Please excuse the multiple postings.

If you are attending ALA in Chicago, please try and come to this session. 

RE-THINKING STAFF RESOURCES

IN THE E-SERIALS ENVIRONMENT

Sunday, July 12, 2009

8-10 a.m.

McCormick Place West W-181

In the shift from print to electronic continuing resources, work related to print serials has continued while e-serials have added complexity and increased staff workloads.  We are facing hard choices about what to stop doing in this new environment where print is becoming the exception.  Representatives of two academic libraries and a public library will discuss the changes they have made to streamline workflows and re-allocate staff to more effectively manage continuing resources in all formats.  Some approaches may be more radical than others.

SPEAKERS

Rick Anderson

Associate Director for Scholarly Resources and Collections

University of Utah

Gloria Guzi

Acquisitions Librarian—Serials

Cleveland Public Library

Carol Ann Borchert

Coordinator for Serials

University of South Florida

Sponsored by:  R2 Consulting

Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS)

Continuing Resources Section, Education Committee

Public Library Association (PLA)

 Workload and Staffing Patterns Cluster, Staffing Issues Committee

Library Leadership & Management Association (LLAMA)

 Systems and Services Section, Technical Services and Systems Committee

SPEAKERS WERE ASKED TO ADDRESS:

Ø What specific tasks did they stop doing with print resources in order to focus more efforts on electronic resources?

How did they determine which tasks were important,

 which ones needed to be streamlined, and

which ones they could stop doing?

Ø Did they stop doing any tasks completely,

decide to do certain tasks in a different way, or

 reallocate staff in another area to do certain tasks?

Ø Did staff have to be retrained to do tasks more related to electronic resources?

 If so, how did they accomplish that?

What was the learning curve for the new tasks?

Ø Has there been an impact on customer service from either the elimination of print resources related tasks or the refocus on electronic resources tasks?

 If so, what has the impact been, positive or negative?

Ø What have they learned from their experiences with re-evaluating the workflow, and what suggestions do they have for others who want to look at reallocating their staff resources?

Thank you.

Sandhya (Sandy) D. Srivastava

Member, ALCTS CRS Education Committee

Electronic Resources Librarian

New York Institute of Technology

Wisser Library

Northern Boulevard

Old Westbury, New York 11568-8000

Telephone: (516) 686 - 3790

Fax: (516) 686 - 1152

Email: ssrivast@nyit.edu