Library staff are no strangers to budget and staffing reductions. Most of us have way too much experience doing more with less, covering unfilled positions, and rigging solutions out of the digital equivalent of chewing gum and bailing wire, because we can’t afford to buy all the tools we need. In the last two years, my department at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library operated with roughly half the usual amount of staff. In this post, I’ll share a few strategies that helped us get through this challenging time. First, a quick introduction. My department, Content, Discovery & Delivery services, includes the digital services unit (formerly library technology services) as well as collection management (including electronic resources management), acquisitions, cataloging, physical processing, interlibrary loan and document delivery, and course reserves. We are a technology-intensive department, both as users and implementers/supporters of technology. Here are some of the strategies we used to…
Author: Janet Crum
Interview with LITA Twitter chat panelist Thomas San Filippo
The LITA Twitter chat on May 31 (1pm Eastern/12pm Central) will feature two projects and four panelists. In this post, we feature panelist Thomas San Filippo (@WallaceLibrary) from Wheaton College, who will participate along with his colleagues, Kate Boylan, and Mark LeBlanc. They will talk about their project to expand the use of JSTOR Forum on their campus. We recently interviewed Thomas about their project. Q. Tell us a little about your role at your institution. What are you responsible for? I’m the Systems and Educational Technology Liaison at the Wallace Library. I work with students, faculty and staff to facilitate and enhance the use of technology in pedagogy and scholarship, and I develop, support and maintain systems for search, discovery, and delivery of library services and resources. That’s a long way of saying that I’m responsible for configuring the library’s catalog and discovery layer, Wheaton’s digital repository, JSTOR Forum,…
Interview with LITA Twitter chat panelist Adam Olsen
The LITA Twitter chat on May 31 (1pm Eastern/12pm Central) will feature two projects and four panelists. In this post, we interview panelist Adam Olsen (@theloraxster) from Western Carolina University. Western Carolina University recently launched a media wall that displays study room availability, events in the building, and the library’s social media feeds. They are planning on adding a number of additional features in the future. We recently interviewed Adam about this project. Q. Tell us a little about your role at your institution. What are you responsible for? I’m the web development and user experience librarian at WCU Hunter Library. I handle the administration of most of our web-based applications, as well as do user experience studies, particularly regarding web sites. Q. Describe your project, its purpose, and its goals. The project was to create a “media wall.” This is four screens that can display content in different ways….
Interview with LITA chat panelists Plamen Miltenoff and Mark Gill
The LITA Twitter chat on March 29 (1pm Eastern/12pm Central) will feature two projects and three panelists. In this post, we interview panelist Plamen Miltenoff, MLIS Professor at St. Cloud University. Plamen and colleague Mark Gill, VizLab Director at St. Cloud University, created an augmented reality prototype for library orientation, and Plamen interviewed librarians from several universities about their approach to XR in academic libraries. Both will participate in the chat using the @SCSUtechinstruc Twitter handle and will talk about their projects and low-end approaches to using XR in libraries. We recently interviewed Miltenoff about these projects. Q. Tell us a little about your role at your institution. What are you responsible for? SCSU is a midsize university; ~15K students with about 800 faculty. Our student are mostly first-generation students. Mark is the Director of the Viz Lab, and he deals with faculty and students around the campus. I am Informedia Specialist with…
Interview with LITA chat panelist Ilana Kingsley
The LITA Twitter chat on March 29 (1pm Eastern/12pm Central) will feature two projects and three panelists. In this post, we interview panelist Ilana Kingsley (@IlanaKingsley), who just finished a two-year NEH-funded project to create an Islandora repository of material from the Rasmuson Library’s Alaska & Polar Regions Collections & Archives. Q. Tell us a little about your role at your institution. What are you responsible for? I’m an Associate Professor of Library Science and the Web Librarian for University of Alaska Fairbanks Rasmuson Library. I’m responsible for web development (e.g., testing/trying new web applications) and for maintaining several Drupal-based web sites for the library (e.g., library.uaf.edu and jukebox.uaf.edu). I also serve as administrator of our LibGuides, WordPress blogs, and for some of our electronic databases. Besides web work, I teach A LOT. I teach a required 1-credit Library Information & Research class (LS101) and when I have time I…
IT Centralization: Impact on Academic Libraries, Part 2
Authors’ notes: This post is co-authored by Kelly Sattler, Head of Web Services, Michigan State University. It is part two of a two-part series on IT centralization and academic libraries.This post talks about how to respond to centralization and what to expect in the longer term. Part one discusses what to expect when a centralization initiative begins. Image source: creative commons licensed (BY-ND 2.0) Flickr photo by Andrea NIgels: https://flic.kr/p/6KsA7U. How to respond to centralization As we said in part 1 of this two-part series on IT centralization, change is hard. Change that makes people fear for their jobs and threatens their professional identities is really hard. We have some advice based on our experiences that may help you cope if IT centralization comes to your campus. Before centralization The best thing you can do to prepare for centralization is something that is good to do for other reasons as well: make…
IT Centralization: Impact on Academic Libraries
Authors’ notes: This post is co-authored by Kelly Sattler, Head of Web Services, Michigan State University. It is part one of a two-part series on IT centralization and academic libraries.This post will define IT centralization and talk about what to expect when a centralization initiative begins. Part two, coming in January, will address how to respond to centralization and what to expect in the longer term. Image free from pixabay. As university budgets continue to be squeezed by increasing costs and decreasing funding, university administrators scour the campus to find ways to make operations more efficient. IT is a frequent target for these exercises, as it is both ubiquitous and expensive. Often, initiatives to centralize IT functions and personnel are undertaken in order to coordinate and standardize services and equipment, theoretically increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Because academic libraries are IT-intensive, centralization can have a significant impact on library staff…