Dear all,
You may have heard of the change proposal that was presented
to staff at CU last week. 35 positions are disestablished and 18 new ones will
be created.
The following is an outline of how it impacts on Collection
Services at Canterbury.
Our present structure consists of three teams. Two for
monographs and one for serials. We have 11 staff at assistant librarian
level or above. All have been disestablished with the exception of the
Asian Languages Collection Librarian.
The proposed new structure will consist of an acquisitions
team and a “resources discovery” (i.e. cataloguing) team.
There will be 9 new positions in the new structure, however, one of these
positions has Interloans duties because the Interloans team has also been
disestablished in the change proposal. Interloans has previously been
part of Lending Services but will now be carried out by the acquisitions
team.
The new Resource Discovery team will consist of a team
leader, 4 assistant librarians and the Asian Languages Collection Librarian,
plus some library assistants (the number is not specified in the proposal). The
institutional Repository Coordinator will also report to the team leader.
Previously the IR coordinator was based in Library IT. The team will
catalogue all formats. At present we have seven librarians who
catalogue, plus two team leaders who catalogue when time permits. In the
new structure there will be five librarians cataloguing, plus one team
leader. This is a significant reduction in cataloguing staff numbers for
us.
CU has had a serials cataloguer since 1976. This
position is now disestablished and serials cataloguing will be shared among the
Resource Discovery team. Among our cataloguers we also have specialists
in music, law, European languages, and electronic resources. None of these
specialities are mentioned in the change proposal.
The Collection Services Manager position has been
disestablished and will be replaced by the new position of Support Services Library
Manager. The new manager will be expected to deputize for the Library Manager
in his/her absence as well as manage Support Services.
We would like to acknowledge the messages of support that we
have received from our colleagues in other libraries and greatly appreciate
this.
Peter
Hosking
Serials Cataloguing Librarian
Collection Services
University of Canterbury Library