Reorganization Update

Welcome to another installment of the WiLS Weekly Message.
This will be our next-to-last transition message.  Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read these messages!

Contact Information (post July 1)
We’ll be doing a lot of experimenting in the new WiLS.  One of the things we’re trying is a single point of contact for each type of library.

Of course, you can contact any WiLS staff member at any time, but we hope having this single point of contact will clarify who to contact for any questions you may have.

The contacts will be:
….for UW and Private Academic Institutions:
Jeff Brunner

414-367-9457

…for Technical Colleges and Special Libraries:
Andi Coffin

608-239-3150

…for K12 Libraries:
Sara Gold

608-616-0355

…for Public Libraries:
Bruce Smith

(608) 515-8953

Emily Pfotenhauer will continue to be the contact for all Recollection Wisconsin questions:
, 608-616-9756

Our general contact information will be:
1360 Regent Street #121
Madison, WI, 53715

Phone: 608-218-4480
Fax: 608-237-2358

We’ll have a new website up-and-running next week.  I’ll share more information about that in next week’s message.

UW-Madison closed for lending during transition
Beginning July 15, 2013, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries will be taking over lending from WiLS.   And as you might imagine, the final transitioning of the service is a big job that involves a lot of moving of staff, technology, etc. etc.  As a result, from today until they open, UW-Madison Libraries will not be taking any requests for lending.  For more information, see http://www.library.wisc.edu/lending/#general

6/7/2013
A moment of thanks
It’s been almost a year since the reorganization of WiLS started.  As we near the end of the transition time, staffing decisions for the reorganized WiLS have been made.  I will include a formal announcement of the new staff members in next week’s message.

This week, I want to take a moment to thank the current WiLS staff for all of their years of service to the Wisconsin library community.  They have collectively served the community for over 150 years, and the impact that they have had is immeasurable.  Their caring and commitment to service has supported and advanced library service in the state, and they should be proud of their efforts.

I also want to thank them for their continued dedication to serving you throughout this transition year.  As you might imagine, this period has been difficult for everyone at WiLS, but staff has kept their focus on the organization’s mission to serve our members.  They continue to amaze me with their grace in this difficult situation.  I have been humbled every day by their ongoing work and support.  I cannot thank them enough for this.

I would encourage you to also take a moment to thank current WiLS staff.   If they’ve helped you or your library, now’s your chance to tell them.  Contact information for all staff is available here: WiLS Staff

Thank you.

Bringing the community together to invent and provide services
In last week’s message, I mentioned that WiLS will bring together the community to invent and inspire services.  I talked a little bit about workgroups and advisory committees, which will be a key component to service creation.  Today, I want to talk about another component of service creation.

With a community of over 500 members, it’s sometimes difficult to determine what services we should be developing.  We hear great ideas from members, but will other members want the same thing?  We can survey members, but it’s difficult to tell if interest in a service or project will turn into monetary support for that service.  We’d like to create a new model for service development in the new WiLS, with an emphasis on generating ideas and support from the community.

Here’s how we think it would work:  A need is identified in the community, either by us or by members.  We’ll develop an outline of what this service or project will look like.  We’ll share this outline with members.  If it’s a service or project that will be valuable to them, they’ll commit funds to making it a reality.

Essentially, we want to generate crowdfunding for projects to benefit members.

We had recent success with this concept with an e-content marketing webinar.  One public library system was interested in having us develop this webinar.  The cost was prohibitive for one system, but by splitting the costs among 10 interested systems, the webinar was provided to all systems at a reasonable cost.

The platform to do this won’t be available immediately after our transition, but we’ll be working on it, so start thinking about what projects or services or training you would like to create with other WiLS members!

Board nominations
Nominations are now open for three seats on the WiLS board:  two public library/public library system seats and one technical college library seat.  If you are interested in running, or would like to nominate a colleague, please visit the nomination form.

