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This chapter helps us to understand the staffing and workflow ramifications of Linked Data. A survey of the current state of metadata work, compared to the possibilities and intentions of Linked Data modeling and technology, allows us to make a needs assessment for future planning. Findings are that current trends in metadata work – distributed production alongside centralized management, iterative and collaborative resource description – are appropriate in a Linked Data environment, and should be further cultivated. A plan for training staff on the conceptual modeling of Linked Data is also outlined, together providing a launching pad to begin organizational planning for Linked Data.

As the demand for new services strains library resources, directors of research libraries must practice efficient cost management and demonstrate alignment with institutional objectives. For technical services, this requires managing the effective cost of metadata services, assessing core functions, and evaluating operational performance. This paper uses Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) as a framework to expose the network of local and global dependencies that currently define the field of operation for technical services. Comparative analyses using a CASs framework were conducted on reports by the Library of Congress, the Heads of Technical Services in Large Research Libraries Interest Group, and the British Library. Each report addresses financial pressures placed on bibliographic control services in response to the 2008 recession. Statements within the reports were assigned to one of three dominant systems: bibliographic control, institutional identification, and distributive networks. The statements were then mapped to the CASs characteristics to determine environmental pressures and areas of adaptation. The reports exposed long-standing dependencies that tie local bibliographic control to a complex network of external agencies. Institutional shifts toward user-centered services coupled with growing fiscal restraint has disrupted the stability of these networks. The analyses found that in all cases network instability led to localized institutional adaptation to existing economic pressures. The paper recommends applying a CASs model to assess the alignment of distributed metadata standards and systems development to local institutional objectives.

Library buildings are routinely reimagined, remodeled, or built new to meet the changing needs of their community. The move from collection-centric to user-centric service models has generated numerous writings about the library as place and space. The one concept lacking in the scholarly discourse is the changing roles of librarians to meet the needs of these new spaces and places. How do librarians fit in the new equation? When addressing the professional identity of librarians, which aspect of their work will need to evolve and which will need to be let go? A critical facet of sustaining services in new spaces is the need to develop the sustainable librarian – to remove the stigma of the librarian as “jack of all trades, master of none.” In order to realize this new mindset of mastering our domain we need to begin reimagining our work. Some ways, this can be accomplished by writing increased flexibility into position descriptions and creating organizational structures to better support librarians within the new spaces. With these new developments to our professional identities, librarians may learn to employ entrepreneurial skills in order to continuously anticipate services and develop skill sets to aid the library’s ability to fulfill its purpose. The authors provide a literature review to discuss the changing role of the academic librarian to meet the evolution of the library building and services. We will provide an example through findings and practices of Grand Valley State University and how it reimagined roles in the early 2000s and continues to reimagine roles in a new building and a renovated branch library. The change of spaces and places in academic libraries to accommodate user needs and perceptions has impacted how academic librarians work in these spaces and places. Library administrators need to rethink workflows, and organizational charts by examining flexible workloads, cross-training initiatives, professional development around new skills, and the letting go of obsolete practices.

Originality/value – in this chapter, the authors will discuss how library leaders are charged with translating the new roles of their librarians to meet the needs of their community in these new spaces and how library leaders may look beyond the literature of the profession for ways to facilitate change.

Informed learning can be enlivened through explicit and persistent attention to using information to learn during collaborative design activities. The resulting information experiences and accompanying information practices in the workplace, when combined with systems principles, can produce transferable individual and group (and, ultimately, organizational) capacity to advance knowledge in ever expanding professional contexts.

In development in North America since 2003, the Informed Systems Approach incorporates principles of systems thinking and informed learning though an inclusive, participatory design process that fosters information exchange, reflective dialogue, knowledge creation, and conceptual change in workplace organizations. It also furthers expression of collaborative information practices that enrich information experiences by simultaneously advancing both situated domain knowledge and transferable learning capacity. Integrated design activities support participants’ developing awareness of the conceptions of information experience and informed learning, in a cyclical and iterative fashion that promotes and sustains continuous learning.

