Your Name and Title: Cheryl Stenstrom, Lecturer

Library, School, or Organization Name: School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University

Co-Presenter Name(s): Ken Roberts, Consultant

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Canada

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s): Senior public library staff, CEOs

Short Session Description (one line): This presentation will share findings of the benefits of operational relationships between city information technology departments and public libraries.

Full Session Description (as long as you would like): 

Public library services are becoming increasingly dependent on technology. Most current public library strategic plans contain initiatives that can only be successful through the use of new technologies.

There currently exist a number of models for operational responsibility of the IT infrastructure that public libraries require. The most common models include some combination of:

1. A combination of City owned and operated assets (such as servers and network infrastructure) and library owned and operated assets (such as support for software, for public access computers and for an ILS system),

2. City owned and operated assets that support all aspects of a library system’s services and strategic priorities, and

3. City or library owned and operated assets combined with outsourced services that support services and priorities.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that as municipal responsibility of IT infrastructure increases, public library strategic priorities that rely on technology become harder to meet. No empirical evidence exists to support or to reject such an assumption. Whenever a municipality or Board determines that it makes economic sense to outsource elements of a library system’s IT infrastructure or support, library administrators have no evidence-based information that might help to improve the proposed model or to raise issues that should be addressed through service agreements.

The presenters will share early findings from their study that addresses the question of which organizational models best supports public libraries' IT-related goals.