Machine-Assisted Reference Section User Access to Services Committee
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The worlds of information technology (IT) professionals and academic librarians have been on a convergent path for the last twenty years, propelled by technological advances that unite them in their mission. These new relationships have not always worked smoothly as these professionals from very different workplace cultures try to respond to shared problems. There is clearly a need for collaboration and communication between the two groups, as well as a broader understanding of the differences and similarities that impact the work environment they share in academic libraries.
MARS User Access to Services Committee
In June 2005 the Reference & User Services Association’s Machine-Assisted Reference Section (RUSA-MARS) User Access to Services Committee presented a program at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago addressing the relationship between IT staff and public services librarians. The program, titled “Do You Trust Your IT Staff? Do They Trust You? A Dialogue,” featured IT and public service representatives from academic and public libraries. Based on the attendance and reactions to the program, it became clear that this “culture clash” resonated with many members of the library community. The committee concluded that additional research was warranted.
Using the transcripts and audience feedback gathered at the program, the committee developed a survey, intended to gather data from academic libraries. The survey results, data analysis, a literature review, and suggestions for further research are presented in this article.
Literature Review
Key issues in the literature devoted to the relationship between IT professionals and librarians include organizational structure, workplace environment, collaboration and teamwork, administrative and staff work styles, communication, organizational culture, and personality types. Although some universities have dealt successfully with these working relationships, others clearly struggle with the group interactions.
A number of articles address the principles that foster effective collaborations. Most of the authors frame collaboration around projects, as opposed to ongoing working relationships. This review, organized topically and spanning the years 1990-2004, covers a select group of articles, some positive and optimistic and others admonitory.
Kiesler’s 1994 paper at the Building Partnershipsconference, called “Working Together Apart,” examines the organizational structure most conducive to collaborations between libraries and IT divisions.1 Her interest focuses on how these diverse professional units accomplish a collaborative working relationship while segregated in different departments. Kiesler favors the flat organization where interdisciplinary teams carry out their work. She identifies the barriers to collaboration as social distinctions, salary differences, and subcultural differences. Kiesler’s collaborative environment also requires trust and a sense of purpose, themes later developed by Flowers and Martin, Gray, and Heyman.2
At the same Building Partnerships conference, Creth pronounced old hierarchical structures with their “functional silos” outmoded for the types of collaboration needed in the new “virtual information organization.”3 Creth takes her lead from Michael Hammer and James Champy, suggesting that it is ultimately the processes that need renewal.4 Librarians and computer professionals need to learn from their customers which processes to improve in order to create a combined client-focused organization. In Creth’s organizational model, jobs become more multidimensional, team work becomes central, and managers take on new mentoring roles.
Lippincott addresses the nature of successful collaborations and the difficulties in sustaining them.5 Her administrator fosters successful collaborations by ensuring that the vision is understood by staff and by deflecting power struggles. Successful collaborations are team and project based. She finds that collaborations are weakened by operational differences, cultural differences, a lack of trust among lower-level staff, differences in decision-making styles, authority structure differences, and territoriality.6 Lippincott builds on Kanter’s work on partnerships, citing the necessity of a shared mission or strategic objective.7 Departing from other writers, Lippincott downplays the cultural and personality differences, choosing to focus on commonalities between the two groups.8
Dougherty and McClure discuss the challenges of restructuring an academic library in the digital age.9 One issue is that of separate organizational cultures, noted also by Flowers and Martin, and Ross.10 Dougherty and McClure find differences in professional values, mentioned later by Cain.11 They find difficulty in divorcing salaries from status and academic credentials, two points also found in Cain’s discussion.12 The authors find personality to be a barrier to collaboration, observing that librarians are risk-adverse while IT professionals are risk takers. They also note the skewed gender difference between the primarily female librarian community and a male-dominated IT profession.
Heyman offers a positive, almost motivational, article about building working relationships.13 Her approach looks at short-term projects that are team based. Emphasizing the success traits highlighted by Lippincott, she notes the importance of trust and a common purpose or sense of shared responsibility.14 Heyman places the burden on non-IT professionals to make the effort to understand the IT world, including learning the IT vocabulary. She urges non-IT professionals to read IT trade journals, to attend their seminars, and “to speak their language in our accent.” Heyman views these activities as critical to relationship building.
Cain highlights a number of significant barriers to a good working relationship.15 In an articulate and engaging article, he draws a parallel between the humanist/scientist gap evident in C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures, and the cultural divide between librarians and IT professionals.16 Cain considers work style, noting how the librarians’ conservative, change-resistant, bureaucratic environment differs from the flexible, innovative, and responsive environment of the technical professional. Other differences are found in the required credentials and the difference in status of the groups. He reiterates the gender issue raised by Dougherty and McClure.17 Cain also cites problems of language differences. He suggests similarities, notably that both groups are frustrated with the speed of change and feel constant pressure to learn new things. After interviewing chief information officers, Cain suggests that the two groups do not need to merge, nor should the organizational structure matter in facilitating collaborative working environments.
Ericson speaks to the successful library-IT collaboration. He describes Hamilton College’s policy of “aggressive collaboration” between these two departments that report to different administrative areas.18 Again, the shared vision and sense of purpose directs the collaboration. He points out that, ultimately, students do not care which employees report to which administrative heads; their only concern is for high-performing information systems. Ericson acknowledges that working under the same roof facilitates collaboration, and that Hamilton’s small size may be a factor contributing to the collaboration as well.
