Thursday, January 31, 2008

My Trip to Florida in December 2007

Yes, I know it's a little late but here's what I presented at the ILL Florida State Conference in Orlando.

Presentation
2007 Florida Resource Sharing Conference
Orlando, Florida
December 13-14, 2007

Beyond Collaboration! Complete Amalgamation of Circulation, Reserves and Interlibrary Loans
The Northern Perspective

Presenter: Donna Millard, Director, Library Services, Social Sciences and Humanities, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario

Under a new regime beginning in July 2006, McMaster University Library has reorganized to the point of non-recognition. Included in these reorganizations, has been the amalgamation of the Mills Memorial Library (Social Sciences & Humanities) areas of Circulation, Reserve and Interlibrary Loans. We’ve been downsized through retirements, rebuilt into a new office area, retrained so that everyone can do almost anyone else’s work duties, and re-serviced to provide more effective service points for our patrons. Work flows have been looked at through fresh eyes and been altered to be much more effective and efficient. Collaboration was in full swing and still is throughout the project but I also have to use words like confusion, coercion and confrontation to describe our journey. Was the amalgamation a success? Yes! Is it still ongoing? Definitely! If you’d like to hear the story of our journey, what worked and what didn’t and our plans to move forward, please come join me.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries winners announced

Great news! Cool changes that Jeff has helped us with and with a great amount of work from our staff, we've won a very prestigious ACRL award. Check it out:

http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/january2008/academic08.htm