Library Gazette

During the past several weeks since the Research, Instruction and Technology Services Team was formed, efforts have been underway to establish its structure.

Initial organizational structure was announced last week. Two team sub-units have been established to facilitate daily operations. Roz Tedford has been appointed Assistant Head of Research and Instruction Services and Erik Mitchell has been named Assistant Head of Technology Services. Two “bridge” positions were identified that already span functions of  both units: Giz Womack (Technology Training Manager) and Lauren Pressley (Instructional Design Librarian). To assist with team integration, Giz and Lauren have switched “home” units - Giz will be with Research & Instruction and Lauren with Technology. Other functional changes may take place as the team identifies ways to improve its effectiveness.

Part of the integration process includes physically placing people in office locations where they will be close to their unit colleagues. To accomplish this to some extent, we have moved some of us to new offices.  Giz has moved to the 4th floor Reference Office Suite. Susan, Erik and Lauren did the “Big Move”, a circular office switch! Susan is now in 457A (Lauren’s old office), Erik is in Susan’s old office (258B), and Lauren has moved into Erik’s old location (302A). Stay tuned for an open house to show off the new offices, but in the meantime, please come visit!

Susan’s New Office

Erik’s New Office

Lauren’s New Office

Giz’s New Office

The process of developing a job description for the open team position (the one vacated by Mary Horton) will commence this month with a projected search to begin in early fall. We will revise the position into one on the Technology side so that we can address our need for the additional programming skills required for us to migrate to more open source systems. But we will look for a person who also can contribute to the library instruction programs.

The largest project for RITS during the next academic year is the consolidation of our Government Documents and Microtext Departments. This project will require the talents of many people within the RITS team, as well as from other Library Teams (Resource and Access Services). Mary Scanlon will lead the task force that is being formed to manage this project. Details on this important initiative will be shared as we proceed.

Effective June 1, Research and Information Services (aka Team Info) and Information Technology (aka Tech Team) merged into a new team. As Lynn conveyed in her lib-l announcement to the staff, this merger will help optimize our ability to accomplish the library’s strategic goals.

Our first retreat took place on Monday, June 9. Over the 3 hour period, we explored many avenues for making an effective transition. Of course, one of the first orders of business was to decide on a new team name.

“Research, Instruction & Technology Services” describes the major functional responsibilities for the team. There are many intersections of these three important services that are already taking place in what team members accomplish. By highlighting them in the new team name, we hope to emphasize the areas of synergy that our new team will bring to the library’s mission.

In keeping with the library field’s affection for acronyms, we also considered how the new name would be abbreviated. So, feel free to refer to us as “RITS”!