Open educational resources (CLIPP, 45)

Abstract

for the various activities and policies within the department. While drawbacks and challenges of these platforms are discussed, the overall report is that the usage of these tools greatly improved communication, collaboration, and morale among those working in technical services departments. The rest of the chapters in this section highlight other strategies for fostering healthy communication within this department. One case study showed how a large urban library fostered positive relationships within their technical services department by, paradoxically, going outside of the library via organized retreats in Chapter 3: “Retreating to Advance Together.” Then the next chapter goes on to show how clear multi-directional communication with everyone involved in projects helped foster a positive environment within one large university library system’s technical services department. The second section of this book looks at communication outside of technical services but within the library. The first chapter in this section details how one library started offering training opportunities on the topics of cataloging and metadata so that the rest of the library can better understand the true value provided by the department. Other case studies highlighted in this section include one library that successfully used a collaborative project management tool, and another that developed an internal e-resources ticketing system. This section wraps up with a chapter looking at the communication breakdown between technical services departments and subject librarians, and how they used both surveys and focus groups to take a more data-driven approach to fill communication gaps within the library. The final section of this book looks at strategies for communicating value wholly outside of the library. For many of the chapters in this section, the audience is simply the broader university or organization, such as with the chapter on marketing the library through a range of channels. Other chapters looked at collaborations with a specific audience, such as collection development conversations and the faculty, or discovery interface enhancements and the IT department. The final chapter is called “Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst,” which sums up this entire final section: always keep an optimistic outlook but also be prepared for adversity. Communicating clearly outside of the library may be more of a challenge for many technical services departments, but it is imperative for them to both promote and further their work outside of the library’s walls, and this section provides practical examples of how to best do this. Overall, this book illustrates that there are many different strategies for technical service departments to better communicate their value. In addition to the insightful case studies, this book also contains examples of surveys, infographics, and an appendix complete with various kinds of content that support the stories appearing within. Practically, this book can serve as a useful modern guide for other technical services departments who are looking to improve their communication.