Organisational charts showing the new team structures as envisaged by the decisions made as part of the Project STAR process can be found at:

Library Support Services Group
Research and Information Services Group

The boxes each represent a current member of staff, their position title and the FTE size of the position. The names of the encumbents have been removed in the interests of privacy. It is a good visual representation of the new “teams” in a macro view.

The details of how those teams will be actually be managed and will work is currently under discussion between the Transition Team and those managers in the new structure that we currently have in place, namely Heather and Joan currently. However, in relation to the Support Services Teams and the new Information Resources Assistants in that area, the position descriptions reflect that the Information Resource Assistants will be required to work across the Resource Discovery and Resource Acquisition Teams in response to fluctuations in workload and as a consequence the PD includes key result areas for both teams. Although the individual staff members undertaking these roles will report to either the Resource Discovery or Resource Acquisitions Team Leader, the intention is for these staff to work across both teams (including supporting Interloans) to facilitate the transfer of skills and knowledge and ensure a multi-skilled group.

Two members of the Transition Team have had a wide-ranging discussion with Heather over the way her area of responsibility will look and while there are no confirmed decisions to report yet, Heather had plans to discuss it with Sue McKnight once Sue was well enough and also to discuss it with the new Academic Liaison Managers once appointed. Sue’s continuing illness will change this plan so further details will be provided once they are known. The Transition Team will continue to follow up on this.

Key questions for staff are:
to whom will they report and where will they be located?

Key areas for Heather to consider are:
the Liaison team, the Central Library Team, and the Branches/Hubs Team.

Liaison Team:
distribution of staff between the managers will need to be determined
distribution of staff across all libraries will need to be looked at closely.
Teaching programme for 2011 is still a high priority and will need to be sustained
No new managers begun before 30/11/10
Branch Managers leaving before 30/11/10

Central Library:
How can Joan manage 24 staff on her own?
Deputy for Joan?
How can the Band 3 roles assist Joan?
What are the roles of the Band 3 in the new structure – same or different?

Branches/Hubs:
redistribution of staff around the branches?
Reporting to one manager instead of several individual managers?
Role of new band 5 supervisor position and of existing band

Other issues for Heather:
Lending leadership
High Demand leadership

To be continued …

The Transition Team is meeting weekly to identify issues involved in the transition from the existing to the new structure.

The Bindery move to Digital Media Group has been started and discussions between John Froud, Foreman Binder, and Simon White, Print/Copy Production Team Leader, have begun. Similarly, Anne Scott is working with Susanta Banerjee, Applications and Systems Support Manager, in regard to the transferral of Margaret Adam from the Library.

Please let us know your thoughts and concerns so we can add them to the list of issues to be sorted.

Gail Pattie, Cynthia Bishell, Caroline Sydall 13.10.10