June 21 Assignment - Organization Description

I am the new University Librarian at a university library that is a member of the Association of Research Libraries. This is an exclusive organization of research libraries; there are 112 of us, out of all of the research libraries in North America. The organization includes Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. However, my library is not so exalted. I am the university librarian at a state university that is not even the most respected research library in my state (my library is more comparable to, for instance, North Carolina State University or the University of California-Riverside than to the University of North Carolina or the University of California-Berkeley). The director previous to me had just begun to update the library to bring its policies in line with current research in librarianship when he retired, and I plan to continue this trend.

It will be a difficult economic task for me to modernize the library. As a state institution, my university does not have a great deal of private funding to draw on, and in addition, we have to compete with all of the other public universities in the state for governmental funding.

We have 181 staff members at the library, out of whom 82 are professional librarians. We also employ a number of undergraduate student workers. Our main mission is to support the academic activities of those affiliated with the university community (faculty, staff, and students), but we also provide some services to unaffiliated users. For instance, some members of the local community come in to use our computers, and my predecessor as university librarian has very recently instituted a digitization project for primary source materials that is being used by K-12 teachers and students.

My biggest concern at the moment is how I can secure enough money to institute modern policies in the library and compete (and cooperate) with other institutions in my state.