Is 3 Really a Crowd?

1. Andrew White, PhD Interim Dean and Director Director, Health Sciences Library Stony Brook University Is 3 Really a Crowd? ALA 2011 June 26, 2011

2. About Stony Brook University

3. About Stony Brook University

4. About Stony Brook University • Became a member of the Association of Universities (AAU), an organization of the top 62 research universities in North America in 2001. • 25,000 students and 2,200 faculty • Long Island’s largest single-site employer, providing more than 14,000 employees with full- or part-time jobs • More than 150 majors, minors, and combined-degree programs • Six interest-based Undergraduate Colleges for all freshmen • Annually ranks in the top 25 universities nationwide in revenue derived from the licensing of technology developed on campus. • Has technology incorporated into four FDA-approved drugs—including ReoPro, the leading drug used to reduce mortality in cardiac patients • Only State University of NY campus with any FDA-approved drugs.

5. Campus Libraries • Melville Library • Health Sciences Center Library

7. First Guests – September 2009 • Provost’s academic review of Melville Library • 4 ARL Library Directors

8. Observations • Back-office from a print-based era which has been supplanted by a digital one. • Overstaffed back-office • staff needs to be switched over to serve undergraduates and other users. • Separation of electronic resources with only 2 staff makes no sense • Recommended increase in acquisitions $ • Yielded extra $1 million to base

9. Second Guests – May 2010 • First phase of Melville Library staff reorganization • 4 AD-level consultants

10. Observations • Reconfigure Technical Services • support acquisition and metadata management of all collection formats • Administration of Resource Management • position Library with skills and structure for support of new institutional initiatives • RMS staff should be proficient in servicing and processing various formats found in the current and future library collections

11. Third Guests – July 2010 • Overall review of campus operations • Bain & Co.

12. Observations • Realign the library organization to avoid filling open vacancies • Includes shifting existing library personnel into supervisory vacancies • Automate cataloging & invoicing • Question % of budget spent on digital materials vs. % of staff time devoted to processing print collections

13. Consequences of More Purchasing $ • More digital backfiles • Changes in holdings / location codes / serials management • New encoding procedures for acq budget management • Improved tracking of one-time vs. recurring expenses

14. Consequences of Less Operational $ • Staff in TS reduced by 8 FTE • Retirements / reassignments / resignations • Acquisitions head reassigned to new position of annual reporting • Accredition • ARL • NYS • ERM staff essentially 1 FTE

15. New Charge • Merge the libraries administratively • Simplify access to collections • Consolidate some IT licensing • Reduce operational redundancies • Keep collections budgets separate • Automate more processes

17. Merger Activities • Discovery Tool investigation • Identify areas for common metadata tagging • Comprehensive inventory in both libraries • Review of cataloging/ acquisition practices • Common format definitions • Simplification of acquisitions definitions

18. Q & A