Tag Archives: service reductions

Announcement of change in LIS Screening Policy

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Dear Colleagues,

I’m writing to let you know of a change in LIS support for film and video screenings that will go into effect for the Spring 2010 semester. Due to staffing and budget reductions in LIS, we are no longer able to provide projectionist assistance for screening videos in DVD, VHS and Laserdisc formats.

Nothing will change for regularly scheduled screenings in Dana, Twilight Aud., and AXN 232. LIS will continue to hire student projectionists to support screenings in these rooms, and you should continue to send your screening schedules to LibReserves, and the Helpdesk as early as possible before the start of the semester to schedule screenings and place DVDs on reserve. This also means that any 16mm and 35mm screenings will run through LIS. The new LIS website, when it launches, will provide an on line request form which will streamline your process for making these requests.

LIS will not support “impromptu screenings” with less than 1 week’s notice. We will need at least a week’s lead time to support any screenings that have not been scheduled at the beginning of the semester.

For all screenings in rooms besides Dana, Twilight, and AXN 232, it will now be faculty’s responsibility to run the screening or arrange for a student screener. You should still place your DVD titles on reserve via the LibRes email box – include the date/time of each DVD title to be screened so that LIS can “book” the title for your screening, effectively blocking others from checking them out prior to your screening. You should contact Stewart Lane (wlane@middlebury.edu) if you need to be trained on the projection equipment in a given room.

Faculty who cannot attend their screening should plan to hire a student in the class to serve as projectionist.  This will be run through the department, as with other student workers. LIS Staff members will not be available to run screenings, except for exceptional circumstances. If you will have a designated student screener, you can email Stewart Lane (wlane@middlebury.edu) if you would like them to be trained. You should also email the name(s) of your designated student screeners to Circulation Services library_circulation@middlebury.edu, so that the student screeners can be granted the appropriate loaning privileges.

While we understand that this is an inconvenience for faculty, the reality is that at our present staffing levels Media Services simply cannot dedicate the time to scheduling and training students at the level they have been. LIS is committed to hiring and training student assistants to staff the Helpdesk during the day and in the evenings so that in the case of difficulties with equipment, there is always someone available to come to the screening location to assist.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this issue, and if you have any suggestions for how we can improve this process.

Sincerely,

— mike

Michael Roy

Dean of Library and Information Services

The Not to Do List Process

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In response to our shrinking staff and shrinking budget, we’ve had to take a hard look at the services we offer, and in many cases either eliminate, reduce, or radically change those services. We thought it would be useful to document the process we’re using to make these decisions, both to encourage us to continue to do this hard work of looking critically at our services, and to make sure that the proper amount of consultation and vetting is taking place as we change our services to match our available resources. Here are the steps we’ve been taking:

1. We’ve challenged all of LIS to come up with ideas for things we can do less of or stop doing or do differently. That idea gets written up, documenting what the present service level is, what the new proposed service level would be, the savings in time or money, and who would be affected by the change.

2. The idea is discussed within the workgroup and/or area as a first step. Conversations across workgroups, areas, and with groups affected by this proposed change are encouraged.

3. If the idea seems worth pursuing, the idea is added to the central list of ideas we are vetting.

4. The ADs will provide the first level of vetting.

5. The managers group will provide a second level of vetting, to try to capture any unintended consequences. This happens on two tracks. The idea is sent out via email, and if there are no objections, we move it forward to the next step. If there are objections, we pause to discuss further.

6. Once it has been internally vetted, as appropriate, we share the idea with any or all of the groups listed below, using the same fast track/slow track method of gathering feedback:(More information about some of these groups can be found at https://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/ )
1. Faculty LIS Advisory Group and/or divisional advisory groups
2. Student LIS Advisory Group
3. Academic Affairs
4. President’s Staff
5. Banner LEADS
6. Academic Dept Chairs

7. Once fully vettted, we’ll implement the change and communicate the change to the affected members of the community.

While this process seems complicated, we think any given idea should be able to be vetted in a month or less, depending on various meeting schedules and agendas, and depending on whether or not the idea moves on the fast track or slow track.

We will shortly publish on the web both the list of reduced services and also the list of service reductions under consideration.