580 Interview Transcript Sue Wozniak Planning

Do you have cycles of planning, or does it take place continually through the year? How are your plans tied to organizational goals? What are the best and worst parts of planning? At Faux Library Faux Librarian plans mostly in long-term and mid-length cycles,

while she tends to respond to tasks as they come at her in the short-term. She works closely with the two instructional librarians from the undergraduate library where they manage the reference and instructional team of graduate students together. They meet once per quarter to plan for 3-month cycles, with some overall planning for the year. The mid-length planning includes ideas they come up with together and reflections on quarters past. Annual planning aligns with direction from the Dean of the Library and greater library system. Success of the training program for the graduate students is assessed and plans adjusted for the following year, accordingly. In years past, training for subject specialties were offered weekly and those available were welcome to attend. This year the trainings are carefully scheduled at times that all of the reference and instruction graduate assistants from can attend and they are a required part of the job. Other types of planning for reference and instruction include the staffing ratios of permanent staff versus students, as well as the design, training, and assessment of the instruction sessions.

Organization

How does the organization of your department influence how you achieve goals? (e.g., with personal who specialize in areas, forming task groups, etc.) Do you feel you can influence the organization of your department? How would you describe your organizational culture?

Faux Library is a large library with 125 librarians. The large size can make Faux Librarian feel lost. She has certain go-to people who feel approachable and she consults with for specific goals. She also confers with people located physically close to her and feels proximity has an impact on collaboration. She thinks a more clustered organization would be helpful to gain more from each other. She does feel like she can influence the organization of her department. Her group made changes in the past year to the way the reference desk is staffed, increasing the student/staff ratio and giving the students higher responsibilities and more in the line of fire experience. She perceives a tight, collegial organizational culture among the subject librarians in her department where everyone treats each other with respect. She has less contact and feels more disconnection with librarians from other departments. The larger library feels more like a large research institution with littler connection between the parts, and she doesnt feel empowered to make those connections.

Human Resources

What human resources functions do you have responsibility for? (e.g., hiring, recruiting, training, evaluating, and personnel development) What is the most difficult aspect of dealing with human-resources-type issues? have you had any sense of conflict among and do you get involved to resolve this

The human resources tasks that Faux Librarian is responsible for include hiring, initial orientation, ongoing training throughout the year, scheduling training events, and employee evaluation. She takes part in all of these tasks as part of a group, other than evaluations, which she does one-on-one. Faux Librarian is not responsible for the paperwork side of things such as scheduling the reference desk and instruction or timesheets, and is quite pleased not to have these responsibilities. Her least favorite human resources task is providing feedback or constructive criticism. She has not been aware of conflict among employees in the time she has worked as manager at Faux Library.

Leading

How do you motivate employees? How do you communicate your vision to your employees?

Faux Librarian motivates her employees by creating opportunities to take on projects of interest and providing rigorous challenge to gain robust skills. She is always working on ways to create more engaging training in support of her employees. One example of her efforts is that she continually changes the practice questions for the training sessions to be more fruitful as learning experiences. She also sends emails of opportunities for training on a regular basis. She communicates what she is trying to get across to her employees with repetition and by not being judgey. She likes to communicate directly rather than going through other people to get messages across.

Coordinating

How does your department coordinate with other departments/sections of the library and outside libraries/organizations? How do you manage this coordination?

Faux Librarian finds coordination at Faux Library to be tough and confusing due to the size of the library. The Reference and Research Services department is made up of many smaller departments. It can be hard to work with the smaller divisions and with other library departments on campus due to the size and physical separation. She does coordinate with the Center for Teaching and Learning. They have a strong partnership and share some cross members. One thing she has learned is to not try to do things in a vacuum but to reach out and share ideas.