Based in Amherst, Five Colleges Incorporated—a nonprofit consortium composed of Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst—is examining a consolidation of the schools’ library technical services, but the push for greater efficiency has left some librarians worried about their jobs. The Librarians Council spearheading the plan issued a statement November 2 calling for “further due diligence,” a cost-benefit analysis, and another report by the end of January 2010.
Following the September 29 release of a Technical Services Consolidation Task Force report (PDF file), speculation began that the centralization of tech services would leave at least eight library employees out of a job. D. Ellen Bonner, head of tech services at Mount Holyoke, predicted publicly that she and seven other staff members would lose their jobs in the transition. “It’s a given that the department is going,” she said in the October 1 Mount Holyoke News student newspaper.
The Five College Librarians Council (FCLC) had issued a press release October 5 and circulated the draft report, asking people to give feedback to their campus council representatives by October 19. The decision to study the matter further was based on that feedback. Jay Schafer, director of libraries at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and chair of the Librarians Council, shared the memo with American Libraries:
- “Although the initial plan called for the implementation of a consolidated workflow for books effective July 1, 2010, we feel it’s important to engage in further due diligence regarding the consolidation plans. In the meantime, the Five Colleges libraries have each agreed to implement PromptCat and shelf-ready processing on their respective campuses no later than July 1, 2010 for books ordered through [Baker and Taylor’s] YBP [Library Services]. We have further agreed to work towards implementing common standards for receiving YBP-supplied books, including checking physical condition and cataloging records.
- “We will ask the [Technical Services Consolidation] Task Force to continue their work on Phase 1 (books) of the project, and provide an additional report to us no later than the end of January 2010. This report should include a cost study using data from FY2009 and consideration of additional book operations such as gifts, backlogs, retrospective conversion, deletions, and depository transfers. In addition, we will ask them to include in the report common standards for receiving YBP-supplied books, including checking physical condition and cataloging records, working with other Five Colleges library committees as appropriate.
- “We have decided to engage an outside consultant to perform a cost-benefit analysis of a consolidated workflow for the materials formats included in the original charge to the Task Force: books, other monographic formats, serials, and electronic resources. We plan to meet with representatives of the consulting firm R2 in November (if possible) to discuss the project scope and invite them to submit a proposal and cost estimate to perform the analysis of a consolidated workflow. R2 has extensive experience in the library technical services field and has worked with two of the Five College institutions.
- “After evaluating the acceptability of R2’s proposal and cost estimate and considering other consulting firm options, we will seek grant funding from the Davis Educational Foundation to support the consultant’s work. The next grant application cycle for Davis begins in March 2010. Other funding will be sought if the response from Davis is negative.
- “We aim to have funding available in time to permit the consultant to gather and analyze data and workflows during summer 2010. Additional information needed by the consultant in their analysis, beyond what is included in the Task Force’s report, will be supplied by the [FCLC,] the Task Force, and/or other technical services staff. The goal is to have the completed consultant’s cost-benefit report in the fall 2010. The consultant’s analysis and other input from staff and our campus communities will inform the FCLC’s decisions on next steps in this process.”
Schafer told AL November 3 that, to his knowledge, there had been no layoffs at any of the Five Colleges member libraries as a result of this initiative. “If any one institution has to reduce its library budget through reductions in staffing, then they are going to have to do it whether or not we do tech services consolidation,” he said, pointing out that any decisions about workforce reduction are made by the individual institutions.
“We realize that consolidating these services is a difficult task and impacts many layers in our libraries and our organizations,” Schafer said, “but we’ve been talking about this for a couple of years.” Libraries have been slow to change their cataloging practices, he added, but they must. “It’s not easy, but it’s something that we have to explore.” It has not been necessary for a very long time for every library to catalog every book, he pointed out, but taking advantage of that to the fullest extent is a difficult proposition because in some ways it is seen as compromising quality. “The biggest question we have to ask ourselves, Schafer said, is ‘What’s good enough?’ Is a nearly perfect catalog record worth the cost of achieving that goal?” He questioned the sustainability of 70% of the libraries’ purchasing budget now going to electronic and other digital resources, while 70% of technical services staff is still dealing with print.
