part-time Staff
2 full-time staff
Systems Acquisitions
Cataloging
E-Resources
& Metadata
• 1 Full-time • 2 Full-time
Librarian Librarians
• 2 Full-time Staff • 3 Full-time Staff
• 1 Part-time Staff
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31. E-Resources
Hybrid Organizational Structure
Centralized
Administration
& Distributed
Decision Making
Centralized Decentralized
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32. Shared Leadership
Moves beyond hierarchies and creates
leaders throughout the organization.
Staff are able to flexibly move in and out of
leader and follower roles as required.
Deiss, K. and Sullivan, M. (1998), “The Shared Leadership Principle:
Creating Leaders Throughout the Organisation”, Issues and Trends in
Diversity, Leadership and Career Development, Vol. 2, pp. 2-6.
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33. E-Resources Workflow & Staffing
• Journals – 1 part-time staff
• Direct Databases & Licenses – 1 full-time staff
Acquisitions • Consortia Publisher Packages – 1 librarian
• Serials Solutions (360 Marc Updates & Link)
Access
• 1 Librarian + help from full-time staff & MLIS grad student
• Batch loading (WCCP & Serials Solutions) – 1 full-time staff
Discovery
• Original Cataloging & WorldCat Sets – 1 full-time librarian
• Usage Statistics (Scholarly Stats) – 1 full-time staff
Assessment
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34. Information literacy forms the basis for
lifelong learning. It is common to all
disciplines, to all learning environments, and to
all levels of education. It enables learners to
master content and extend their
investigations, become more self-directed, and
assume greater control over their own learning.
ACRL (2000). “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher
Education”, available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/
informationliteracycompetency.cfm (accessed 31 December 2009).
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35. Creating a Learning Organization
• Reorganize with appreciative inquiry
• Encourage dialogue at routine and
ad hoc meetings
• Trust in the abilities of
colleagues to participate
in shared leadership
• Promote lifelong learning
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36. Questions?
Contact Us
denise.pan@ucdenver.edu
rick@r2consulting.org