5/30/2013
Yesterday, we had a great Peer Council (thanks to all of you who attended, and thanks to Jane Richard for organizing it!).  At that meeting, I talked a little bit about participation in WiLS, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts today..

Throughout this reorganization, the theme of community has always been the focal point.

We recognize the power of collaboration among all types of libraries, and we want to provide opportunities for collaboration to occur.  We want to create a strong community that will, in turn, strengthen all our members.

To do that, we need you!  What are some ways you can you participate and strengthen the WiLS community?

1.  Join:  As I mentioned in an earlier message, information about our new membership model (general membership is free; cooperative purchasing membership is $199/institutions) and a form to join is available on our website.

Serve (on committees or the board):  At our member breakfast last year, we heard that having groups to guide services would strengthen the services and the community.  We’ll be implementing advisory committees for established services and workgroups to explore particular topics and services.  We aren’t quite ready to announce specific groups yet….but think about participating when you see the call.

You could also consider running for the WiLS board.  The composition of the board will change a bit because of the new membership model, and I will be sending out calls for nominations for open seats next week.

3.  Eat:  …..and speaking of our member breakfast, that’s another way to participate!  The  free member breakfast is held each year in conjunction with WiLSWorld (you don’t have to attend WiLSWorld to attend the breakfast).   You can register for the breakfast or WiLSWorld today.

4.  Inspire:  Next week, I’ll talk more about how we’ll bring together the community to invent and provide services…..so put your thinking caps on!  Your ideas can inspire results:  what services or projects or training would you like to see in the community that doesn’t exist today?   When you have those “I wish we could…” moments, don’t stop there!  WiLS will provide a way  to leverage the community to meet those needs, and I’ll tell you more about that next week.

5/23/2013
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  Before you head out for some fun and relaxation, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read this message.

This week, I wanted to highlight just a couple of things that will be continuing after July 1 and that you can participate in TODAY!

WiLS will still continue to offer in-person opportunities for members to get together, network, and learn from one another, including our annual WiLSWorld Conference, July 24-25, 201 3 at the Pyle Center on UW-Madison campus.  Joan Frye Williams will be our opening keynote, and Bess Sadler from Stanford University will be our second day keynote with a talk entitled “Brain Injuries, Science Fiction, and Library Discovery”.

We’ll also be holding our annual membership meeting/member breakfast on the morning of July 25.  You don’t need to pay for the conference to attend the free meeting/breakfast.  We’ll be sharing information about the outcome of our reorganization and, as always, gathering feedback from you, our members.

For more information and to register, see http://www.wils.wisc.edu/wils/wilsworld-conference%E2%80%94july-24-25-2013.

(And don’t forget Peer Council!  It’s less than a week away…http://www.wils.wisc.edu/wils/peer-council-meeting%E2%80%94may-30-2013)

Recollection Wisconsin (formerly Wisconsin Heritage Online) will continue to be part of WiLS after July 1.  With generous funding through the Nicholas Family Foundation, Emily Pfotenhauer will continue to help libraries and cultural institutions plan and execute digitization projects and to collect and share historical materials through the Recollection Wisconsin website.

This spring and summer, they’re collecting memories of work and play in Wisconsin.  You can help by sharing your stories and photos and by encouraging others to do the same!  You or your friends may be featured on Wisconsin Life, an audio series on Wisconsin Public Radio that explores what makes Wisconsin unique through the voice and stories of its residents.  Wisconsin Life will feature one story of play and one story of work from submitted entries for airing statewide during Morning Edition on WPR in August and September.

Go to recollectionwisconsin.org/wisconsin-at-work-wisconsin-at-play-share-your-stories-and-photos to read more and to share your story!

5/16/2013
Hello, and welcome to the first in our series of weekly messages to keep you informed as we complete our reorganization.  I’m writing these messages to answer questions that I’ve heard from members, so please let me know what questions you have as we progress toward July 1.