Flowers and Martin are two of the first authors to address the issues related to work cultures.19 They describe Rice University’s combined library/IT operation and admit to both successes and setbacks in developing a cooperative environment. They identify library culture and different tool sets as the main barriers to collaboration, and characterize library culture as “passive-aggressive” and IT culture as “aggressive-abrasive.”20 Meetings are populated with very quiet librarians and overly vocal IT staff. Successful projects require efforts from both groups, who finally develop a trusting work relationship.
Following the reasoning that cultural differences explain the problematic working relationships, Ross also suggests a cultural split.21 First-hand experience informs his observations that cultural and status issues plague effective working relationships. Ross emphasizes the difference in focus between the two groups, identifying librarians as customer-focused while asserting that technical support staff often lose sight of the customer.
Proctor also alludes to Snow’s Two Cultures. Proctor has experience on both sides of the divide and identifies differences in the temperament, mentality, and psychology of the two groups.22 He suggests the groups live in a state of codependency.23 Proctor determines that librarians are the overly challenged ones who must mediate between perplexed patrons and poorly designed information systems. Proctor’s practical prescription involves shared time at the reference desk, weekly workshops for librarians on the latest technology, and a dose of “user reality” for the systems staff. Proctor, like Heyman, urges librarians to keep abreast of technological developments, and admonishes that without these efforts, they will lose all sense of a common culture.24
Several other writers have pointed to cultural gaps between the two groups, examining specific aspects of culture such as communication. Ross notes the difficult technical vocabulary used by technical support staff.25 Likewise, Cain comments that librarians and technical professionals maintain separate vocabularies.26 Heyman urges librarians to learn the technical vocabulary.27 Lippincott discusses how difficult it can be for librarians to keep current on technological developments, and therefore the vocabulary.28 Scanlon discusses a common language.29 His perspective is at odds with Heyman’s, maintaining that IT staff must learn the language of both the librarian and the user in order to solve problems.
In contrast to Scanlon, Intner is a voice from the IT side, pointing to the problem of the technical staffs’ unique language.30 Intner addresses the differences between IT staff and the broader group of academics. He recommends they adopt e-mail as the communication medium when communicating with IT staff. Kiesler and Intner suggest e-mail is a common ground that can help remove egos from the communication process.
Coffey and Lawson also target language as a communication barrier.31 They cite Schrage, who cautions that “when the same word means different things to different people, you’re going to spend more time managing meaning than managing the problem.”32 Their incisive survey of administrators of technical services, public services, and IT at fifty Association of Research Libraries libraries attempts to judge whether administrators are disadvantaged by the lack of technical vocabulary. Generally speaking, many administrators experience frustration in communicating with IT administrators and staff, while IT administrators report no problem.
Ross is another library insider who addresses technical vocabulary.33 While some downplay physical separation, Ross believes communication cannot thrive when those who need to communicate are physically separated.
In Kiesler’s study of communication, she notes that tech staff prefer e-mail while administrators prefer the phone.34 Citing the research of others, she expands on the significance of network communication that offers social equalization for the worker, and therefore, enhances collaboration. As opposed to face-to-face interaction, network communication eliminates social-context cues and thus eliminates social boundaries.
Jankowska and Marshall observe the broader working relationships between public service and technical service librarians.35 Their perspective is transferable to the divide between librarians and IT workers. Interaction between working groups can be accomplished through formal structures such as combined meetings and training sessions as well as through organization-wide e-mail. The authors conclude that the nonhierarchical organization facilitates interaction and understanding.
Other authors stress the problem of technical-skill level. Gray observes that the last ten years have seen a change in the technical-skill level needed by the average librarian. These differently skilled staff may enter the organization through “recruitment, training, transfers, or collaboration with systems staff.”36 Despite the need for technical skill, Gray asserts, librarians need to stay people-centered.
Gray and other authors discuss cognitive-skill differences between librarians and IT staff. Gray observes that librarians use more perceptual thinking skills to solve problems while IT staff rely on their “conceptual thinking skills.”37 Flowers identifies personality differences between the two groups as problematic.38 Scanlon takes a hard look at the personality differences between librarians and IT staff as evidenced by the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory.39 His objective is to learn how the groups might work together better based on these personality differences. Lippincott touches on personality conflicts as well.40 Cain cites four different studies of librarians and IT support staff tested with Myers-Briggs.41 The results of these studies indicate a similarity in personality type, prompting Cain to urge more work in analyzing personality.
Raymond tackles communication at its most basic level, reminding readers that communication is essential to organizational activity, but is mostly taken for granted.42 He suggests that leaders perform a communication audit and, like Lippincott, he lays responsibility for good communication channels squarely on the administrator.
This literature review has examined articles that concentrate on the differences between public services librarians and IT professionals and some of the efforts to create successful collaborations. There is, however, another approach presented to the problem of the working relationship–a systems librarian–who represents a blend of professional librarian and systems professional. The systems librarian plays a critical role in today’s libraries, Baker argues, because, as a blend of the two professionals, they potentially have a more rounded understanding of library functions.43
Method
To further investigate the relationship in question, the committee constructed a survey intended for a selected group of systems/IT staff and an equal number of reference/information services staff in academic libraries of varying sizes. The recipients were selected using the 2000 edition of the Carnegie Classification, including institutions that offer a baccalaureate degree or higher, producing a listing of 1,414 colleges and universities. Using the randomizing function in Excel, the committee selected a master list of three hundred schools. The committee then researched the names and e-mail addresses of the heads of IT and Reference in the libraries of each of the three hundred campuses, thus providing six hundred potential respondents.