Pergamon
Library Collections, Acquisitions,
& Technical Services 27 (2003) 281–289
Technology, productivity and change in library technical
services
Karen Calhoun
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
Abstract
Based on presentations to the ALCTS Leadership Development Committee and the Potomac
Technical Processing Librarians, this paper explores the relationship of technology to productivity,
describes early 21st century demands on library technical services, and evaluates the application of an
organizational change model called “Future Search” to technical services at the Cornell University
Library. © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Technical services; Technology; Productivity; Organizational change; Change management;
Reorganization; Cornell University Library
1. Technological advances
In his book A History of Classical Physics, J. D. Bernal [1] discusses the medieval horse
harness, specifically the horse collar. Europeans appear to have used the horse collar from the
8th or 9th century, and Bernal makes a startling claim for what we see today as such a humble
object. He claims that the horse collar represents a technological leap forward, so much so
that the collar gave Western Europe technical supremacy.
When people began using horses around 2000 B.C., they did not know how to effectively
harness them. The Romans used a neck collar that actually imposed pressure and stress on
the horse’s neck. The medieval horse collar, by contrast, rests on both the shoulders and
breast of the horse, giving the horse much more pulling power and allowing the agricultural
use of the horse to flourish. As a result, Bernal claims, the area under the plow in Western
Europe almost doubled as did grain production. Thus the horse collar had a transformative
Tel.: ⫹1-607-255-9915.
E-mail address: ksc10@cornell.edu.
1464-9055/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S1464-9055(03)00068-X
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K. Calhoun / Libr. Coll. Acq. & Tech. Serv. 27 (2003) 281–289
Fig. 1. 30⫹ years of technological advances in technical services.
influence on European civilization, because with the doubling of the ability to feed ones’
people comes the possibility of new kinds of human settlements and new kinds of human
enterprise.
Moving ahead about a thousand years, it is clear that the MARC record was also a great
leap forward. Over the past thirty years, it has had a transformative influence on libraries, as
did the founding of the first shared computerized cataloging system based on the MARC
record–the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). The original OCLC, now the OCLC
Online Computer Library Center, was founded in 1967, housed in the main library at Ohio
State University, and served 54 Ohio college libraries [2]. The first MARC records distributed by the Library of Congress were loaded into the OCLC database [3, 4].
The MARC record and the Library of Congress’ and OCLC’s implementation of it,
provided a new plane on which online cooperative cataloging, then resource sharing, then a
new kind of reference searching, could flourish. Further, these technological advances–and
the data sets they produced–paved the way for the development of automated local systems
for libraries, and all of these developments together put libraries in a position to be early
adopters of the Internet and its applications, including e-mail, FTP and telnet, and the Web
itself. On this foundation digital collections and new kinds of library systems are emerging
(Figure 1). These new digital library management systems offer portal functionality, crosscollection or “federated” searching, and reference linking [5].
Returning to the horse collar for a moment, by the late Middle Ages horses were being
used not just for plowing but also for heavy hauling. Library technical services are doing the
“heavy lifting” for libraries, too, but it is time for another great leap forward. In recent years
K. Calhoun / Libr. Coll. Acq. & Tech. Serv. 27 (2003) 281–289
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Table 1
Factors Driving Change
NOW
EMERGING
} Local collections, mostly print
} Highly standardized records in library
schemes
} Centralized resource description, limited
decentralization for specific subjects or
languages
} Strong cataloging tradition, professional
education of cataloger
} Many kinds of data sets, local and remote
} Less structure in indexing, mixture of metadata
} Records from many sources; distributed
responsibility for resource description
} Demographic changes (retirements, fewer
entering profession as catalogers), on the job
straining, outsourcing
many authors have written about dramatic changes in collections and technical services.
Among these authors, Rowley and Black discussed the factors driving the evolution of
collection development [6]; Propas described the process redesign of technical services at
Stanford [7]; Slight-Gibney analyzed time and costs at the University of Oregon [8]; and
Morris, Hobert, Osmus and Wool reported on many years’ of research devoted to quantifying
cataloging costs [9]. Each author’s work reveals a context of a teeming array of information
formats and types, rapid technological change, rising prices for library materials, close
scrutiny of library budgets and costs, increasing staff accountability, organizational restructuring, and growing user expectations for electronic and digital services.
