Toolkit Exercise 2.1

END-OF-CHAPTER EXERCISES

TOOLKIT EXERCISE 2.1

I. Part A

The person who I interviewed was X, Medical Librarian, in Mercy Medical Center. I started this interview by talking about whether she had made any significant changes in the library since she has worked at Mercy Hospital. The questions were stated for her in the following order:

1. Could you describe the change in the library, what you were trying to accomplish, and what happened?

Two years ago in the medical library, a large amount of space in the library was taken up by book shelving which contained yearly stacks of journals. This space was not being used for long time and that was impractical. Since the Library had only a small area for study space, more room was needed. Therefore, there was a need to get rid of these stacks and their shelves to make study space for the students and employees. This drove her to think about change in the library. It made more sense to use this journal shelving area in the library as a study space and for additional computers so that people could have access to the journals electronically. The idea of this change in the library came from this point. Therefore, she asked her vice president in the beginning what he thought about this idea, and how to find room for the journals.

2. Describe the processes of the change. That is, HOW did the managers work to make things happen? Who did they involve? How did they persuade others? What resources did they use?

Following up the conversation with her vice president, a written proposal was prepared and presented to the librarian’s manager. The proposal described the steps of recycling the shelves, the journal issues and converting them into space for a study area. Also, it included the processing of this change and the benefit that the library could gain. Through this change in the library, most of the print journal subscriptions were canceled. The reason to get rid of these journals was their availability in...