Rebooting the London Business School LibraryTim Wales, Head of LibraryABLD Conference,19th April 2012

1

London Business School Library

• 18,000 books

• 22,000 ejournals

• 65 datasets

• 359 study spaces

• 4 floors of Taunton Centre

• 7.84 FTE Library staff

• $1.5 million resources budget

• 1,800 FTE students

• 500 staff (99 faculty)

2

Quick Facts

Initial challenges faced

Big picture

• 50% reduction in Library staff in 2009 redundancy exercise, down to 6.84 FTE

• No Head of Library for 22 months

• Continual churn of Library reporting lines

• Library disconnected from School in many ways

• Significant IT problems

Impact

• Low staff morale & lack of staff resource

• No leadership, entropy

• Areas of Library responsibility unclear

• Out of sight out of mind

• Library back of the priority queue

3

Library SWOT analysis

4

Library SwotAnalysis

Library expenditure (2007-12)

5

Library structure 2009/10

6

x

Library Structure 2011/12

7

Restructure

6 months of uncertainty

8

x

x

x

x

ISD Division

Senior Management Team

Library Strategy: Subject Area Chairs (Faculty) Findings

• None used physical library

• Only 1 Chair interested in retaining print journals (for quality scans)

• Support for e-books, especially if they reduce course costs

• You can never have enough resources – prospective hires compare dataset lists between institutions

• Start communicating – Library newsletter by email least worst option

• Open access not on radar – SSRN sufficient

“I see the Library as

almost a utility”

“You have a good

team there”

“I didn’t want this

meeting but I’m glad I

had it!”

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Student Survey 2011: Open Comment Analysis

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“More Library training…”

“Wireless is very slow.”

“…the human help… are

very good”

“Database selection is good

but misssing Mintel & WGSN”

Category Number %Training 17 41%Infrastructure 8 20%Resources 6 15%Support 5 12%Staff (Positive) 3 7%Course materials 2 5%

41 100%

Faculty e-newsletter via SmartMarketer

Quick win (1)

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Promoting Library Staff to School via Values Project

Quick win (2)

12

Library activity analysis

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Library Strategic Options

1.Bare minimum

2.Maintain &

maximise

3.Leading edge

4.Shared services

5.Out-source

2012-14

2014-17?

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Move Library within School Structure?

15

Catch-up Library IT projects 11/12

• End of life Library servers

for Sirsi-Dynix

• ATHENSDA authentication

system upgrade

• Federated search use

declining

• SFX3 decision

• Finance Zone PCs slow

Virtualise & upgrade LMS

within IT Datacentre Project

Upgrade to OpenAthens LA

Trial of discovery systems

(EBSCO & Summon)

Trial 360Link & clean

metadata

Tactical refresh - new drives,

software packages &

reimaging

16

An Olympic Summer

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Image Source: 3M

Image Source: National Archives

Highlights for 2012/13

• Digitise annual reports collection to release high-

density shelving space

• Trial Patron Driven Acquisition for e-books

• Rezone Library spaces in Taunton Centre

• Trial new training & support methods e.g. virtual

reference, pre-recorded training

• Resume financial dataset certification

• Improved search environment

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Reflections so far

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• Students

–Surprisingly low expectations and relatively undemanding….

….until they become Alumni!

–Careers focused rather than learning focused

• Faculty

–PhDs & course assistants very important gatekeepers

–Much sophisticated textual & financial data analysis going on ”under

our radar” and above our level of expertise

–Using traditional teaching methods with printed course materials

• Overall

–Library still has work to do to reintegrate into School & demonstrate

value

Conclusion - Tim’s 5Ps of Library Leadership

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Persistence

Patience

Persuasion

Pragmatism

Politics