Reporting, Surveys, Email and Calendars

New Reporting Structure
As I mentioned in the April 23rd posting, as of July 1 the AHSL now reports to Dr. William Crist, Vice President for Health Affairs. I have met with Dr. Crist and expect to meet with him as needed to keep him informed about library issues. Mary Holcomb, Cindy Steber and I recently met with Jerry Miron, the Chief Financial Officer of the AHSC (who also reports to Dr. Crist) to explain the library’s financial situation and unique needs.

In addition, Biomedical Communications and the “software side” of Information Technology Services will now report to the Vice President. This means that Marcus will continue to report to Mike Griffith who will now report to Rick McNeely. As most of you know, Stef Walz has left the university. Other staff in Biomedical Communications will now support our website.

Surveys
As mentioned several weeks ago, we will be surveying our users once or twice a month for the next year. Surveys will be handed out during one or two two-hour windows each month. You’ll see a desk at the entrance during those time periods with library staff handing out questionnaires. There will be box near the exit for people to return their survey forms. Those who view electronic journals will be given an online version of the survey during those same time periods. We are also asking our liaison librarians in the Colleges of Pharmacy, Public Health and Nursing to distribute (or fill out for phone and email questions) surveys to their users.

Email and Calendars
This morning’s Wildcat reported that the decision has been made to move students to the Google calendar and Gmail. However, CIO Michelle Norin is still looking at the pros and cons of moving faculty and staff to the Google products. The paper reports that she is leaning toward Google. She is quoted as saying that UITS will provide an easy way to migrate email to any new system and that users will choose when to make the move. AHSL will follow the university decision on this. For more details see my post from June 16.

Systems vision and more on the budget

Systems “visioning”
One of the roles that everyone in the Systems Department plays is current awareness. They pay attention to new technologies and products and how they are being used or how they could be used in the library. With our Systems Department moving outside of the library and with no Systems Librarian, we need someone to fill this role. I have asked Kristy if she will help us. All of you may not know that she was the Head of Library Technology Services at the Medical College of Georgia before joining the AHSL-Phoenix. She will be keeping up with the latest trends in library technology and will be available to help us decide on the viability of new technology-related projects. Please feel free to call her with questions or ideas.

Budget woes begin
Dean Joiner has announced a plan to increase College of Medicine faculty salaries. This will be partially funded by “sweeping” vacant positions. I have been informally notified that we should not open any searches since at least one FTE vacancy will be taken. I have no more details right now.

IT reorganization

Library Systems Department and Copy Technology Services
Yesterday the College of Medicine Information Technology Project Team, of which I am a member, met with staff from several departments to announce the beginning of the IT reorganization that has been in the planning stages for about a year. Although no changes take effect immediately, there will be a fairly rapid move to the new organizational structure over the next couple of months.

This is a very complex plan and many details are still being worked out. To summarize, the new COM organization will consist of three groups – Applications Development, Infrastructure Services and Finance & Administration. These groups will be led by Mike Griffith, Steven Wormsley and Paige Winkle.

Marcus, Stef and Ying will move into the new Applications Development group as “AHS Library Applications.” Shanna, Jose and Spencer will move into the Infrastructure Services group. Copy Technology Services will also move into the Infrastructure Group.

All of Biomedical Communications will be distributed through the new organization with web development, graphics, photography and some other media design going into the Applications group. Videoconferencing, TV production and engineering will be going into the infrastructure group.

The Office of Medical Computing will be distributed between Applications and Infrastructure. All of the academic computing group, recently led by Zach Hoffman, will move into Applications.

For the moment no one will be physically moving, although we can expect some folks to be shifted around in the future in order to be near to the others in their workgroups.

Any of the affected staff or I will be happy to try to answer any questions that you might have. As more details are worked out I will keep you informed.

Updates and Systems

Updates
In response to my last update about improving communication I got an excellent suggestion today. Updates used to be weekly, as long as there was something to report. Over the last year I started sending them out only when there was some major piece of news to report. The suggestion that I got was that I try to do them weekly, since even a minor piece of news will help us all to know what’s going on. Starting now I will try to get one out every Friday.

Systems
We are all going to miss Robin who has been so helpful and a source of knowledge for us all. I’m happy to report that we are retaining her on a consultant basis so that we don’t lose access to her expertise. This will be particularly helpful during the move from SIRSI to Innovative Interfaces and with some AZHIN applications.

I’ve been asked if we are going to fill Robin’s position. As you know we are in the middle of discussions with the College of Medicine about the IT organization within the College, the Library and Biomedical Communications. I have been attending committee meetings and Jeanette has filled in when I have had to miss a meeting. Joan and Marcus are representing the library in a subcommittee that is looking specifically at the functions of a new organization and who should fit where. Nothing has been decided. Given the uncertainty ahead of us it would be hard to even write a job description for a Head of Systems. We will keep the line open until we see what our needs are going to be.

In the meantime, if you need help with any aspect of IT, please feel free to contact Shanna about network or email problems, Spencer or Jose about desktop, lab or classroom computers, or Marcus, Ying or Stef about database, web or other application problems. Mikel is going to be working on any AZHIN questions that arise. In Phoenix, Kristy has a lot of expertise that we can draw upon. For questions that you might have sent to Robin, please feel free to send an email to Joan who will be doing her best to answer or find an answer.

This time of transition is difficult for all of us and especially hard for those in Systems who are living with so much uncertainty. But we still do need to know if you have problems or computer/IT needs. Everyone is pitching in to keep us up and running.

Computer Consultant’s report

Computer Consultant’s report
Vantage Technology Consulting Group has submitted their final report to the College of Medicine regarding centralization of computing resources. I spoke about this at our April All Staff meeting and summarized it in an update on April 13.

Yesterday I met with the consultants and a small group from the College. The important points are:
> We still have to develop a plan for implementation. The COM Assoc. V.P. for Administration, Pat St. Germain, has asked the consultants to propose a process for negotiating an implementation plan.
> It is likely, but not certain, that the library will continue to report to Dr. Malan, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs.
> It is likely that many, if not all, of our Systems staff will be pulled into various parts of a new IT organization.
> Where people will be placed in the new organization, and when, will be decided during the implementation planning process.

All of our Systems staff have seen the report. If you are interested in reading the report, let me know and I’ll get a copy made for you.