There are three topics for today: Membership, Resource Sharing Update, and Peer Council
1.  Membership
Recently, I was asked, “What does WiLS membership look like these days?”

Well, the very short answer is that our membership model is changing significantly for 2013/14.

General WiLS membership will be free!   You’ll still need to fill out a brief form to join.

If your institution wants to participate in our cooperative purchasing program, the membership fee for that program will be $199/institution.

I don’t want to make this message too long, so all of the details are here.

(If you’re a public library, we’ll be working with your public library system on cooperative purchasing membership…but please feel free to sign up for the general membership today!)

2.  Resource Sharing Update
As you know, WiLS will no longer be providing the lending service for UW-Madison, and, not surprisingly, we’re getting a lot of questions about what that means.  UW-Madison has just posted an FAQ to help answer your questions

WiLS, however, is not getting out of the resource sharing game completely!  We’re working on four resource sharing projects:

• We’re working with the British Library, Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Infotrieve and others to provide discounted articles for WiLS members.
• We’re coordinating a group for non-profit, Wisconsin WiLS members to have no-cost reciprocal resource sharing with Minitex.
• We’re working with Atlas Systems to coordinate an ILLiad consulting/support service for members, as we’re most likely not going to provide the service directly.
• We’re planning our annual Fall resource sharing conference day (and would love your help in doing so!)

If you’re interested in any of the above, please fill out this form BY MAY 17TH:  bit.ly/XPnDeD

3.  Peer Council
….and while not reorganization-related, don’t forget that Peer Council, our annual technical services conference, will be held on May 30th at the Pyle Center in Madison.

5/6/2013
WiLS will be providing some resource sharing-related services as part of our cooperative purchasing and continuing education services, including:

• Commercial Document Delivery:  WiLS is working with the British Library, Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Infotrieve and others to provide discounted articles for WiLS members.
• A reciprocal arrangement with Minitex: WiLS is coordinating a group for non-profit, Wisconsin WiLS members to have no-cost reciprocal resource sharing with Minitex.
• Resource sharing annual conference:  Our tradition of a Fall resource sharing conference will continue, as part of our services will continue to be to bring together people to share ideas and to learn new things.  We’ll be looking for some help in planning this conference.
• ILLiad support:  WiLS will not be providing the ILLiad support service we have offered in the past.  However, we are also working on an arrangement with Atlas Systems to provide custom ILLiad consulting to interested WiLS members.

We need your help!   If you’re interested in any of the above, please fill out this form by MAY 15.

T Minus 8 Weeks and Counting
There’s a lot still to do, but I’m confident that everything will be in place for us to provide great service to all of our members and vendor partners.

A couple of recent steps we’ve taken:

• We have a new mailing address! Our official mailing address after July 1 will be
  1360 Regent St. #121
  Madison, WI 53715
• I’m happy to announce that Coop Info, our current Cooperative Purchasing support student will be our new Financial Specialist/Administrative Coordinator. Lisa has been with WiLS for XX, and brings a wealth of knowledge about our members, our processes, and our services, along with great attention to detail and customer service skills. She’ll begin her new position on June 3.

WiLS & UW Madison Resource Sharing Update
Stef Morrill and Heather Weltin
Presented to Wisconsin libraries and ILL community

Resource sharing webinar from wilsjen

03/12/2013
Reorganization Update
I’ve erased the opening sentence of this update about 50 times now. The reorganization is moving along.
What is the best way to share with you, the WiLS community, where we are today? How do I reassure
you that we’re going to be here in July, as a strong organization and more able to meet the needs of the members?

Let’s start with the factual update:

• We have a new business and service model! After gathering questions and feedback from the community,
  the WiLS board approved a model and a draft budget for the coming fiscal year. The model hasn’t changed much from the draft model that we shared last month. 2013 02-13 new wils business model from wilsjenWe’ll be sending more information out soon about general membership, membership for the cooperative purchasing service, and more about new and continuing services.

