All Hands On Deck: Developing a Job Shadowing Program in Collection Development

Kennesaw State University Library System’s Collection Development and Technical Services units have well-established practices and workflows regarding monograph selection and spending at the end of fiscal year. The library system’s reorganization last fall and the very quick transition to remote working this spring provided us with a unique opportunity to include four paraprofessionals currently pursuing their Master of Library Science degrees and a newly hired librarian in this process of selecting books for the collection. In this presentation, we will describe the process of transitioning to online training and mentorship. We will provide perspectives of three of the new selectors about their experiences with this project. Finally, we will  share how this learning experience between departments forms the foundation  for a future ‘job shadowing’ program in the Collection Development Unit for paraprofessional library employees with the goal of giving our staff experience as well as promoting inter-departmental unity

Climbing the Mountain on the Quest for Success: Adventures in First-Year Librarianship

It is easy to view the transition from student or paraprofessional to librarian as the end of a journey. While in reality, this transition is more analogous to a hiker reaching the summit of a mountain. At first the hiker is filled with a sense of relief and victory - which quickly fades as the hiker realizes that the trail continues. This panel will discuss three differing perspectives on the first-year librarian experience. Discussion topics include the ambiguity of job requirements, uncertainties regarding personal abilities, shifting administrator expectations, and coping with feeling both under- and overwhelmed. This discussion will demystify the new academic librarian experience for prospective librarians. It will offer seasoned librarians ideas regarding mentorship, and it will provide library administrators insight into managing new librarian perspectives

The Right Growing Conditions: How to Plant an Idea and Nurture it into a Dynamic Collection Development Unit

In 2013, the Kennesaw State University (KSU) Library System hired its first Collection Development Librarian. Since then, the Library System has experienced remarkable changes and growth in many areas, including institutional consolidation, facility renovations, new staffing, and organizational restructuring. Of note is the establishment and extraordinary growth of the Collection Development Unit since 2015. With a good dose of creativity, these winds of change enabled us to grow a seed of potential into a flourishing team. By pulling together talent from other library units and creating positions from the ground up, we were able to blossom into something new.Within three years of focused and dedicated effort by this highly motivated team, we developed and implemented a broad spectrum of innovative programs and services, including a robust training calendar, comprehensive collection maintenance and assessment plans, a very active undergraduate faculty liaison group, and effective outreach and marketing initiatives with other library units and with the KSU community at large.Great success never comes easy, and disruptive change is not unfamiliar to libraries. How did we make our case to Library Administration to gain their support, especially when funding and other resources were scarce? What positions were needed the most and what are strategic ways to recruit new team members? How were we going to prioritize the daunting tasks awaiting us? To tackle these inevitable challenges, we employed many innovative strategies and accrued valuable experiences along the way. In this presentation, we will share our best practices in team-building, the unorthodox solutions we came up with, as well as the lessons we learned in the process. We hope that our story will inspire and help you to build an outstanding team that is able to thrive on the winds of change