It is a defining moment for technical services departments, which are being asked to do
more work with the same or fewer resources at a time when they must find ways to become
involved in new library initiatives. To achieve the results they need, technical services
departments need breakthrough, double-digit improvements in cost, time and effectiveness.
2. Early 21st century technical services
In an earlier conference paper and in keeping with an analysis laid out by Ercegovac [10],
I suggested that Internet resources are driving fundamental changes that demand new
operational and organizational assumptions about bibliographic control [11]. Table 1 lists
some of the factors that affect the context in which technical services departments work,
before, during and after the emergence of widely used Internet resources. The impact of the
last factor–the decline in technical services professional staffing, rising retirement rates, and
the de-emphasis of cataloging education in graduate programs– can be expected to be
profound by the end of this decade [12].
Figure 2 sketches–in an illustrative rather than comprehensive way–the landscape facing
library technical services departments today. In the area of bibliographic control, traditional
library materials (books, printed journals, audiovisual materials, etc.) continue to pour into
acquisitions and cataloging, while at the same time electronic resources and digital collections demand new workflows, additional metadata standards, technology-based processing
methods, and new tools like OCLC Connextion (and before it, CORC).
At the level of the desktop, there is a more complex environment for the management of
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Fig. 2. Early 21st century technical services landscape.
hardware, software and networks. Implementations of integrated library systems like Voyager and ALEPH, which feature Windows clients, are now commonplace. The desire to
achieve speed and productivity, yet avoid repetitive motion injury, has led to an emphasis on
workplace ergonomics and the use of macros. Technical services staff use a growing number
of software applications in addition to their acquisitions and cataloging clients. In the area of
data management, the key trend driving all others is the shift from data entry–that is, working
on records one by one–to data manipulation–that is, working on batches of records at once.
LeBlanc [13] and Li [14] describe two recent examples of innovative implementations of
batch record processing, both of which improved user access to library materials more
quickly and economically than would have been possible using traditional manual processes.
Further, newer integrated library systems tend to be based on relational databases, and
systems like Voyager allow data queries, data extraction, and report creation. Librarians
using Voyager are beginning to learn how to use Microsoft Access to query and produce
custom reports from Voyager’s relational database tables. Technical services departments
have just begun to realize the productivity gains possible from the change to relational
databases.
Finally, the role played by the Web in today’s libraries requires technical services
professionals to have not just basic Web skills, but the abilities to organize and manage Web
sites and to help design, build and maintain digital library management systems and portals.
Building such systems is not the responsibility of technical services alone, but technical
services professionals need to be key players as their institutions build the next generation’s
library information systems. The new demands on technical services resemble a three-ring
circus, with digital collections in one ring, networked electronic resources in another, and
portals in the third. This is not to mention the fourth ring–that of print and other traditional
library materials, which continue to be extremely important for users. Nevertheless, to
maintain its central role in organizing library content on behalf of the community of users it
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285
serves, technical services must play an active role in all three new areas. Only in this way will
technical services continue to thrive and to begin to attract new entry-level professionals to
this branch of librarianship.
3. Productivity improvements
Library technical services departments must become more productive, and not just
incrementally but dramatically so. A review of the business literature suggests that productivity boosts come from improving the workforce through education and training, better
equipping the workforce, and improving technology so that inputs produce more output [15].
Yet everyone knows of situations in which new technology can actually be counterproductive; there is more to productivity gains than better technology.
In his book Real Change Leaders, Jon Katzenbach [16] agrees that technological advances
play a role in productivity gains. Equally important, however, are people- and processintensive change. Katzenbach and his team propose that breakthrough improvements require
people to learn new skills and behaviors and to take a “clean slate” approach to how work
gets done. It is a question of balance; the results of an attempt to become more productive
are dictated by the balance between 1) who the people are and what they know; 2) their tools,
technologies and methods (processes); and 3) the tasks to be accomplished.
The way out of the present dilemma facing technical services departments means updating
staff skills, changing workflows, implementing technology-based solutions, rethinking assumptions, and learning what users find truly important. These are first steps, ones that will
free up human resources to proceed to the next step, which is for technical services to claim
and play a central role in the transition to a new kind of library.
4. Change management
Changes of the kind proposed in this paper are not merely operational but transformative.
