Teams In Technical Services Research Articles

Teams Are Now Used by Many Technical Services Departments in Academic Libraries

Objective – An investigation of the use of teams in technical services, provision of training on team-working, characteristics of technical services teams, and the effectiveness of teams.
 
 Design – Survey comprising of 19 closed questions and one open question.
 
 Setting – Technical services departments in academic libraries.
 
 Subjects– Responses were received from 322 library staff members. Of those, 294 answered the survey question about team-based technical services and 55.9% of respondents completed the full survey.
 
 Methods – An online survey was promoted via seven technical services electronic mail lists and was conducted using SurveyMonkey.
 
 Main Results – The survey found that 39% of technical services were entirely team-based, 18% were partly team-based, and 43% did not use teams. Information was gathered about the number of teams, team nomenclature, and how long teams have been used. This research highlighted the lack of provision of training and documentation about working in teams.
 
 Conclusion – Many respondents have team-based technical services, and most participants found that working in teams had a positive impact. A systematic application of this survey is planned for the future.

The Roundup

The Roundup

Use of teams in technical services in academic libraries

Use of teams in technical services in academic libraries

Use of teams in technical services in academic libraries

A review of library literature shows a general trend of technical services in academic libraries to reorganize into teams. This paper analyzes the results of a survey conducted in 2010 in order to answer four research questions: how extensively technical services in academic libraries have moved into the use of teams in organizational structures; how extensively technical services in academic libraries have done training related to teams; what team characteristics are demonstrated by teams in technical services in academic libraries; and how the effectiveness of teams is perceived by staff and faculty who work in technical services in academic libraries.

Measures Needed to Strengthen Strategic HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes in China

This paper traces the commonly believed three phases of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in China from the early 1980s to the present time and reviews how the Chinese Government and NGOs are dealing with the crisis. Transmission routes for HIV infection in China are thought to be via IDUs, blood plasma donors, sexual contacts and from mother-to-child transmissions. The author examined interventions for HIV/ AIDS prevention tried in other countries that could provide useful lessons learned and discussed how they could be adapted or replicated in China. While recognising the need for the treatment of HIV positive persons and AIDS patients, this paper is limited to suggesting a number of proven strategic interventions to prevent new HIV infections in China among the "general population", adolescents in schools, sex workers and their clients, injecting drug users, and, prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS to stem the epidemic. An extensive literature search of articles in published academic journals, published and unpublished documents of international agencies and development NGOs and media reports was conducted for data source to this paper. Internet search engines such as ProQuest, PubMed, Google and Yahoo search engines were used as well as hard copies of reports and internal documents available at the UNFPA Country Technical Services Team's Office in Bangkok tapped for information.

How to Create a Technical Services Team

During the last two years, technical services operations at Western Maryland College have undergone changes in personnel, technology, workflow, and departmental organization. The Technical Services department, created by a 1997 merger of two separate departments, has survived and flourished amidst such change. The secret is teamwork. By planning together, clarifying responsibilities, re-thinking procedures and by sometimes taking a break from work together, staff have preserved and strengthened their team identity and have increased departmental productivity by 57 percent.

The realities of teams in technical services at Michigan State University Libraries

After a year-long process of self-assessment, research, and planning, Michigan State University Libraries has implemented a flexible team-based organizational structure. This structure permits us to more effectively fulfill our primary role of service to the Libraries and provides the ability to respond in an environment of continuous change. We have been operating successfully within this new structure since the fall of 1992.

The National Library of Canada's Electronic Publications Pilot Project:

From June 1994 to the summer of 1995 the National Library of Canada carried out the Electronic Publications Pilot Project. The objective of this Project was to identify and understand issues that the National Library of Canada and other Canadian libraries would encounter in handling electronic publications and on-line collections. A small number of formally published Canadian on-line journals were acquired, controlled, catalogued and stored permanently at the Library. Public access was provided on the Internet through Gopher and the World Wide Web. Several areas of the Library were involved in the three teams which were set up to pursue the Project's goals. The members of the Technical Services team received equipment upgrades and underwent a considerable amount of training in order to accomplish assigned tasks. Identifying appropriate titles and obtaining copyright clearance for those selected proved to be a very time-consuming exercise. The problems and issues encountered during the acquisitions, serials check-in and cataloguing activities confirmed that dealing efficiently with electronic publications was indeed a new challenge for the staff of the National Library. At the end of the project, recommendations from the Technical Services team were submitted and they will be incorporated into the Final Report of the Project which is expected to be available to the public in the fall of 1995.

Vendor Services in the Information Age

In the next ten years, libraries will look to vendors for more and greater services than in past decades. The vendor will assume a role as member on the library's technical services team and will provide vital operational support, which will enable the library to better serve the end user, with reduced library staff. The relationship between vendor and library will be interactive, evolving from buyer/seller to team approach. The end user will increasingly influence both library and vendor decision-making as the information chain rightens.