1. Develop and deploy the killer app for Federated Searching — something that would allow for search and retrieval across all the various silos of content (Library Catalog, licensed databases, e-book packages, digitized collections, etc., etc.); AND would have an awesome interface that would make sorting through the inevitable massive results lists intuitive and intelligent. (Note: I think there is tremendous potential for Linked Data to eliminate the need for federated searching; but that is a very, very, long term project.)
2. Work through our cataloging and processing backlogs, so that all the awesome resources we have acquired over the years are discoverable and available for use. Like most major libraries, we have plenty of foreign language materials, rare books, special collections, and other non-standard materials that require individual cataloging by an expert. If I had the funding, I’d hire every out-of-work cataloger I could find, and have them catalog the heck out of everything we have. Heck, if I really had unlimited funding, I’d pay for everyone else’s backlogs to get cataloged too.  (Note that the need for support for traditional metadata work is a pretty clear theme in comments about What’s Happening at Harvard.)
3. Digitize everything–especially everything that is in the public domain or that we have rights to. Add good metadata to everything we digitize and make it discoverable and accessible through our catalog and through Google and other public search engines.
4. Do a massive lobbying campaign on behalf of Copyright reform. I wonder how much moola it would take to buy the votes needed for effective Copyright reform? (I’m kidding…about buying votes, not about copyright reform).
5. Buy up all the publishers whose outrageous pricing is decimating library collections budgets, and create a new sustainable system of scholarly publishing.

Clearly, none of the above are one month projects. Perhaps I am suffering from a failure of imagination, but I just can’t come up with anything big and exciting that we could accomplish in just 1 month … except make some ground-breaking acquisitions. And adding more awesome, rare, expensive stuff to our collections just adds to the challenges listed above.

Anyone out there got some great ideas? What do you think a large academic library should/could do in 1 month’s time, with unlimited budget? You know, just in case some donor decides to give us a bundle of cash with that kind of Project Runway like restriction on it …

Last week, I was asked to give a 5 minute presentation to the faculty who are part of Stanford’s Faculty College project. The Faculty College project provides “groups of faculty the space, time and resources to create new team-taught courses, to make a major change in a department’s curriculum or to establish new cross-disciplinary teaching endeavors.” The 25 or so faculty involved meet once a quarter this year, and will start their teaching next year. Their meetings are jam-packed with presentations and discussions, so I was actually pretty pleased to finagle 5 minutes on the agenda to talk about the way the Stanford Libraries could support their projects.

After making an off-hand comment to a colleague that the 5 minute limit felt a bit like speed-dating, I decided to go with that metaphor in my actual presentation. I created a handout highlighting relevant subject librarians and other services (PDF), but decided to skip the PowerPoint since just setting up could eat up most of my 5 minutes.
I started out by telling the faculty group that 5 minutes felt like speed dating, but that I was OK with that. After all, my goal was to convince them to “date the libraries”. The two main reasons they should date us are that “We have lots of common interests”, and “We complete you”. I explained both of those briefly, and concluded with “So I hope you’ll call us”.
I finished with 40 seconds to spare, enough time for someone to ask if the librarians listed on the handout knew they might be contacted or if it would be a “blind date”?
I usually think it is way harder to give a short presentation than a long one, but in this case I think it went very well. I gave them a metaphor that will hopefully Stick, and I also made it clear that I/we really respect their time. If anything, I think some of the faculty wish I had taken up more time, which is always better than the opposite. As Walt Disney (or maybe P.T. Barnum) supposedly said, “always leave them wanting more.”

(Note to self #1: Don’t be shy about posting something that is “just a summary”. Note to self #2: Whenever you wonder whether to share something with a broader audience than originally intended, just do it.)

Since Thursday, lots of additional summaries, information, and analyses have hit the internet.
Perhaps the most important thing published was The Transcript of the actual Town Hall Meetings.
The transcript contains the actual remarks made by Mary Lee Kennedy, Senior Associate Provost, and Helen Shenton, Executive Director. It does not include any of the Q & A after the remarks. Much has been made of the fact that very little new information was actually shared at these Town Hall meetings, and the transcript seems to confirm that. As far as I can tell, Harvard Library staff have known since 2009 that downsizing of various distributed technical services operations was coming. The first recommendation of the Report of the Task Force on University Libraries was to “Establish and implement a shared administrative structure”. It seems to me that the town hall meetings served to make official that “the Library workforce will be smaller than it is now.” I suspect that the frustration and anxiety felt by many Harvard staff after the Town Hall meetings was the lack of new details. They have known for 2 years that something was coming, so an official reminder that “the ax is still hanging over their heads” was not particularly well-recieved by many. In addition, Shenton’s announcement that “all Library staff are invited to state job preferences, to articulate skills and to provide a resume by creating and submitting an Employee Profile” was interpreted by some to mean that all staff would have to effectively re-apply for employment with the Harvard Libraries. It is clear from subsequent information that is not accurate, but I can see how staff who are already stressed and hungry for some detailed information might interpret it that way.

Let me pause here to say that it is not my intent in any way to second-guess Kennedy or Shenton. They are in an incredibly difficult position. It would be easy for me to speculate on how I might have handled this differently, but the truth is that I do not have all of the information about the constraints, pressures, and mandates they are likely facing. At any rate, I do applaud them for posting the transcripts of their remarks, and encourage all of us who are following along at home to read them.

