From: Betsy Appleton <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:39:09 -0500

ALCTS Role of the Professional Librarian in Technical Services
Interest Group (RPLTS)
Saturday, January 26, 2013, 10:30-11:30
Renaissance Seattle Hotel, Municipal Room
Add this event to your Midwinter schedule: http://alamw13.ala.org/node/9036

Please join the RPLTS Interest Group for the following two presentations:

Impact of library-wide reorganization on Technical Services at the
University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries

Anastasia Guimaraes, Head, Metadata Services/Batchprocessing & Data
Support units, University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries

Andrea Langhurst, Head, Electronic Resources & Acquisitions Pay unit,
University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries

Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame have been
experiencing organizational transition over a number of years –
starting with the departure of a long-serving Director of Libraries in
early 2010, through transitions including introduction of a new
University Librarian and a university-wide early retirement offering,
and culminating in a library-wide reorganization with detailed
reporting lines and structure just announced mid-September 2012.
During this presentation, we would share observations on how
transition and reorganization affected us as professional librarians
and impacted areas of technical services such as Acquisitions,
Electronic Resources, Cataloging & Metadata, and Licensing –
consolidating areas which had fallen within as many as 5 different
departments over recent years into one large program area that now
includes more than 40 library staff and faculty. Discussing impact on:

*Current and former roles of technical services librarians within the
organization

*Internal communications – integrating formerly independent
departments to work differently as part of a larger program

*Partnership observations within the larger organization
*Staffing: new roles/new people/new tasks

*Challenges and Opportunities of leadership – supervising professional
and para-professional staff in a changing environment

*Approaching training opportunities in a new environment

Retooling, Reskilling, RDA

Roman S. Panchyshyn, Catalog Librarian & Assistant Professor, Kent
State University

This presentation will focus on the transformation currently taking
place with professional librarians in Technical Services at Kent State
University Libraries. 1) Professional librarians have actively played
a role in bringing certain workflow processes back into the
department. We have taken over many of the functions that were
previously done by systems staff, especially in the area of electronic
resource cataloging, batch cataloging and management. Professional
librarians have undergone an active reskilling process to help bring
new skills into the department. This reskilling process is impacting
paraprofessional staff as well, since more departmental resources, and
budget dollars need to be applied to electronic resource management
workflows. 2) The role of the professional librarian as teacher is
becoming more prominent and crucial, especially with RDA adoption and
training. It is the professional librarian’s role to establish levels
of competency and develop procedures for both paraprofessional staff
and student assistants. 3) Kent State University Libraries is now a
Tier 1 library in the OhioLINK consortium regarding cataloging and
maintenance of bibliographic records in the OhioLINK central catalog;
our records are prominently visible statewide. Professional librarians
are being asked, more than ever, to take leadership roles in both
OhioLINK and in the state. By assuming these leadership roles, it
insures that technical services librarians are present “at the table”
when administrative decisions are made, at both local and consortial
levels, that impact the future roles of the department and its staff.

Allison Yanos and Charles McElroy, RPLTS IG Co-Chairs
Betsy Appleton and Stephanie Gehring, RPLTS IG Co-Chairs Elect

Betsy Appleton, MSLS
Electronic Resources Librarian
George Mason University Libraries
Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: [log in to unmask]