The IDEA Book Club and TIGERS ADVANCE: Bringing Faculty and Staff Together to Discuss Equity in Higher Education

The IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness) Book Club was established during the Fall 2019 semester by former Director of Diversity Education Moryah Jackson and Interlibrary Loan Librarian Renna Redd as a continuing education initiative for employees to create a shared syntax and expand collective awareness of the complexities within higher education in South Carolina and the United States through reading and discussing a common text. One of the goals of the initiative was to provide free copies of the selected book to participants so that they could participate without financial commitment, not increase screen time unnecessarily, and share the book the others if they so chose. TIGERS ADVANCE and the Office of Inclusion and Equity partnered with the University Libraries to purchase multiple copies of books over the course of six semesters and through this partnership, 158 participants (93 unique), representing 54 unique areas (departments, colleges, divisions, institutes, and offices) of Clemson University were represented; 49.4% were staff and 47% were faculty. With minimal cost and time, this program enabled employees to learn about the things that shape their worldview and the higher education ecosystem without them necessarily realizing it, such as unconscious bias, the algorithms that predict who qualifies for a mortgage or who is more likely to be incarcerated, histories (those commonly known and those less known), and systems (both acknowledged and unacknowledged)

Collection Assessment: Taming the Beast

At Clemson University, each subject librarian has a yearly goal to perform collection assessment and development duties as part of their work with their assigned departments; however, CU Libraries has been without a dedicated Collection Development and/or Management Librarian since prior to the pandemic. As a result, collection development, management, and assessment activities are somewhat piecemeal due to a lack of time, support, and staffing. After a library-wide reorganization in 2022, a 25% time position was created for an existing librarian to take on collection-related duties and start a formal collection assessment program with subject librarians. The Collections Sharing and Delivery Librarian, who manages the team in charge of interlibrary loan, document delivery, offsite storage, and library mail & delivery services, volunteered to take on these additional duties. Working with the subject librarians, who are divided into three teams based on their areas of focus (Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences), the group decided to pilot a 3 year assessment cycle. The goal of this project is to create a way for tasks in the area of collection development and assessment to be completed in a timely manner while not overwhelming each team of librarians who are also juggling teaching, research, reference, and service work. As proposed, each year one of the teams would take on one of three different collections-related tasks: physical collections assessment (involving weeding and transferring lesser-used materials to offsite storage), e-resources assessment (involving analyzing usage and investigating other available content), and patron assessment (involving communication with patrons in librarians’ assigned departments to determine satisfaction and needs). Through rotating tasks each year, the three teams will have covered all of the three assessment areas in three years, from 2023 to 2026

Acquisitions and Collections or Access and Public Services: Where does Resource Sharing Fit in an Academic Library?

At the 2018 Southeastern Resource Sharing Conference I gave a lightning talk titled “Where Do We Belong? Where Does Resource Sharing Fit in an Academic Library?” to share the results of an informal survey to find where resource sharing departments are found in academic library organizational structures. Since then, Clemson University Libraries engaged in a reorganization and the resource sharing team will be moved (as of July 1, 2022) from the new Teaching, Learning, and Research Division (a division centered around public services) to the new Collections and Discovery Division (a more technical services-based division). This lighting talk will share the results of a 2022 redux of the 2018 survey and compare the two sets of data to see if resource sharing departments have moved within organizational structures. Also discussed will be the transition of the Clemson Libraries resource sharing team to a new division, how the team’s roll in that division has been defined, and how resource sharing stays connected to public services within the Libraries

Teach a Man to Fish or Nourish Them to Grow? Debating Delivering Owned Articles Through Document Delivery Services

The age-old proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” has been used for years in libraries when it comes to discussing how far to go when helping researchers obtain the materials they need. Educating library users on how to find reliable information resources is our shared ultimate goal, but how much should we realistically expect them to know and retain when ILSs are increasingly complicated, inaccurate, and full of library-centric jargon? The presenters will share the results of a survey they administered regarding whether resource sharing shops fill requests for articles and book chapters that are owned by the institution or cancel them with messaging indicating that they are available locally

Let\u27s Play Twister (Resource Sharing Style)

Presented at the Information Delivery Services Project Conference. https://idsproject.org/conferences.asp

Feedback x4: Leading Library Staff through Organizational Review

Some say that the only constant in libraries is change but it is often a challenge for our employees. A small committee of public service managers were tasked to explore public service operations and organizational structure through examining the ways in which units communicated, cross trained, and staffed various services. The review process and discussions were expected to include all personnel from access services, research and instruction, resource sharing, stacks, security, and facilities. Four different ways of involving employees through a comprehensive review process, including SWOTT analysis, roundtable discussions, card sorting, and organizational structure review

Deconstructing the Team Using Documentation and Cross-training to Maintain Coverage during Times of Crisis

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on higher education, the Clemson University Libraries’ Resource Sharing Team had the opportunity to scale up our practice of creating and sharing process documentation in order to maintain continuity of services regardless of various disruptions. In March 2020, Clemson University Libraries, like many other academic libraries, suspended onsite operations for a brief time period due to the spread of COVID-19 in order to determine how best to provide information services safely to all patrons regardless of location. Because of limited access to library and other campus buildings, library administration authorized only a few employees to work onsite and maintain the multitude of services we provide to thousands of patrons. The existing structure and fluidity of the Resource Sharing team prepared staff to discuss workloads and designate one team member to work at each location.The last three years have seen the Resource Sharing team expand from four FTE and five student workers covering four service areas to six FTE and five student workers covering six service areas, thus creating a need for thorough documentation of processes and procedures due to the time-sensitive nature of the services provided: Interlibrary Loan Borrowing, Interlibrary Loan Lending, Document Delivery, state-wide consortial sharing, offsite storage management and retrieval, and mail and branch courier services. With staff based at two branches and the department serving multiple campuses across the state of South Carolina, Resource Sharing was challenged in how to remain a cohesive group despite being physically apart from one another. To create an agile team in response to our expansion, tasks shifted from being proprietary and performed by a single person to being thoroughly documented with cross-training provided. This change meant that individual team members adjusted their work philosophies to become product owners of the services they oversee and maintain documentation of workflows so that any other team member can perform their duties if needed. This change in thinking and procedure has allowed the team to work as a more cohesive unit, step up for each other in times of need, and avoid disruptions in service to our patrons

Into the Unknown: Working Together to Forge a New Department in a Library Reorganization

Although libraries regularly change in response to personnel turnover, budget constraints, and user needs, a full-blown library reorganization can be a process full of uncertainty and anxiety. This poster will discuss an ongoing reorganization at an R1 university that merges the E-resources Team, the Continuing Resources and Government Documents Team, the Collection Management Team, and Resource Sharing Team into one department of 17 employees. The poster will demonstrate how the three supervisors of these teams are working with their respective groups to mindfully engage with the change process at hand with the goal of mitigating some of the stress involved and creating positive change. To do so these groups are creating channels of clear communication, building relationships to assess team structures and workflows, and helping to develop individualized coping strategies. After attending this poster session, attendees will be better able to help prepare personnel for change, foster staff morale, communicate both concerns and wins, build new relationships with colleagues, and find opportunities for internal collaboration. Plans for evaluating these efforts post-reorganization will also be discussed