Equally important were insights from those who were actually at the town hall meetings including:

• The Great Librarian Massacre (and Other Episodes in Harvard Cultural History)*: Tom Bruno, Head of Resource Sharing at Widener Library, Harvard, provides an excellent first-hand account and reaction to the Town Hall Meetings. Tom writes “So while a lot of what’s been said on the Internet has bordered on hysteria, I hope you’ll at least forgive those of us Twittering from the epicenter of yesterday’s announcements for our gut reactions to the endgame of a very long and painful reorganization process.” No need to ask forgiveness, Tom — I hope the outpouring of on-line support for you and your colleagues is evidence enough that we are with you in spirit and with as much empathy as we can muster.
• The Crimson Thursday: Michael Bradford, cataloger with the Harvard Divinity School, provides another first-hand account and reaction. Most telling was his admission that although “we all knew that with a massive reorganization like the one taking place, that there were going to be reductions. It was still a shock to see the words on the screen and coming out of Helen Shenton’s mouth.” The words he refers to were “the library workforce will smaller than it is now.” Bradford echoes others who indicate that the town hall meetings served only to “ratchet up the anxiety, fears, and trepidation amongst the library staff”‘ without providing any new details.

Other blog posts tackling the story include:

• The Harvard Libraries Reorg: What’s the Takeaway?: “Harvard’s radical reorganization is not akin to the day the music died, but it is a harbinger of things to come for many libraries of all stripes.” I beg to differ. My sense is actually that what Harvard is doing now (in terms of downsizing and centralizing) is actually what many of us have already done. I think this is a case of Harvard emulating its peers, rather than a case of the rest of us eventually following in Harvard’s footsteps.
• Reformat and reinstall approach to organizational change rarely works: Edward Bilodeau, a librarian at McGill University, claims that “it is clear that they (Harvard Library Administrators) have decided to bring about the needed organizational change in a short amount of time, and the impact on their people, their careers, and their personal lives is not very high on the list of priorities.” I think that is a particularly harsh and cynical interpretation of the situation, without much (if any) evidence to support it. In my opinion, those directly affected get to grumble, speculate, and engage in as much hyperbole as is useful to them. I would like to see the rest of us avoid speculating on motives and casting aspersions.
• Harvard U. Libraries, Reorganization, and Transparency: A Note for Leadership: Colleen, academic librarian and author of this blog, notes “I still cannot decide what about transparency frustrates leaders so much that they will not engage in its practice.” We don’t know exactly why the Harvard Library leaders have not revealed more details about the reorganization at this time, so I’m not sure it is fair to speculate that they are deliberately avoiding transparency. We do know that the lack of more detailed information right now has caused some significant anxiety for staff, and (thanks to social media) for the wider library world. I do think the issue of transparency and leadership is really important. Frankly, it is one of the top struggles I have had since moving into an AUL position in 2009. As a colleague recently said to me “the higher up you move in an organization, the more secrets you have to keep.” Sometimes you have to keep secrets to protect individual privacy, sometimes to protect financial information, sometimes because your boss asks you to, and sometimes for any variety of other reasons. I have given quite a bit of thought to how to be as transparent as possible in a leadership position — I actually have a draft blog post on the topic. Guess it is time to dust it off, flesh it out, and get it posted soon.
• The Library Loon on Restructuring: The Loon essentially says she saw this coming, it is coming to other libraries, it is needed, and research librarians better be ready for it. Being the Loon, she says it with eloquence and a delicious level of snark.
• Of Anxiety and Reorgs – Harvard Libraries Today
• …What it is ain’t exactly clear…

And, some straight-up press accounts:

• Harvard Magazine
• The Harvard Crimson
• The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Library Journal

This story is far from over. Stay tuned.

I have absolutely no insider knowledge at all, but as far as I can tell from trying to keep up with the tweets all day:

• An initial tweet claiming “All of Harvard Library staff have just effectively been fired” was re-tweeted often, as was a Google+ post written by a former Harvard University Library staff member.
• Later tweets clarified that no staff were laid off … today. Layoffs are imminent, however, and more details will be available next month.
• The layoffs will be in areas that are “Shared Services” — such as technical services, preservation, and access services; not collection development, research librarians, or special collections.
• Some jobs will be eliminated, some restructured, some new jobs created.
• For restructured and new jobs, internal candidates will be solicited first.
• All library staff are being encouraged to fill out employee profiles (with skills, interests and a CV/resume), which will factor into decisions about restructuring (and presumably who stays and who goes, and where the stayers go …). It looks like the deadline for completing profiles is only 1 month away, and workshops on how to do so are already full.
• The general sentiment on twitter is that the senior administrators at Harvard Libraries handled this very poorly — that the town hall meetings produced more questions than answers. Rather than serving to keep staff informed, they served primarily to create significant anxiety.
• Plenty of folks are worried that as Harvard goes, so go other academic libraries – in other words, if massive layoffs can happen at Harvard (with its huge endowments), then no academic library is safe.
• An official Harvard Library Transition Update was posted publicly on January 17. More official Harvard Library Transition stuff on the Harvard University News site.
• Excellent first-hand accounts and analyses from @mpeachy8 and @oodja.

I know a least a few folks who actually work at Harvard occasionally read here, so I do hope they will correct anything I have wrong, and chime in with any additional information. I hope they also know that I wish them well in what is obviously a super difficult and stressful time.