Folks, here is what Peter McKay sent to the Selectors this morning:Â
Materials Budget BluesÂ
After careful review we are now estimating a $450,000+ budget shortfall for the rest of this fiscal year. The primary reason is the $315,000 (4%) cut the University imposed on us this Fall. Most of the projected shortfall is due to anticipated print serials invoices and electronic resources invoices. We must immediately cease all firm ordering and approval purchases. We can only place orders for course reserve items. We will use the remaining free fund balances ($347,703) to help cover the anticipated shortage. We will also use available balances in the relevant endowment accounts to pay for purchases in the corresponding disciplines. As possible, we will use the remaining already designated carry forward and TIPS (tuition differential) funds to close the remaining gap. As you know, the university is expecting to cut close to $50 million from its budget for the next fiscal year. To prepare for a possible/likely substantial reduction in next year’s materials budget John Ingram has asked me to arrange a meeting during the 1st week of March to plan for a potential $800,000 (10%) reduction in our budget next fiscal year. I will be scheduling this meeting. I will also circulate the spreadsheet we prepared in the Fall of 2006 for the cuts we did not have to make. You may be able to use many of the titles that you have already identified as lower priority to meet your anticipated budget reductions. Â
The issue for us is how this year’s cut and call back of materials funds, and next year’s huge anticipated cut of an additional 800K, will impact our dept. First, it’s going to affect every Unit and their workflows from now until the end of FY07/08, and clearly throughout FY08/09. Here’s some of the activities each Unit and Unit Manager should start to plan:Â
Monographs: obviously this Unit is hit immediately by the budget recall. All orders are frozen other than for reserves and perhaps an isolated order authorized by the Directors. Staff should do all they can to claim outstanding orders because orders currently encumbered but not received are not part of the freeze – in other words, those orders are already accounted for in the budget and can be received and the invoices paid. The second order of business will be to tag orders received with firm monograph budgets to corresponding Foundation budgets, to free up the monograph funds. Paul will have more information on this project when we have a list of the budgets to use (supplied by Jack via John Ingram).Â
Serials: while the budgets for print serials are not affected as much this year, watch out next FY! Peter is already planning to use the serial titles identified for cancellation from the budget crisis of two years ago (this budget crisis thing is getting tiresome, isn’t it?). Staff will be busy with these large, organized cancellation projects; but you could also help to identify titles being received both in print and online for possible cancellation. These cancellations should happen as soon as possible so they are in place for next FY.Â
Paying: this Unit will need to be work with selectors, A & L staff, and the Directors to coordinate much of the cancellation activity. Jack and Co. should review the “big ticket” and “mid-range ticket” spreadsheets for price increases that go above the 5% cap and/or especially any that rose over 10%  (on John Ingram’s instructions), since these are ripe for cancellation.Â
E-Resources: this budget problem is such that no area will go untouched, so for the first time, perhaps, E-Resources will face cuts in the coming FY. Staff in E-Resources will need to devise methods of identifying overlapping packages/duplicate online journal titles using SerialsSolutions, and should immediately start to compile and examine usage stats for the mid-range or low ticket packages to be used in cost-effectiveness studies.Â
Tech Support: Jason will assist any and all staff in their endeavors – for example, he’s volunteered to help Doug identify and review possible E-resources that overlap and might be cut from the budget. Aleph reports that he often runs for staff & selectors are other possible analytical tools we can use in these projects.Â
That’s it for now. I’d appreciate it if Unit Managers would discuss all this with their staffs. On Monday the monthly Unit Managers meeting is scheduled and I’d like the unit heads to come prepared to discuss these initiatives. Thanks folks and please feel free to respond. SteveÂ
This year’s annual evaluations for staff are to be finished and into the HR Office on March 24th. Therefore, supervisors will be meeting to perform the evaluations with their staff the week of 3/17. Please look over job descriptions and make sure they are updated as needed; and think about what goals & objectives to set for the next year.
Paul summarizes the whys and hows of the virtual plan. Thought others might find this of interest:
The virtual approval plan was designed to allow us to receive material shelf-ready, but also retain the possibility for rejection. As you may be aware, a number of shelf-ready approval plans at other universities are essentially blanket plans—those schools, once they’ve sufficiently adjusted their profiles, receive shelf-ready books and can reject nothing. Since our Collection Managers wanted to be able to still review their approval books on a weekly basis (and reject those they thought unsuitable), and staff in Tech Services wanted to move forward with receiving shelf-ready books and PromptCat records for those books, we developed the virtual approval plan as a compromise. The closure of our main library played a role in switching to a virtual plan as well, since it resulted in a space crunch in the libraries that remained open which impacted our ability to set aside adequate shelving for each week’s approval shipments.Â
YBP and Blackwell both were able to construct a two-tiered profile that would generate “books” and “slips”; the “books,” instead of being sent directly, are actually just another type of e-slip (or e-form, depending on the vendor). Each Monday, an Acquisitions staff member searches for all of the “book” slips and puts these into a shared folder accessible to all of our CMs who log into GOBI. The Collection Managers have the entire week to review the books; if no comment is made (in the “Library Note” field) noting “reject,” we order the book. The “Library Note” field also gives Collection Managers a chance to request a book be purchased for a different location or with a different budget than the default, (our Area Studies CMs tend to be the ones who most often leave such notes). Â
At present, if someone from my group didn’t confirm orders for the titles at the end of the week review period, the books wouldn’t actually be ordered. We have a default of accept—so, in this sense, an actual approval plan rather than just a slip plan—but this requires a bit of management every week on the part of Acquisitions staff.  Â
The basic outline of things, then, is as follows:
Raimonda Margjoni, as a staff member of the Technical Services Division, has agreed to serve on this important reorg committee.* I’m hoping she will keep us posted on its work and progress. You may wish to share your thoughts on the reorg with Raimonda, as she will be representing our dept. at the reorg committee meetings. For example, one of the committee’s tasks will be to review and recommend alternative reorg designs (e.g. Stephanie & Betsy’s chart); and according to Joe Aufmuth, this committee is seeking and encouraging feedback from all of us. Good luck Raimonda!
*The other two representatives from Tech Services serving on the reorg committee are Jimmie Lundgren and Priscilla Williams.
I’m interested in hearing what you all think of the Lib Reorg as it might affect our dept. I’m wondering about it personally, for example how do we incorporate ILL into our dept. so it works best for staff and workflow? Should they stay in West to better serve the patrons (more convenient) or relocate to East? Should they become the sixth unit in A & L or should ILL remain a separate area of operations?Â
Lot of questions aren’t there?
What about the talk of A & L having to move from our current home to either a building off campus (supposedly near Waldo Road?) or to a renovated building on campus (possibly Matherly Hall?). It might not happen for some time of course, but how do you feel about relocating on or off campus?