Meeting with University Libraries Subject Heads, March 8, 2007

Today, Lisa German, Dace Freivalds and I attended a University Libraries' Subject Heads meeting at the invitation of Laurie Probst.

A couple of days ago, the agenda was distributed to the attendees, a two-pager of IT issues and concerns from the end-user front lines. There are, not suprisingly, some tensions between supporting a stable and secure Library IT infrastructure while at the same time dealing with the needs of the individual user, and there are also tensions between moving forward with the next wave of technologies while we still struggle with supporting printing problems. What I learned from the feedback from the subject librarians present:

1. There is a need for a more collaborative relationship between Library faculty and staff and IT staff. Libraries want to be more than just a consumer of IT services; our students, faculty and staff would be better served by our having a shared language and shared understanding of user needs. A more collegial and peer-based relationship would be ideal.

2. Users are now demanding technical expertise from the Library faculty and staff and on-the-spot resolution of technical problems. Linda Musser used the term "diminished service standards" to point out that not being able to provide resolution to technical problems creates much tension in a profession that holds the highest service standards as its goal.

3. Library faculty and staff are not sure where to go for specific technical help, whether in DLT or I-TECH. They would also like to be able to know who the experts are in particular areas. This is a model that works well for them in the Library world - seeking out a specific subject expert as needed.

4. There is a tension between adhering to security best practices and supporting flexibility in software download and use, for example.

5. The specific needs of subject libraries (PAMS, for example) are difficult to reconcile in a "one size fits all" environment.

6. Communicating technology problems and solutions across service desks is desirable. Solutions need to be networked and non-networked based.

I think we made a good faith commitment in the meetng to try to get beyond the "here's what's wrong with you" approach, and come up with a new way of addressing our problems given the exigencies of our respective circumstances. We took a good look at possibilities for joint projects that might address high priority needs and get us on the same page.

Henry Pisciotta posited an example: I-TECH and DLT, together with the ITS Emerging Technologies group are launching a Social Networking working group. Led by Andrew Calvin in I-TECH, this group will be looking at wikis, blogs, IM, and other Web 2.0 technologies. Henry suggested that the Subject Librarians group could provide use cases to this new working group.

The Knowledge Commons project could also serve us well as a vehicle for our developing a more collaborative approach. Although a full-blown implementation may be a couple of years out, our getting there is likely to be incremental and result in some good opportunities to work more collaboratively to respond to user needs.

There are also some things underway that could alleviate some of the problems and concerns presented by the Subject Librarians:

* A working group, led by Ann Snowman, is analyzing whether the Libraries is better served by having certain services provided by DLT or partaking in enterprise services offered by other areas of ITS. A six week effort is underway to identify those services, analyze how they are best provided and come up with recommendations for Dean Eaton and CIO Kevin Morooney.

* I-TECH is currently working on filling a training coordinator position, while both DLT and I-TECH are considering how we can collectively meet training needs in the Libraries.

* ITS and the Libraries are pooling resources to work on providing more seamless printing for students first at UP and then at the campuses. This is part of a larger effort to provide seamless desktop management by leveraging ITS-wide resources. The support model for this - the student "rovers" model - may well be the first step towards having a dedicated ITS Help Desk in the Libraries.

* DLT and I-TECH are both committed to improving processes and procedures from project management through operational and support processes.

* DLT is looking at concrete ways of sharing Help Desk Knowledge Base resources and thus expanding Help Desk support.

* DLT and I-TECH are combining resources to target professional development and training opportunities, and thus position ourselves for the next generation of systems and applications development.

We agreed to get back together in a few weeks to explore some concrete ideas for joint projects or at least joint approaches. In the meantime, as often happens, I can see us running with some of these ideas, such as the use cases for our Social Networking project.