Library Technical Services by Stacey Marien;

Author:Stacey Marien;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

BACKGROUND

The UMass Amherst Libraries’ dean and administration team commissioned the information resources management (IRM) workflow review task force in 2014 to look at the ways technical services workflows were changing and make recommendations on how best to respond to the evolving nature of the work. The task force was charged with conducting an environmental scan of technical services operations at peer libraries that explored functions and responsibilities, reporting lines, and workflows other libraries have eliminated, changed, or added. The task force found that while each library organized its staff in a slightly different way, they are all trying to deal with the same shift from managing physical materials to managing licensed electronic resources, local digital collections, and open access materials. They found that priorities in technical services units at other academic libraries mirrored many of the UMass Amherst Libraries’ and the IRM department’s own priorities, such as discovery and access, electronic resources management, institutional repositories, non-MARC metadata, and batch loading and batch editing vendor records for e-resources. The task force also found that many academic libraries had experienced reorganizations, loss of staff, and changes in functions in their technical services departments. In addition to the environmental scan, the task force gathered feedback from UMass Amherst libraries staff in general and the IRM department staff in particular. The feedback they received about what IRM does well included responding to users’ needs and managing an overwhelming amount of information. Several IRM staff mentioned communication and training as areas in which they could improve, and staff outside of IRM said that linking to electronic resources was sometimes a problem. Feedback from IRM staff about what new positions they needed included a new department head (the current department head was planning to retire soon), more staff to manage electronic resources, and at least one additional professional cataloger/metadata librarian. To better meet the needs of users regarding discovery and access to the Libraries’ information resources, the IRM workflow review task force recommended that the department do the following:

• Shift our organization to focus more on managing electronic resources and less on managing physical collections

• Continually look for ways to streamline processes and create more efficient workflows

• Standardize procedures to make more processes routine

• Distribute responsibility more broadly and equitably through the department

• Empower decision-making at the lowest possible level

• Establish clear priorities for the work that is done in the department

• Consider implementing a comprehensive library software platform that embraces the concept of a shared community record

• Consider implementing CORAL as an electronic resources management (ERM) tool

• Hire a new IRM department head

• Hire additional electronic resources management staff (one librarian and one classified staff position)

• Hire a metadata librarian

• Hire a user experience librarian who could conduct user studies and help design, improve, and support the Libraries’ primary user interfaces, including the website, the catalog, the discovery system, and digital library collections

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