How We Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love E-Journal Work Flows at Long Island University

1.  How We Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love E-Journal Work Flows at Long Island University Presented at State University of New York Library Association Annual Conference, Brockport, NY, 6/18/2010  Edward Keane, Acting Periodicals and Database Coordinator, LIU, Brooklyn

2. Sunset on the Periodicals Department?

3. Personnel Challenges in the Time of the Great Recession • 4.5 F/T employees means we are "fully" staffed, and hence vulnerable • Clerical union and faculty were asked by administration to forgo CBA raises Fall, 2009 • Two employees over 65 • New Dean in September, 2010 • Other Departments have staffing issues • 1,400 print titles in 2002, 300 in 2010 • 4 New e-journal packages added in Spring, 2010

4. Changing fomats: Support Staff Challenges • In 2004 Grahame/McAdam report 87% of ARL's changed personnel or workflow to mangage e-resources • 21% of Brooklyn's serials collection is Print Only • Dramatic drop-off of users at the public service desk • Most formats changed at in the last 2 years   • Manage/track data across multiple systems (ILS, OCLC, Serials Solutions) •  Decipher and reconcile multiple interfaces • Managing/balancing retraining with timely implementation • "The Library mission has always been to preserve the past and not invent the future..."-Weiner •  Change the organizational sturcture and culture

5.  Options • Convince Acquisitions Deparment to take back check-ins and claims • Eliminate Check-ins/Claims •  Reassign staff to other departments •  Consider vendor services (outsourcing)   •  Redeploy staff (e.g., add free online titles to the system[s]) •  Change the duties and workflow incrementally

6. The End of the Beginning         • In Feb 2010 we began weekly (!!!) staff meetings • The Easter Egg/Treasure Hunt that the claiming process had turned into was streamlined, and one person assumed the duties.  Anyone harboring a paper claim list was given two weeks amnesty • Traditionally, the process of adding, fixing, checking on online access with our subscription agent was shared with staff •  One staff member works with ILL half-time • Two staff members have been tasked with updating all the OCLC holdings and the ILS, both of which had been neglected due to the rapidity of format change and cancellations

7. Oh to live on, Candy Mountain....Where we'd like to be at the end of 2010At least one staff member trained and working with Serials SolutionsAll OCLC and ILS holdings reconciled  One staff member responsible for maintaining open access titles across the relevant systemsElimination of check-in and claimsContinue to work with ILL on highly requested titles and issues in the union listTrain staff to utilize online usage statistics

8. Staff Reaction to Meeting Once a Week

9. Results of Periodicals Assistants” multiple choice SurveyQuestion 1: 4/5 found weekly meetings “Very helpful”, 1 found them “Somewhat Helpful.Question 2: 4/5 reported their understanding of the department’s role within the library “Helped greatly”, 1 reported, “Helped somewhat.”Question 3: The area the weekly meetings helped most was, 2/5, “Any/All Horizon (ILS) issues”, 2/5, “Claiming”, 1 reported “all of the above, Claiming, Check-in, Closing out titles in ILS, Any/All ILS issues”Question 4: Regarding Public Service and finding online titles, the weekly meetings, 4/5, reported they were “very confident as a result our meetings” 1 reported being “Somewhat confident as a result of the meetings.”Question 5: On whether the assistant had a better understanding of the Big Picture, ie, how the department serves the end-user, 4/5 chose “As a meeting more often I have a better understanding of the Big Picture”, 1 chose “The Big Picture is somewhat clearer.”

