Technology Management Key Points

1. Library Technology Services Coordination: Notes from an Inside View

2. This presentation outlines the responsibilities and challenges of a Technology Services Coordinator for an academic library at a North Carolina University.

3. University and Library Statistics 2008-09: Enrollment: Approximately 17,000 total (about 2, 100 of these were graduate students) Overall Library Circulation: 450,172 items Library Attendance: 1,148,865

4. The coordinator’s responsibilities includecoordinating and managing: an institutional repository web applications and design systems and technology educational media over 500 computers digitization

5. The library’s technical department handles all the desk top computing, wireless computing, and web support for the library, as well as supporting the infrastructure on which these systems run.

6. Whereas technological change was fairly dramatic in the 1990’s for this academic library, currently both software and hardware used for library applications are fairly stable.

7. Current technology challenges do include the recent and ongoing task of delivering information to increasingly smaller, portable computers such as Nanos and IPods. In response, this library developed a more basic version of the catalog which is manageable within a small display.

8. Further recent technology changes and trends include the tendency toward “cloud computing” and web based software applications.

9. Increasingly, the cataloging of e journals and books is automated, freeing libraries, including this one, to devote cataloging resources to what is unique in their own private collections, and to making these collections digitally available.

10. One key to successful IT management is to work with those who truly enjoy problem solving.

11. Any changes made by the Instructional Technology department tend to be very visible across campus. This is particularly true for changes made to the University website and home page.

12. Central to sustainable IT management is inviting input while realizing not everyone will be happy with decisions made. Recognizing the dynamic relationship between technology systems and their users is essential.