Budget cuts in 2003 were what prompted the examination of tech services at UMass Amherst Libraries, Schafer recalled, to see what level of economies could be achieved by streamlining and better use of technology. At that time, despite the fact that cuts reached approximately 20%, loss of staff was handled through retirements and attrition. “But we realized we had to look differently at tech services.” He said the current effort of Five Colleges from the beginning was to create efficiencies and reassign staff to other areas in new and innovative ways, but it got caught up in that budget crisis.
Schafer pointed out that the convergence of the national economic crisis and the report of the FCLC is probably what prompted speculation about job loss, but it has always been the intent of library administrators to move library staff out of traditional technical services and into more positions that meet today's emerging needs, not to lose positions. “The five independent Five College institutions each has its own budget issues,” Schafer told AL and each library is going to have to meet its individual budget requirements.” At UMass Amherst Libraries, the federal stimulus package made this year’s reductions pale in comparison to 2003, with only a $250,000 or 2% base budget reduction, which has been handled by giving up four vacant positions. “We would have been cut much more if we didn’t have stimulus money,” Schafer noted. “We don’t know yet which way it will go in 2011,” he said, but “if any one library is going to have budget reductions it is going to have reductions whether or not we do the technical services consolidation.”
The report of the Technical Services Consolidation Task Force represents a larger effort within Five Colleges to identify areas in which savings might be made without impacting the quality of services provided, Schafer said. “Consortium members have for decades, since its founding in 1965, combined services both to save money and improve offerings. Some two dozen faculty members—most of whom are tenured or tenure track—teach on multiple campuses, providing students with top-level instruction without bearing the cost of a full-time professor.”
Comment:
November 5, 2009
Mount Holyoke Librarian Responds:
D. Ellen Bonner, head of tech services at Mount Holyoke, wrote to American Libraries November 5 to express her point of view on how the Five Colleges tech services consolidation is being handled. Her comments, in part:
“Thank you for your news item about the Five Colleges technical services consolidation issue. I eagerly anticipate discussion and scrutiny of this process beyond the confines of Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley. Still, I do feel obligated to clarify a few points.
“Actually, I was quoted somewhat out of context by the Mount Holyoke News. What Mr. Schafer does not say is that the fanfare accompanying the announcement of the Five Colleges technical services consolidation back in April also included Human Resources representatives (at least at Mount Holyoke) explaining that paraprofessional technical services staff would be losing their jobs in the consolidation, and that no one should expect to be placed at UMass. They were invited to ‘apply, like anyone else’ if there were new openings at UMass., but nothing could be guaranteed.
“Additionally, subsequent departmental discussions with our director and HR accentuated the reality of job losses for my staff, since we spent much of our time reviewing severance packages. Over the last few months administration has softened that stance somewhat, and has begun touting its efforts to place individuals elsewhere within the college system. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the original charge to the task force cited the inevitable loss of jobs across the Five Colleges (UMass. being the “surprise” location of the consolidated unit, coincidentally the only unionized organization among the five of us!), and called for current staff to be treated ‘humanely’ during the reorganization process.
“To the best of my knowledge there has not been any talk of job loss or reassignment at UMass., since presumably all of their current staff would be required to handle materials from the other four colleges. With recent publicity regarding this state institution’s impending budget cuts, and with the reduced number of UMass. monographic purchases indicated by the report, it undoubtedly has been reassuring to Mr. Schafer to know that his organization would have been able to weather the crisis without job losses, simply by executing their particular record and materials workflow on behalf of other institutions in the region.
“Had this plan been implemented as originally projected, the outcome would have been considerably less benign at the other colleges. At Mount Holyoke it became clear that the bulk of my department would be terminated when the director publicly stated, ‘There will likely be layoffs associated with this initiative, and it’s likely that the first of them will take effect in July 2010’ and ‘It is also probable that we may need to retain a small technical services staff presence on an ongoing basis at MHC to manage workflow at this end’ (Charlotte Slocum-Patriquin email, April 10, 2009).
“With the directors’ recent decision to invite a consulting firm to review processes and costs, it is likely that the true local expense of outsourcing technical services to UMass. will become even more clear than the interim report demonstrates. Or, better yet, perhaps a truly collaborative process will emerge, now that individual directors seem to be reexamining their ‘top-down’ approach by committing to local workflow reengineering and to maximizing efficiency at home before asking someone else to do it for them.”
