This Week in LIS - 1 June 2012

Headline of the Week: LIS Organization Announcement: Librarian Leadership Changes

I am announcing some important organizational and governance changes.

The motivation for the changes is to bring further focus to our operational capability, enable us to prioritize and collaborate on projects that cut across our functions, enhance our ability to manage and communicate the value LIS brings to the mission of Luther College and to address librarian leadership needs and desires.

Ryan Gjerde will report to me and will take on the role Head of Library Operations. In this role he will provide leadership for the librarian team (staff and faculty). This will be a two-year rotating assignment. The rotational nature of the role provides a leadership development opportunity for librarians over time. Ryan will continue in his role of Digital Initiatives Librarian. With this move all staff librarians will now report to the Executive Director of LIS.

Ryan will join the LIS Council and will lead the Library Services meetings. Both of these meetings will include a standing operational agenda and provide room for discussion of topics of importance. We will look to Ryan to spin up Library Services meetings during the summer, beginning in June, to sustain our librarian team momentum and provide continuity year round. We appreciate our faculty librarians have different annual schedules and additional responsibilities to attend to in the summer months and that our staff librarians need to continue their work and projects year round. We will build on good communication skills and trust to continue our library mission year round.

Andi Beckendorf is head of the Library and Information Studies Department. We will ask her to represent the librarians at the Department Heads meeting chaired by the Dean and to play a key role in communicating with our librarian team about topics of interest within the faculty to guide our library work. Andi will also keep the LIS Council communicating with the faculty at large. We will formalize this with an entry on the standing agenda for both the LIS Council and Library Services meetings. Ensuring the entire librarian team is keenly connected with the faculty is a very important role and is critical to our ongoing success.

I have asked Rachel Vagts to join the LIS Council. In a digital age the value of what is most unique within our collection goes up. Further, digitization enables visibility and growing access to our archive. There are a number of ideas being exercised that will leverage the archives to further the Luther College mission. Rachel and her team’s recent successes in securing outside grants present new possibilities for funding across LIS.

I want to thank John Goodin for all his contributions on the LIS Council. John’s experience and collaborative nature are invaluable to our team. His advice and counsel are very instructive and guiding for me personally. With the new Council membership we will, with thanks, release John from his LIS Council service.

I want to thank everyone in LIS for all their support and encouragement during these first three months while I have been getting on board and working on the librarian leadership topic. If you have questions or want to discuss further please contact me.

Paul
paul.mattson@luther.edu

LIS Blog Highlights from the Week

The following articles are sampled from those available on the LIS Blog:

• Library Services Meeting Minutes
• Software Development Meeting May 29th, 2012 [Luther only]
• What’s the status of the Colleague SQL Server Project? [Luther only]

Notes from LIS Council

LIS Council is the leadership team within LIS. Among the topics discussed this past week were:

• New Items
  • LIS Presentation at October Board of Regents Meeting
    • President Torgerson has requested that LIS prepare a presentation for consideration by the Board of Regents at their October meeting.
  • Organization/Governance Announcement
    • See today’s Headline of the Week (above).
  • Topics for LIS Standing Agenda
    • Several ideas were discussed as candidates and there will be further conversations.
  • Summer Library Team Meetings
    • A discussion was held on continuing the momentum of the library team meetings through the summer. The target is to start them in June.
  • Planning Meetings for Summer
    • We will have two workshop days this summer. June 14 will focus on climate, innovation and team building. June 28 will focus on strategy. As pre-reading for June 14, LIS members are asked to read Seth Godin’s “Poke the Box.” Copies are in the process of being handed out by Jennifer Rian.
  • Multimedia Planning
    • President Torgerson has asked Paul and Rob Larson, VP of Marketing, to co-facilitate a broad, campus-wide activity to deal with growing multimedia needs on campus. The group is expected to produce a proposal for consideration.

NITLE Opportunities

As a member of NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education), Luther has the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of developmental and training programs intended for faculty, librarians, and information technologists. Events listed at the links below are currently open for registration by Luther participants. LIS Staff who are interested in participating in an event should speak with Paul Mattson. Faculty who are interested in participating should speak with Lori Stanley. Participation is contingent upon available funding and program acceptance.

Conferences & Events: http://www.nitle.org/events/events_list.php
Digital Humanities Events: http://www.nitle.org/help/digital_humanities_events.php

Upcoming LIS Training, Instruction, and Professional Development Opportunities

Click on the event below for specific information and for a link to register. More information on training and development events is available.

This Week in LIS is published most Fridays by Paul Mattson, Executive Director of LIS at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Content is made available under Creative Commons license.