• As part of the budget, the board has approved the virtual office concept, so WiLS will not have a physical office in Madison. This reduction in overhead allows us to focus our budget on providing services, and also give us the opportunity to truly be a statewide organization, with the possibility of staff in locations beyond Madison. Staff will be expected to be out in the community on a regular basis, maybe even using the internet and public spaces as their office!
• We have started hiring for the “new” organization. You may have seen the job posting for our Financial Support Specialist and Administrative Coordinator. Postings for the other positions will appear soon!
• What’s next? A lot! We’ll be working on rebranding, writing new bylaws, and much more … stay tuned.

Now for the less factual part …
As you might notice, I rarely use the word “I” when I talk about this reorganization. It is truly a community effort, and I thank all of you for your willingness to participate by reading updates, attending webinars, sharing your thought-provoking comments and suggestions, and continuing to support us through this transition.

The biggest thanks goes to your representatives on the WiLS board. They are doing amazing work—so much more than they should be expected to do—and they are focused on building an organization that will serve the needs of all of the community and remain viable into the future. And maybe that’s the best reassurance I can offer about our future: we’re all building this organization together. It will belong to the community that is shaping it around their needs. It will then, naturally, be responsive to members’ needs and will do so in a way that will maintain the financial health of the organization.

So, as this transition continues, so please do not hesitate to contact me with ideas, concerns, or questions as we build our organization together.

-Stef Morrill

03/12/2013
Reorganization Update
I’ve erased the opening sentence of this update about 50 times now. The reorganization is moving along. What is the best way to share with you, the WiLS community, where we are today? How do I reassure you that we’re going to be here in July, as a strong organization and more able to meet the needs of the members?

Let’s start with the factual update:

• We have a new business and service model! After gathering questions and feedback from the community, the WiLS board approved a model and a draft budget for the coming fiscal year. The model hasn’t changed much from the draft model that we shared last month.
  
  2013 02-13 new wils business model from wilsjen

  We’ll be sending more information out soon about general membership, membership for the cooperative purchasing service, and more about new and continuing services.

• As part of the budget, the board has approved the virtual office concept, so WiLS will not have a physical office in Madison. This reduction in overhead allows us to focus our budget on providing services, and also give us the opportunity to truly be a statewide organization, with the possibility of staff in locations beyond Madison. Staff will be expected to be out in the community on a regular basis, maybe even using the internet and public spaces as their office!
• We have started hiring for the “new” organization. You may have seen the job posting for our Financial Support Specialist and Administrative Coordinator. Postings for the other positions will appear soon!
• What’s next? A lot! We’ll be working on rebranding, writing new bylaws, and much more … stay tuned.

Now for the less factual part …
As you might notice, I rarely use the word “I” when I talk about this reorganization. It is truly a community effort, and I thank all of you for your willingness to participate by reading updates, attending webinars, sharing your thought-provoking comments and suggestions, and continuing to support us through this transition.

The biggest thanks goes to your representatives on the WiLS board. They are doing amazing work—so much more than they should be expected to do—and they are focused on building an organization that will serve the needs of all of the community and remain viable into the future. And maybe that’s the best reassurance I can offer about our future: we’re all building this organization together. It will belong to the community that is shaping it around their needs. It will then, naturally, be responsive to members’ needs and will do so in a way that will maintain the financial health of the organization.

So, as this transition continues, so please do not hesitate to contact me with ideas, concerns, or questions as we build our organization together.

-Stef Morrill

01/28/2013
As many of you know, WiLS has undertaken a process to reorganize and to separate from UW-Madison. We began by reviewing services with our members and then developed a draft business & service model. The board has reviewed the model, and now we are gathering feedback from our members and others in the Wisconsin library community, with the intention of having a finalized model by late February.