A shared learning focus evolves through intentional use of information to learn, including collective reflection on information sources, collaborative practices, and systems functionalities, which further participants’ topical understandings and enrich their information experiences. In addition, an action-oriented intention and inclusive participatory disposition ensures improvements of real world situations.

From 2007 to 2009, Kansas State University Libraries (K-State Libraries) committed to strategically assess and redevelop their organizational structure. The Libraries’ Strategic Plan and position redistributions commenced in 2007 and 2009 respectively, with adjustments in 2010 to accommodate the university’s K-State 2025 Strategic Plan. Together, these changed the roles of former subject librarians, dividing and transferring responsibilities for outreach, reference, instruction, and collection development. Among the more significant changes was the creation of departments devoted to patron groups, rather than specific academic disciplines. Illustrating how the reorganization changed the roles of traditional library services, this chapter outlines the responsibilities of three librarian positions: Undergraduate and Community Services, Faculty and Graduate Services, and Content (collection) Development. The librarians are also founding members of the K-State Libraries Arts Matrix, an ad hoc team operating within the new organization to enhance communication and expand subject expertise in the visual and performing arts. These transitions presented both opportunities for engagement and specialization, as well as challenges to communication and subject identity. These issues are addressed, including solutions offered by the matrix model. Although this study is limited by the neoteric existence of this model, and lack of precedents for comparison, K-State Libraries’ example may offer a viable model for institutions adapting to fiscal realities. Additionally, matrices may supplement the traditional subject librarian model for those seeking to enhance engagement and collaboration. This chapter offers further insight into a strategic planning process, as well as a transparent, inclusive strategy for librarians adjusting to organizational change.

The emergence of new and integrated approaches to information technology projects and web-based service initiatives in libraries poses a number of challenges to those who manage them. Library managers must work closely with specialists in areas that are not always found within the library, yet there is no evidence-based data documenting the factors involved in doing so. The exploratory study summarized in this chapter documents much of what practitioners and scholars alike consider important in this arena, and contributes to the literature in two ways. First, a meta-analysis of what both practitioners and scholars have found to be important in the areas of technology project management and web-based initiatives is presented that can assist professionals currently developing web-based project launches. Additionally, by using bibliometric techniques as the basis of this analysis, a newly developed taxonomy of these approaches is provided that can assist LIS professionals with future cooperative web-based initiatives. Domain analytic techniques are utilized in the study to examine a selection (n=276) of published articles and papers to ascertain what library and information professionals have learned from embarking on such collaborations. A grounded theory approach is taken in order to develop a working taxonomy of topics and themes relating to collaborative online initiatives. The findings illustrate that library and information science project managers involved in online and web-based initiatives face five key areas of concern: information technology management, information retrieval protocols, user-specific applications, user education, and strategic planning.

In the context of Saudi Arabia, this chapter investigates how clustering promotes knowledge sharing and transfer in an emerging, government-directed industry cluster. It is determined that lateral actors play a key facilitating role, and formal and informal mechanisms and interpersonal links among actors support that cluster knowledge exchange. Limited social capital strength and depth and a lack of trust that prevents knowledge sharing are partially explained by the cluster's limited vertical and horizontal actors.

The level of trust in a service provider is an important decision factor when buying industrial services. Especially, the outcome uncertainties of services, its individuality, and asymmetric information between buyer and seller are some reasons that the evaluation of trust is a key component in service trading. Consequently, searching of potential new suppliers involves examining providers’ trustworthiness. This paper focuses on the study of online trust signals used by buyers, to assess provider’s trustworthiness in the context of industrial services. The main research objective is to propose the basis for a digital tool, which helps buyers to assess provider’s trustworthiness by providing a “standardized trustworthiness signal description” and “trust functionalities.” A particular approach is used, wherein different methods are mixed such as a case study, expert interviews, and a quantitative method following the guideline of the design science paradigm. The aim is to propose a useful tool for trustworthiness assessment to enhance e-markets for industrial services.