Organizational Issues Task Force
Proposed Organizational Model

The organizational model we are considering is outlined below. Please comment freely. As with past OITF web forms, we plan to collect your responses and post them on the web anonymously. We'll be collecting responses through this form, as well as through town meetings during the coming month. We've scattered comment boxes throughout the form for easier use. The deadlines for comments is October 6, 1998.*

For further explanation refer to the complete message sent by Ginny Steel.

* The deadline has now passed, and this form has been disabled. If you need to get in touch with the OITF as a group, please use their listserv (oitf-lib@mit.edu).

Proposed Modified Model One for the MIT Libraries’ Public Service Units—A Three-Dimensional Approach:

• Five divisional librarians: one each for Barker, Dewey, Humanities, Rotch, and Science plus an Institute Archivist and Head of Document Services
• Collection managers and reference coordinators in each divisional library
• The Associate Head position is probably necessary in this model

  your comments:

• Creation of more focused job descriptions by asking each of the Librarians I, II, or III in the divisional libraries to choose a primary area of responsibility from the following: reference, selection, instruction/orientation/training. In addition, each of these librarians will be asked to choose a secondary area of focus. ( p. 10 of the OITF report) Each divisional library will have at least one librarian who focuses on each of the three areas.

• Creation of a user-focused organization by asking each of the divisional librarians, the Head of Document Services, and the Institute Archivist to take responsibility for coordinating services to a specific user group such as undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, researchers, alumni, administration, and outside users. Professional staff in the divisional libraries will be asked to choose a group to focus on and to participate in a librarywide entity that oversees services to that group. Support staff may have the opportunity to participate. Each divisional library will have at least one person who focuses on each of the user groups.

• Establishment or creation of forums to serve the following functional groups: circulation, processing, reference, selection, and instruction. Convenors or chairs of these groups will be selected from the members of the groups and will rotate. (p.12 of the OITF report)

• Establishment of an ISP pilot in either Dewey or Rotch with an evaluation after 6 months (p.13 of the OITF report)
• Beginning to plan for the possibility of establishing of a "super ISP" in Hayden as recommended in the OITF report ( p.13 of the OITF report)

• Review of the placement in the organization of ILB to study whether it should remain part of the Humanities Library or become affiliated with another entity such as Document Services (p.15 of the OITF report)

• Consideration of the creation of an Access Services Librarian position to manage Building 14 public space

• Continuation of the current structure of having the branches report to the divisional libraries

  The intent of this modification of Model One is to create a solid user focus in public service units, to build a sense of "systemness" for divisional library staff, and to move decision-making down to lower levels in the organization.

There are still issues to be addressed, including:

• career paths for support staff: We need input from Human Resources before proceeding.
• how the Hayden super ISP would work and what its relationship would be with the Science Library and Humanities Library
• how the Dewey/Humanities Processing Team would function with this structure
• what would happen to the jobs of people who currently split their time between two divisional libraries

  Other comments:
  

The deadline for submitting feedback has now passed, and this form has been disabled. If you need to get in touch with the OITF as a group, please use their listserv (oitf-lib@mit.edu).