We believe that this new model will create a sustainable organization. The model was built on a number of principles:

• Simplicity: discarding complicated membership and service models.
• Transparency: providing members with clear information about fees.
• Value: building affordable services that provide perceived value for every dollar spent.
• Community: continuing our role of bringing together all types of libraries in the state.
• Innovation: creating an organization that is flexible and can change with the needs of the members, while also providing guidance and leadership to help libraries innovate.

Combining these principles with the identified needs of our members, the new model proposes three services areas:

1. Membership: The membership service will be the mechanism to continue our community purpose: facilitating information exchange among members, sharing innovative library developments, etc. We recognize that finding specific value for these more intangible services is a challenge. Therefore, to honor our principle of value, there will no longer be a fee to be a member of WiLS. We hope that all libraries in the state will join our community and the conversation; all will be welcome WiLS members.
2. Cooperative purchasing: Highlighted by members as the most valued WiLS service, cooperative purchasing of electronic resources and other products will continue to be one of our primary services. Improvements will include better tools to manage subscriptions and extending opportunities into other purchasing areas. When you choose to purchase an e-resource through WiLS, you benefit by saving money on the purchase itself as well as saving time. We will do the groundwork with vendors to provide complete lifecycle management for your e-resources, from learning about products and arranging trials, to negotiating attractive prices and licenses, to placing your orders, to receiving and verifying invoices from the vendor, and consolidating your purchases for the most convenient invoice for you.There will be a $199 fee to participate in cooperative purchasing, which will also give you access to our “order direct” discounts, saving you money on purchases from many vendors. Because not every trial turns into a purchase, this membership fee helps to cover a portion of our costs for this up-front work, done both for individual institutions and on behalf of groups. We will continue to retain a percentage of the negotiated discounts with vendors as a subscription management fee, which will average 5%. However, the fee will be clearly stated on your invoice, and will be capped at $1,000 per subscription (for subscriptions over $20,000).
3. Project services: During our service planning process, members expressed their need for expertise, particularly in the areas of marketing, business analytics and assessment, project management, legal assistance, building projects, and IT. WiLS will be the one-stop shop for fulfilling these needs. We will help libraries connect to vetted experts, both inside and outside the library community. We will provide specialized project services, based on staff expertise. We will help libraries build collaborative solutions to problems. And we will save libraries time and money in the process. This service will have a fee-for-service model, either on a project or hourly basis.

Since we are eliminating membership fees and capping cooperative purchasing charges, we will have a loss in revenue next year. However, the reorganization gives us the flexibility to begin with a significantly smaller staff (probably six FTE) and add staff as it makes sense. We are also proposing that WiLS operate with no physical location, which will save money on overhead. It will also give us the opportunity to truly be a statewide organization, with the possibility of staff in locations beyond Madison.

The board and I hope that this new model will give members a chance to reengage and reconnect with WiLS. WiLS is an organization of its members: it is critical that the direction of the new organization reflect the needs and values of all of you.

We’re holding two Q & A webinars, where we’ll briefly describe the model and the development process, along with answering any questions you may have. The webinars are: February 8, 1:00 CST and February 13, 10:00 CST

01/09/13
WiLS reorganization update
Thank you to all of you who participated in our service planning process, which concluded in November. The Board received a report from facilitator Kathy Pletcher and considered some proposed service directions.

The last month has been spent working on refining those service directions and building a new business model. The board will begin review of the model at their January meeting. We’ll be asking for feedback from members prior to finalizing the model in February. You can get involved by attending one of two webinars that will review the new model and offer a chance to ask questions. The webinars are scheduled for February 8 (1:00) and February 13 (10:00). Registration and connection information will be available soon.

12/10/12
I’ve heard a couple of WiLS ILL staff members are leaving. How will the ILL service be affected?
During this transition period, we hope that members will not notice a change in the day-to-day ILL services. We are adding short-term staff as necessary to keep our daily operations running smoothly.

Because of the need to keep up with the day-to-day work, it make take longer for us to respond to requests for training and other custom ILL work.