10. Examples of New workflows in our Department aka Inside the Sausage Factory Resolving Full Text Access Issues

11. Claiming

12. New workflow duties, ILS, Serials Solutions and access problems

13. 2007 2008 2009 YTD E-Journal Titles Searched 66,514 75,426 83,621 34,100 2007 2008 2009 YTD 4th Floor Gate Count N/A 96,661 52,663 51,760 Printed Jnls Circulated 3,313 1,936 1,597 1,267 Reference Questions 981 1,157 1,245 1,260 • Edward Keane, Periodicals Librarian, 2002-06, '09-'10 • Cora Dudley, Periodicals Assistant, 33 Years • Milagros Casto, Periodicals Assistant, 10 Years • Vincente Watson, Paraprofessional, 10 Years • David Hillard, Periodicals Assistant, 7 Years • Carol Fields, Periodicals Assistant, 3 Years   • Like employees everywhere, when the financial crisis hit Long Island University's Brooklyn campus in Sept. 2008, a ten minute subway ride from Tim Geithner's office, the workforce was beset with layoffs and rumors of layoffs, budget cuts, hiring and pay freezes.  By the beginning of the academic year the administration asked the unions for give-backs. Evidence we were living in a world gone wrong, or just plain Hard Times, were everywhere.  Those in higher education who saw colleagues laid off or furloughed as the smirking Ponzi fiend Bernie Madoff was sent to prison reinforced the notion that the country's priorities were reshuffled one too many times and dealt from the bottom of the deck.  In short, people's moods were trending like the charts and graphs in USA Today, straight down. • Our Recent Past  • Some stats the department maintains confirm the obvious trends in academic serials, but also reflect a disparity between print usage and gate count, indicating the 4th floor of the library remains a successful venue in the old "library as place" chestnut, and offering us opportunities to engage, instruct and help a constant flow of student traffic: •  We CAN Go On Meeting Like This Despite all the bad news, we were encouraged once the semester got underway; enrollment, it turned out, had gone up 2% from the previous semester; students were being given assignments requiring them to access peer reviewed publications in both print and electronic formats; despite all the positions on campus that had been excised, we learned everyone in the library was safe; the Dean of the Library gave the OK to purchase four new e-journal packages, ensuring a number of projects for the staff.  I met with the staff in February to discuss the short term projects we could work on and to discuss long term strategies that could keep the Periodicals Department a relevant and unit despite the challenges presented by the digital collections and beyond "Great Recession."  Soon after, I made what turned out to be a productive, if at times taxing choice, and scheduled weekly staff meetings. X Keeping it Real and Relevant in the Long Island University Periodicals Department by Edward Keane, Periodicals Librarian/Database Coordinator, Brooklyn Campus, 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Graphics: Outcomes from Spring 2010 Weekly Staff Meetings, clockwise from right: 1.How and where do we change our holdings after buying bundles of e-journals? 2. Why isn’t that article available full text? 3.ClaimsX *Source: LIU Brooklyn Periodicals Access Database Conclusion  At the end of the 2009 Fall Semester uncertainity of every kind was evident.  Staff meetings, typically held once or bimonthly, were increased to weekly in the library's new instruction labs. At these meetings, workflow was reevaluated. Each staff member's strengths and weakness were discussed openly, not always easy, but ultimately it became familiar.  Through repeated weekly reinforcement, staff--initially jarred by the changes to their work routine--gradually became more comfortable when the "big picture" in academic library user services.  There is collective pride in learning new technologies and taking part in peer training.  Some consensus was arrived at, such as settling the questions of who is suited best for specific tasks, but more importantly how cross-training staff may keep the department safe from budget cuts, reassignments and layoffs in a difficult economic atmosphere.  *Source: Serials Solutions  

14. Works Cited Anderson, Rick, Steven D. Zink, and Susan Davis.        "How        I     Learned       to     Stop Worrying and Give Up Journal      Check-In." Serials Librarian 44.3/4 (2003): 255-260. Library,     Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full     Text. EBSCO. Web. Deeken, JoAnne, Paula L. Webb, and Virginia Taffurelli. "We are All     Winners: Training Silents to Millennials to Work as a Team." Serials     Librarian 54.3/4 (2008): 211-216. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with     Full Text. EBSCO. Web. Geller, Marilyn. "Managing Electronic Resources." Library Technology     Reports 42.2 (2006): 6-13. Library, Information Science      &  Technology Abstracts with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. Ohler, Lila A., and Gerry McKiernan. "The Keys to Successful      Change     Management for Serials." Serials Librarian 51.1 (2006):     37-71. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts     with     Full Text. EBSCO. Web. Weiner, Sharon Gray. "Resistance to Change in Libraries: Application      of Communication Theories." portal: Libraries & the      Academy 3.1 (2003): 69. Library, Information Science & Technology     Abstracts with Full Text. EBSCO. Web