Technical Services Involvement with New
Services: Are there Silos Within the
Library?
Sharon Wiles-Young
Director of Library Access Services
ALCTS- Heads of Cataloging Interest Group
ALA Midwinter
January 23, 2012
Lehigh University LibrariesLibrary and Technology Services
• Library Technical Services teams
– After merger into LTS in 1996
• Client Services Teams
• Leadership role of Team Leader and Director
Transition to Electronic/Digital
Information
• Ejournals – open the door to user centered
services
– Communicating directly with TS department
– SFX Link resolver, assist with database
• LTS Strategic plans- user focused,
student/research focused
– Goals-Support Lehigh scholarship and institutional
memory through the creation of a digital archive of
Lehigh scholarship that also encompasses distinctive
Lehigh archival materials.
Digital Information/Unique Collections
• The digital/electronic information world has
opened opportunities to cross train staff and to
provide staff with new responsibilities and focus
attention on redefining service needs and
examining user needs BUT
– What can we let go of and what should we be spending
more time on?
• Example: gift books student copy cataloging –
shelf ready books
– staff move on to other metadata –digital
responsibilities
Redefining the Academic Library
• Redefining the Academic Library: Managing
the Migration to Digital Information Services
by the University Leadership Council:
http://www.educationadvisoryboard.com/pdf/23634-EAB-Redefining-the-AcademicLibrary.pdf
Section IV: Redeploying Library Staff
“Library leadership must identify areas of
activity that can be reduced or eliminated and
begin to migrate staff to higher-value
responsibilities”
Example 1:New Initiatives and
Staffing
• CLIR Fellow (Council on Libraries and
Information Resources)
–
–
–
–
Background in some special collections cataloging
Understood skills of cataloging staff
Metadata projects
Inventory projects materials coming from labsdocuments needing sorting organization before digitized
• Included Head of Cataloging on the IR planning
committee
Staff involvement
• Trained staff on metadata techniques- added
keyword metadata on spreadsheets to ingest
into Content DM
• Included all librarians in webinar and other
activities to select a new software platform for
the IR – Digital Commons
Future for IR
• Acknowledgement that TS skills will be
needed specifically: Acquisitions to metadata
• Question: Should all librarians be involved
with author rights discussions?
– ACRL Scholarly Communications Road Show at
Lehigh but the involvement of all librarians ended
there
– All Librarians and some staff have a chance to
meet with faculty formally or informally should
have a general knowledge and make appropriate
referrals
Example 2: VuFind another
Library Initiative
• Design and implementation of new interface to
the online catalog
– Sirsi webcat not updated since the 1990’s
– Commitment to open sources software
– VuFind chosen and developed with others
• Soft roll out of the new interface
• Systems librarian with collection development
librarians- discussions held in those meeting
What Happened with VuFind
• System’s staff realized that the catalogers were
of vital importance and talked one on one but
not in meetings
• Asked to attend the in house demo- discovered
the serials displays a problem
– Need of catalogers to talk about data found in the
holdings records and possible use of that
information and displays of that information
Skills and Partnerships
New initiatives in partnering with other libraries
to assist with staffing
– Have libraries reorganized internal staff wisely and
built partnerships in house
– Identify staff skill sets and offer training
Example: Government Documents coordinatornow metadata quality control member of the
Digital Team
Conclusion
• Eliminate some processes and services as
identify new roles and new strategic goals
– Problem: still in transition- print materials to
storage, weeding decisions
• Increases Involvement of Technical Services
librarians in planning of new services and
examine staffing options
– Another opportunity at Lehigh is Kuali/OLE
development, an open source ILS system
Final Observations
• An important aspect of teaching and learning in
higher educations is:
– Collaborative learning
– Provide students with effective team learning
experiences
• Are libraries effectively using team collaboration to
examine services and new initiatives ?
• Are libraries effectively identifying skill sets and
interests of librarians and staff?