Developing a team management structure in a public library

Library Trends, Summer, 2004 by Betsy A. Bernfeld

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MODEL

What we found was a really big sister: the University of Arizona Library. I had noted Shelley Phipps's name (assistant dean for Team and Organization Development at UA Library) on a journal publication about team management, so I contacted her. She generously gave me several hours of her time plus the proceedings of a recent conference on organizational change at the University of Arizona Library (Living the Future, 1996), which documented the UA experiment as a learning organization. (A selected bibliography regarding the UA model, which includes a citation for those proceedings, appears at the end of this article.) It may seem odd to partner a small public library with such a large academic institution--at the time UA had a staff of about 200 to our 20. But the two libraries had at least two things in common: Both understood the power of teams, and neither appreciated hierarchy.

After that first encounter, four basic concepts garnered from the UA experience were incorporated into operations at the Teton County Library.

Cross-training

Every member of the Teton County Library staff, even the director, was assigned for up to four hours per week at a desk or function that was not a primary work assignment. In the new library building, a minimum of four staff people was required just to keep the building open, and five if anyone wanted to eat lunch. The old library could be operated with two staff people during evening and Sunday hours. Now there were more spaces to cover and an extra public desk to monitor. Cross-training really complicated scheduling, but it allowed an enormous amount of flexibility in staffing public desks seven days a week, plus four evenings, as well as during staff absences. We estimated that, without cross-training, we would need at least a 30 percent increase in staff.

Instituting cross-training at a small public library was easy. We had just come from a tight work space where everybody pretty much did everything. Reference and circulation services had operated from a single desk, downstairs the children's services performed its own circulation, circulation staff helped out with technical services tasks, and a number of people worked on outreach. Moving to a bigger building was actually a narrowing of focus for our staff and did not require new training. Later, cross-training became more challenging when new hires had to master two functions while only spending four hours per week at their second assignment. At a large institution such as the UA Library, where the original organization structure was characterized by many specialized positions, this transition must have been harrowing indeed.

Team Leaders

Modeled after the UA Library's Cabinet, Teton County Library created a management team called "Team Leaders." These leaders represented each of the major functions of our library: administration, circulation, reference, youth services, technical services, information systems, and outreach. They met once a week and considered library-wide issues such as budget, policies, and planning. The thinking was that all basic functions of the library would be affected by such decisions, and thus they should have a voice in the process. Each function could lend a unique perspective to the discussion. We envisioned this group as a circle, with the library director representing administration and also serving as the team's leader. Previously, under a hierarchical model, decisions came from the top down and department head meetings were rare.