access Services 2010: Session IV

access Services, Innovative Management in the Changing Era by Dell Davis and Amy Chang

We need to think about management. Managers are busy people a d in mAnaging services we forget about internal piece. How change impacts access services, innovative management for change, some of the challenges. What causes change? Space,customer centered services, technology, administrative decisions, bottom up innovative ideas. How do we create and nmanage these spaces better? Customer based services through needs assessment. Checked through irb and questions were okay as long as they didn't want to publish, so started to ask students informally about services. Libqual Comments are best measure of services. Ex, deficient links in ere sources so folks now report through point of need through ticketing system. Srudents begging. For quiet spaces while we are focused on collaborative spaces, disconnect. Facilities issues. That management piece falls on. Access services in most environments. Also technology drives things - student in youtube video on UT San Antonio and how he connects to his library - STEAL THIS! So great.

How do we let admin know we need more money for these. New services. Admin decisions also drive change. Some are good, some are driven by reactions to chronicle of higher Ed like that we don't need librarians anymore. Campus development department identified a
Erson who wanted to donate money to library for at risk first gen students, and piece was written that library would hire first year first gen students to work the reference desk (!). Need to be careful when things are driven administratively. Revamped it in conjunction with other heads to be more of a learning experience than a service provision. Bottom up innovative ideas - cross trainings, ideas from staff like paging system for study. Rooms. Listen to ideas but change as necessary to suit.

Access services is not an entity unto itself and has never been, interconnected with all other public services. Most transactions from reference lead to access services. Now how do I get it? Thats our turn!

Usually several department heads, reference, access, etc. As access serviceanagers, we should. Take the lead in pulling together. Personalities adpeople and creating some tiype of collaborative working relationship because we operate as a whole. Establishing interconnectivity. Reference didn't know names of circ folk. Problem of continuity of services. Are you. Telling people same thing circ is telling them? Wrote a proposal to. Admin asking for a retreat for all public services under guise of Peking on strategic plan as a public service entity. Got permission to staff circ with students only, went to engineering building with large big room. Staff planned retreat, intended to get pele together to know each other. Brought facilitator to talk about strategic planning for public service group. Asked what folks wanted to hear about...how does exercise affect stss levels, a professor came over. And gave the talk. Admin funded a meal. Speaker was really bad and everyone bonded over that :) from there, joint public service meetings monthly. Not announcements, but sharing. Collaborative projects like deaccessioning where librarians and shelvers got together. Managers roles: assessing needs, projecting trends, updating staff, training, presenting results.

Know when to lead and know when to manage. What staff need to know: the strategic initiatives of the uni and library. Let then know where the change is leading, what the big picture is. Identify barriers, who is resisting change and why? Change responsibilities based on strengths and weaknesses, some folks might get new responsibilities during change.

Challenges: that's not what i s hired to do. If changigjobs, need to. Keep hr informed. Job descriptions and job responsibilities are different, design them to allow for. Future change. Longevity no tin age but years of exposure. Challenge now is reward/composition, make ksure when replacing a position, you work within hr guidelines. Establish solid working relationship with other managers. (myers Briggs example, presenter dislikes them bu tshe learned to identify personality types for communication). Relationships between departments. Introduce change gradually. Based on feedback, determine who and what. Of you're going to change something, who is it impacting, who might take well to it? Draft document in case of changes in responsibilities.work with admin and hr regarding impact, change in job grade. Etc. New position, internal or external? Develop program and service evaluation. DEvelop employees new role assessment and evaluation. Remember to implement change incrementally, establishing achievable milestones.

Questions for Dell: hard to motivate to take on new workloads with staff attrition. What if you cant compensate financially? Ey were able to. Look at vacant monies even from other departments. They get books shelf ready so they get three pele in tech services with nothing to do. Resignation, ask for that money. What can you give up because the data exists elsewhere?

Amy Chang - service is no longer circling books, is many services to many users, on site and off site. Have consolidated all service points into one, services becoming seamless and mtransparent. More user centered than policy and procedure driven. Innovative management involves ideas, technology and people. Pele are the k ey to success to goo management. Focus on people manAgement, focus on how ot communicate to become more effective.

Communication tools, why using statistics, how to use stats for service management and how to communicate stats. Elements to be considered for communication and challenges.

Digital tools include lib guide, intranet, blackboard, YouTube, blackboard, blog, one way communication, two way communication. Access services blog page has been very successful because staff found it easy to get in via web, don't ned to log in like intranet, can access from anywhere anytime. Easy to post announcements, store reports and policies. Customer service standards on blog, procedures, etc. Fun stuff area for staff recipes, trVel photos, etc. One way communication is announcement driven, policies and procedures that aren't changing, etc. Two way communication for feedback, input, ideas.

Using statistics as a communication tool. Statistics can help us make a right decision. Provides a real picture of service activities. Some madmin decisions can be based on not numbers or facts but snapshots. Stats can communicate about real picture of our services. Helps staff be more felxinle and adaptive. When staff get the picture and. Can see the number and patterns you generate from data, they are more likely to deal with situation better. As a manager of a department, you can see the changing needs. Don't just look T numbers, but numbers generate a pattern narrative of service from month to month or semester to semester. Know your users. Monitor changing needs, three year comparisons, analysis for particular month, traffic. Patterns, etc. Show productivity in overall activities, demo results ofdecisions. Used to. Do big circa stats, but now itemized. Otherwise other people tell you what is going on in access services. "circa is up encase of laptops, or group study. Rooms". Actually circulation of traditional materials not going down. Demonstrate improvement, new idea results, new devices, etc. Stats are good for demonstrating needs of staff or users, equipment, etc. Creates excitement when there are big jumps. Can map jumps over same months so they get a real picture of patterns and don't think things are one-off. Issues. Email her for examples of reports.

Elements to be considered when doing stats. What is the purpose? What do these stats meanfo r the services, staff and top administrators? How to collect and structure data? Prepare for questions and clarification, especially if opposite speculation or projections. There will be many questions, when, how, why, interpretation of numbers, etc. Need. To ensure accuracy, consistency, frequency, accountability. Challenges is to be illustrative but readable

Comments

Anonymous said…
Amy Chang is full of shit.
warmaiden said…
Care to elaborate with evidence or reason? I dont mind cussing in general, but random insults to individuals unrelated to the post won't stay up; I'll end up deleting the comment.

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