Strategic Planning Goal 4 – Invest in Expertise

Goal 4: Identify and invest in the expertise needed to advance and sustain a modern research library

Metrics: 1) A competency-based inventory has been completed for all permanent employees; 2) The degree to which identified strategic needs/gaps have been filled

1. Implement a flexible organizational and administrative structure to engender cross-department work
2. Fill gaps in talent and competencies to meet goals and strategies

What has been accomplished

• The Libraries have expanded our expertise and capabilities in library application development and systems operations, which has made possible the development and deployment of our Coordinated Discovery Platform and reengineering of our Digital Collections infrastructure. Projects like this also demonstrate the success of cross-departmental efforts to support web services in a complex library technology environment.
• The Libraries have hired a Data Strategist who has extended our assessment capabilities through the analytics capabilities of our Library Services Platform and through the implementation of analytics related to student learning.
• The Libraries identified the need to hire a Head of Communications to provide leadership in the development and implementation of a comprehensive communications and public relations program. More recently we have re-envisioned the Executive Assistant role and now have this position in the lead role to coordinate annual giving efforts in addition to their other duties.
• Hired the Director for Science and Engineering Libraries (SEL), and reorganized the SEL structure to operate holistically in a way that engenders cross-unit work, and team-based delivery of services and broader deployment of staff talents and expertise.
• The Science and Engineering Libraries (SEL) have hired a science librarian specializing in data management and invested in deepening the data management expertise of existing staff to support researchers in the science and engineering fields, and other disciplines. Their team approach to service delivery in collaboration with Cameron Cook, the Libraries lead on research data management, has helped us expand capacity, partnerships and programming to support research data management, including consulting with researchers on research data management plans, offering a new workshop series on R a program to process research data, collaborating with the Data Science Hub on delivering Data & Software Carpentry workshops, and introducing undergraduates to concepts of data management through a workshop series – researchERS – for emerging research scholars.
• Teaching and Learning Programs has hired an e-Learning Librarian to help advance the Libraries eLearning portfolio and support the Campus growing e-Learning strategic initiatives. This position created the capacity needed to implement the Micro-credentialing courses. Libraries Micro-courses: Micro-courses are small easily digestable online learning objects that teach learners specific research competencies. This innovative approach to teaching graduate students (and life-long learners) research skills has been showcased at several national conferences.  The Libraries are able to assert our expertise in areas that have been identified as strategically important (e.g., Copyright, Research Data Management, Graduate Information Literacy, etc.).  Areas of development are selected from users’ needs assessments (e.g., students, faculty, program coordinators, etc.). The project is a collaboration between the UW Division of Continuing Studies and Libraries. A full listing of micro-courses are available. Given the success of the micro-course initiative and the Libraries partnership in developing online learning at UW-Madison, the Libraries are participating on the Chancellor’s/Provost’s online undergraduate degree project and are serving on several teams ensuring a positive learning experience for this new student population.
• Invested in leadership training by facilitating staff participation in leadership institutes

Yet to be accomplished

• Recruitment and hiring of a Collections Strategist
• Recruitment and hiring an instructional designer to support our teaching and learning programs
• Ongoing recruitments for vacant positions supporting strategic areas, such as International and Area Studies