The world’s largest library has redesigned the ways it receives and catalogs incoming materials in order to improve processing time dramatically and enhance the physical security of the collections. The reorganization, which involved several years of planning, allows the Library to better handle both traditional and non-traditional deposits (such as digital). It also positions the organization to respond to the recommendations of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, convened by the Library to address how the popularity of the Internet, advances in search-engine technology, and the influx of electronic information resources have greatly changed the way libraries do their work. (See story on page 211.)
A book arriving at a mail room at the Library no longer takes months or even years to journey through several divisions and many hands—at risk of getting lost along the way—before finding a permanent safe haven on a shelf for the rest of its life.
As result of the latest reorganization in Library Services at the Library of Congress, a book acquired as a copyright deposit, purchase, gift or exchange will go to one division—instead of several—for centralized “processing.” That term encompasses ordering, cataloging, shelflisting, barcoding and all the other activities that let the Library’s users find one particular book among more than 23.3 million unique titles in printed formats (plus another 8.9 million that are duplicate copies) in the custody of the Library.
“The new organizational structure—the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate (ABA)—fully merges acquisitions and cataloging functions, streamlines workflows and deploys staff to take advantage of their unique language and subject skills,” said ABA Director Beacher Wiggins.
He noted that the new organization will be better designed and staffed to acquire new digital materials, which will be processed the same way collections in printed and other formats are.
Effective Oct. 1, the merger of acquisitions and cataloging functions ends an older industrial model of work, in which an incoming book moved slowly along an assembly line of stand-alone acquisitions and processing units. Twenty years ago, staff in Order, Exchange and Gift or Copyright Cataloging divisions acquired a book and then handed it off to highly specialized librarians in separate Descriptive Cataloging and Subject Cataloging divisions for description, subject analysis, classification, and assignment to a particular place on a shelf. Whole-book cataloging, which merged descriptive- and subject-cataloging functions in the early 1990s, began the trend toward centralized processing, which eliminates duplicative efforts and speeds up “throughput”—the time it takes to make a new book findable and to get it on the shelf.
Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate Organization
The reorganization affected some 635 staff members:
- Approximately 600 were reassigned from 14 divisions to nine new divisions without a reduction in force or downgrade in pay.
- 14 staff members in the Cataloging Distribution Service, which sold Library of Congress cataloging products, were reassigned to the Business Enterprises Initiative.
- 20 employees who catalog music and sound recordings were reassigned from the ABA directorate to the Music Division, which is part of the Collections and Services Directorate.
The nine new divisions were established on Oct. 1, 2008, and postal addresses and integrated library-system locations for the new ABA directorate became operational on Oct. 14. By Oct. 15, staff had been placed in new position descriptions for “librarian” and “technician,” each with a broad range of duties ranging from ordering to various stages of creating bibliographic records.
Cross-training of staff will take about two years. “No one will be asked to perform a job they don’t know how to do,” said Joe Puccio, who is head of a new ABA Acquisitions Fiscal and Support Office. Contractors will perform acquisitions, mail services and other support functions.
During the 2½ years it took to plan and design the reorganization, staff were consulted all along the way, Wiggins emphasized.
Wiggins coordinated the team effort, and Maureen Landry, chief of the new U.S. and Publisher Liaison Division, and Judith Mansfield, chief of the new U.S./Anglo Division, managed the reorganization.
Wiggins coordinated multiple planning groups consisting of supervisors and staff, and he met twice a month with representatives of AFSCME Locals 2477 and 2910. “He e-mailed minutes of every meeting to the entire staff,” commented Susan Morris, special assistant to Wiggins.
“Beacher let staff reconsider their proposed placement, and he entertained changes,” Puccio said. “This was a unique opportunity for staff to move to their strengths and to use their language and subject expertise.”
He added that by learning new skills required by their new position descriptions, ABA staff will become more competitive in efforts to advance their careers.
Library Services concluded impact bargaining with AFSCME Local 2910 and consultations with AFSCME Local 2477 in September.
Geographic Organization
The new Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate has been organized geographically, so that the 2.5 million new items selected for addition to the Library’s collections each year will be acquired and processed according to the regional origin of the materials.
For example, a new German history book requested by a recommending officer in the European Division will be ordered and processed by the Germanic and Slavic Division in the new ABA Directorate. A Germanic and Slavic (G&S) Division librarian with expertise in the German language will initiate the purchase order based on the availability of budgeted funds.
Division technicians will order and receive the book and complete a preliminary bibliographic description of the book. A technician also will research bibliographic databases to determine if a catalog record already exists for the book and then copy it to eliminate redundant cataloging. A G&S librarian will then approve the invoice for payment.
If the book needs supplemental or full cataloging, the G&S librarian will complete the cataloging by determining the authorized forms of search terms, performing subject analysis, and assigning a Library of Congress Classification call number for shelf placement and for browsing in the online catalog.
Materials acquired through purchase, exchange or gifts will flow to the African, Latin American and Western European Division; Asian and Middle Eastern Division; Germanic and Slavic Division; the Overseas Operations Division, which now processes the materials it acquires through the Library’s six overseas offices; and the U.S./Anglo Division.
Primarily English-language materials that arrive without payment flow to the U.S. and Publisher Liaison Division and the U.S. General Division. These divisions acquire and process copyright deposits and copies the Library gets from publishers in exchange for providing the publisher with cataloging data in advance of publication.
ILS Supports Reorganization
Beth Davis-Brown, executive secretariat in Library Services, said no new automation was required for implementation of the ABA reorganization, which mirrors the capabilities of the Integrated Library System (ILS). Upgraded since its installation in the 1990s, the ILS eliminates duplicative manual operations of the past and supports the streamlined workflows envisioned with the new reorganization.
Changing business processes in Library Services to take advantage of interconnected ILS functions is consistent with the findings and recommendations of LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress. (See Information Bulletin, August-September 2000.) A report published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, LC21 contains suggestions of an independent committee of top information scientists on what the Library should do to position itself for national leadership in a digital age at the dawn of the new millennium.
The committee found evidence of “obsolete workflows” throughout the Library workplace and warned that automation alone would not streamline workflows. “There seems to be much opportunity for workflow automation. However the approach should not be to use information technology to automate existing processes but rather to examine the processes themselves and rationalize them across unit boundaries,” the committee recommended.
“The ILS will support different and more effective processing flows than were possible with the Library’s old stand-alone applications,” the report found, adding that reorganization and rethinking of business processes would be “even more difficult than the technical implementation of the Voyager ILS.”
An outside consultant interviewed people affected by the ABA reorganization, studied all the functions of each new division and concluded in a 2007 report that the design was “sound,” Morris said.
In noting her approval and support for the massive ABA transition, Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services, said: “The ABA reorganization reflects the direction that I envisioned for Library Services when I became the Associate Librarian five years ago. With this major restructuring, Library Services positions itself to be more efficient in its operations and more responsive to the needs of users.”