A transformational change is needed that will allow technical services to do more work with
fewer people (and due to the aging of the profession, with fewer librarians) and that will
broaden the scope of technical services’ responsibilities and influence. Fortunately, the
literature of change management offers much guidance. Beckhard offered one model for
transformational change in an organization [17]. The stages include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Envisioning the future state and choosing a desired intermediate state
Diagnosing the present state
Determining what is needed to move to the intermediate state
Identifying the stakeholders who are critical to reaching the intermediate state
Identifying steps to assure the change occurs and lasts
At Cornell University Library, Central Technical Services (CTS) managers and staff
implemented a change model called “Future Search” [18]. Future Search is a highly
participatory planning method developed in Cornell’s Organizational Development Services
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Fig. 3. CTS Future Search.
department. Figure 3 illustrates the Future Search stages and the importance of continuing
communications with stakeholders inside and outside the department throughout all stages.
The process began with a retreat of CTS’ fourteen managers and supervisors to gain
consensus on what they wanted most for CTS–that is, their values. The next step was to
develop goals and objectives driven by those values. The chosen objectives were to:
●
●
●
●
●
Recover fully from the transition to a new ILS
Align CTS priorities with Library-wide goals and objectives [19]
Position CTS as a key player in library digital initiatives
Redesign and align workflows with the new priorities
Provide necessary documentation and training for the changes
In January 2002 CTS was reorganized to better accomplish the Future Search objectives
(Figure 4). The new organization better integrated acquisitions and bibliographic control,
enabled greater innovation and productivity, introduced a metadata services group, and
strengthened an already-existing emphasis on technology-assisted workflows.
There were new roles for many. Something that is not apparent from the organizational
chart is that CTS was not ready, in January 2002, to fill in behind the four people who were
moved to create the new metadata services group, or behind the one person who became the
new head of the ordering unit. As a result there were and will continue to be tradeoffs. Some
staff members certainly felt that the timing was not right–they asked, “Why change now?
Can’t these things wait?” CTS managers went ahead with the reorganization however,
because while some times are better than others for change, there is never an ideal time.
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Fig. 4. CTS organizational structure, January 2002.
Further, staking out the ground and creating the metadata services unit was critical to
positioning CTS in new library initiatives.
Although there have been bumps along the way, the reorganization has been a successful
one. Productivity has continued to rise, the metadata services group quickly established
itself, and in January 2003 CTS embarked on a new approach to bibliographic control called
“classification on receipt,” originally pioneered by Stanford [20].
5. Conclusions and summary
One lesson learned is that as much work as it is, it is relatively easy to make a plan for
change. To make a plan that people will carry out is the real task, and that is harder to
achieve. People, especially critical stakeholders, must be willing to go along with the change.
It was essential to have the support of CTS managers and supervisors for a shared principle–
that to be successful in the long run, technical services must play a central role in digital
library design and development and in e-resource management. The January 2002 reorganization allowed CTS to reach an intermediate state along the journey toward that goal. A
second lesson was that people–all the people who were affected by the change–together with
the change process itself, are fundamental to whether the change will succeed, succeed
partially, or fail.
The reorganization of CTS was a lot of change for people to bear. At the same time, as
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Diedrichs noted in her article on rethinking acquisitions, “normal” is never going to come
back to technical services [21]. Coping with the change required a continuous flow of
information, the willingness to honor individuals’ resistance to change, the creation of
transitional roles for staff, an appreciation of the emotional cycle of change, and patience.
Technology is not the key to productivity in technical services, although it plays an
important role and developing technological innovations is a critical ingredient. People are
the key to success, together with what they know, their attitudes and behaviors, how they
choose to do their work, the tasks to which they are assigned, and the processes they use.
Technical services departments can dramatically boost their productivity, provided they are
willing to continually examine what they are doing, what they need to do, and how they do
it. A graduated, increasingly skilled use of information technology, together with resourcefulness and creativity, can be the engine of momentous advances in library technical services.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank two individuals from Cornell University Organizational
Development Services (ODS) for their guidance in change management strategies. Chester
C. Warzynski, ODS director, consulted on the effective use of his “Future Search” planning
tool in CTS. The remarks on coping with change are drawn from a workshop led by Ann
Dyckman, ODS senior human resources consultant, for managers and supervisors in CTS.
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