One good thing is that Joy Pohlman, who will be the new ILL Lending Coordinator for UW-Madison, will be working half-time with WiLS and half-time with UW-Madison General Library System during the transition. This close working relationship between WiLS and UW-Madison will help to make the transition as painless as possible for WiLS member libraries.

11/26/2012
Will WiLS be moving?
Yes. We will be moving from UW-Madison Memorial Library by July 1, 2013. We aren’t sure where we’ll be yet, but we expect to start looking for space soon. If you have suggestions for potential space, please contact Stef at smorrill at wils.wisc.edu.

11/16/2012
What services will you be offering?
We have just finished a service assessment process to determine the value of existing services and potential new services. The WiLS board met to discuss the assessment and service directions. We are excited about the directions that came out of that meeting, and are now working on the business model to determine exactly what services we will be offering in July 2013. We will have a clearer idea of services and membership fees early next year.

We do know that the ILL lending service for UW-Madison will no longer be provided by WiLS. This service will transition to in-house UW library staff by July 2013.

11/6/2012

In preparation for the Wisconsin Library Association conference, WiLS staff prepared answers to some frequently asked questions about the reorganization. Since not everyone could attend WLA to ask these questions in person, we thought we would reprise some of the answers here over the next week or so.

Why is WiLS reorganizing?

WiLS is reorganizing for a couple of reasons:

1. As the revenue streams for WILS have changed over the last few years (a decrease in OCLC revenue, tighter budgets at member library organizations), we need to make adjustments to maintain the long-term viability of the organization. Reorganizing will allow for greater flexibility in services provided and will ideally keep costs low for members.
2. There is a shift within UW-Madison to separate 501 (c)(3) organizations from the university. Allowing non-profits to use state contracts, benefits, and space could be viewed as unfair advantages to other organizations (both non-profit and for-profit) offering similar services. If WiLS hadn’t initiated this separation, it is likely that it would have happened anyway.

09-27-2012—A joint announcement from UW-Madison and WiLS was released today:

Obtaining resources from UW-Madison Libraries after July 1, 2013
The Wisconsin Library Services (WiLS) currently acts as the lending agent for UW-Madison library materials to other libraries (including those from the Wisconsin Historical Society Library). The University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries have been exploring a consolidation of our resource sharing operations for a number of years and beginning July 1, 2013, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries will incorporate lending into its full range of interlibrary loan and document delivery services. By streamlining our services we will be able to more effectively and efficiently serve all of our users.

This is a major change and it will take several months to transition our services. We want to reassure the Wisconsin library community that we are steadfast in our commitment to the professional sharing of resources and that access to UW-Madison’s collections will continue during this transition period and beyond.

We recognize that many questions will arise regarding access, transaction costs,procedures and processes. These and other questions will be addressed in a transition plan that will be distributed at the beginning of 2013. In the meantime, WiLS will continue to act as our lending agent until June 30, 2013.

How will this announcement change the resource sharing services that WiLS provides?

1. Activities currently performed by the WiLS ILL unit related to the UW-Madison/Wisconsin Historical lending service will be transitioned to UW-Madison:
   • Filling requests for items from other institutions, including:
     • Searching the catalog to determine availability
     • Pulling, circulating, and shipping physical items
     • Updating request status in ILLiad
     • Scanning periodical articles and theses and other materials that are not available electronically or do not circulate.
     • Delivering electronic and scanned articles.
   • Problem solving: Resolving any issues that come up with lending requests, including problems with locating items, citation issues, status issues (items marked not received), recall issues, renewal requests, overdues.
   • Statistical compilation: Compiling statistics for all borrowers for billing as well as reporting purposes.
   • Accounting & banking: Invoicing various institutions monthly for borrowing request expenses (and tracking payment) and paying invoices related to the service.
2. As part of the reorganization process, other resource sharing services (ILL borrowing, ILLiad support, etc.) will be evaluated to determine if these services will continue.

We will continue to share information related to the transition as it is available.