Academic library Exam II

Background: We were given a prompt wherein we were supposed to make decisions about how an imaginary library worked. We could base it off of one already in existence if we wanted to. I chose to base my on Midlands library because that is the one with which I had had more experience.

For starters, I will first describe the library for the what-if question. It is the campus library for a small (about 1000 students) liberal arts college. The library is open 80 hours a week with reference services available 70 hours a week. The main focus of the library’s mission is to serve the campus community, with a secondary mission to help serve the community where the college resides. The library collection contains about 300,000 monographs and is current in over 60 periodicals. The library also subscribes to several online databases and has access to several thousand journals. The library has an annual budget (excluding salaries) of about $700,000. The library is staffed with a director, a reference librarian (both faculty members), a serials librarian, a collections librarian, a part time archivist, and part time reference librarian. Twenty federal work-study students also staff the library. The libraries mission statement is
The library exists to serve the needs of the total College mission. Specifically, the library supports the broadest goals of the College as a liberal arts institution in both resources and services. The library, moreover, assists in the College's mission of providing a nurturing environment for spiritual, intellectual, and personal growth.
What is difficult about the “accountability” of this library is that it already operates on a pretty responsible budget. The college saw decreasing enrollment well before the economy took a dive, so money is fairly tight campus wide. The first order of business if I were the library director would be to begin a cross-training bonanza. All salaried librarians would effectively know how to do most of the duties in the library. Reference would know how to run serials and collections would know some of the duties the director supervises over (mostly cataloging). The other step I would take to streamline the work output would be to begin “promoting” experienced work-study students to different positions within the library. Currently, most students man the circulation desk and shelve books when needed. I would take the more experienced students and begin training them in reference, archiving, basic cataloging, and processing. Another area of training would be to teach the faculty how to access and teach the relevant databases for their field of study. All business professors would know how to search relevant business journals through the online databases AND be able to teach that (with help from the library) to students in the classroom. These steps would help to always keep the library gears turning; even if/when positions or hours need to be cut. This would also fulfill the criteria of increasing library productivity. Since we are involving more people we already pay to alleviate some of the everyday workload, the library runs more efficiently.
This leads to the first cost-cutting move. I would remove the part time reference position, which is paid through the library budget, and replace it with the work-study students, who are paid through federal monies. Yes, someone loses a job, but as far as the structure of the library, little is upset. This frees up twenty paid hours a week that can be cut from the library expenditures. The only troubling thing about cutting positions is that they rarely come back. Traditionally, the part time reference desk position was filled with a local library school student who could work with students on reference questions and still be able to complete homework in the downtime. If the position goes away, it will probably never come back to the library which removes a paraprofessional from the library staff AND takes away easy paid study time for a library student. That being said, it’s still the most financially non-valuable position.
Another move, besides cutting staff, would be to begin charging for some services for community users. Currently, the library offers basic community membership for anyone with a valid drivers license. We do this as a community service and charge nothing. Community patrons are not allowed to check out certain materials, but are allowed access to the internet. One way we could increase library revenue would be to begin charging community patrons for those basic services. The cost would not be anything steep, but it would contribute to the overall revenue of the library. Perhaps a $15 charge for 12 months of access or maybe even break it up for those community patrons who only use the internet and those who want to access the stacks. This step brings in money for services we already render, and if we lose patrons, we aren’t losing any money because they weren’t paying for it in the first place.
These are just a few ways the library can make small steps to increase the productivity of the library and decrease some spending and streamlining the budget overall. These changes would also continue to allow the library to fulfill its stated mission of providing “resources and services” to the college community. These changes improve the visibility of the campus library through the staff and faculty training, increase the number of service employees at the library through the “promoted” work-study students, and increase revenue cutting hours or positions and through charging for community access. These steps also clearly clear all of the hurdles Cohen and March describe as well. 1. The library as a strict set of goals as seen in the mission statement and the library can continue to adhere to it despite the cuts to budget. The library understands its processes. 2. The library understands its processes. The library has been a sustainable, functioning resource on the campus for decades. Change has been gradual, but it has been clear change done with intent and not the kind called “trial-and-error.” 3. The library has a clear purpose. The mission sets the parameters and then operates on objectives based on that mission. The library even defines the ways in which it reaches the objectives. The objectives are also clearly measurable. If the president wanted to see our accomplishments toward the objectives, the library could conclusively prove success. 4. The library has a clear leader. There is no ambiguity about who is in charge of the library. Even with the cross training, the vision and the direction of the library will still be up to the library director. 5. The library judges success based upon the mission and the objectives. Since the library does not create profit for the college and cannot be sustainable if it allowed “promotion based opportunity” it can only be deemed successful if it fulfills the stated objectives tied to the mission. The library fulfills the goals, and therefore is successful.
To conclude, I believe it must be noted that a library cannot continue to function as the first line in the budget cut. The success of the institution often times falls heavy onto the libraries shoulders, especially in larger, research-based institutions. Even for the small liberal arts college, the library serves as the access point for student learning and faculty success. Without the library, the learning community of the college suffers because it loses access to information. With that being said, I also think that there are ways for a small college library to innovate in order to shift with the market and become a more sustainable line item on the college budget. As long as the library can clearly meet and exceed the goals set down in the mission statement, then it can continue to go with business as usual. However, at the moment that service and access begin to suffer as a result of belt tightening, the library will have to either find a way to encourage the college president to continue to support the library or begin to look for other means of sustaining itself.