BACKGROUND

The Deloitte and Touche report that was used in deciding to eliminate Library Technical Services stated about outsourcing, "...the district should be able to save a significant portion of the salary and benefit costs associated with the Library Technical Services function without a decrease in service delivery provided to campus librarians." Since May 1999, the Instructional Technology/Library Media Department has been diligently putting in place all the needed items for the processing of material to be outsourced for the campus librarians. The competitive bid process has identified 30 companies that were approved to provide fully processed books according to the district specifications. Vendors' Fairs have occurred in order to familiarize the Librarians with the new vendors and new services. Librarians have been trained in cataloging, creating MARC records, and the Cataloging module portion of the Gateway Library Automation Software. In addition, a cataloger was contracted to spend a day at each campus to assist in beginning the cataloging of the existing backlog of materials left undone by the Library Technical Services demise. The cataloger also provided some needed follow-up to the Librarians' training. The Librarians have been professional about their attempts to adapt to the situation.

Nevertheless, things have not gone well. Deloitte and Touche used school districts that do not use a Union Catalog. The districts that have a Union Catalog and outsource their book processing still have a Library System Administrator and a District Cataloger. Both positions are needed to support the type of advanced software used by Spring Branch.

RECOMMENDATION:

1. Hire a Library System Administrator as soon as possible.

2. Continue to pay the cataloger to do contract work for this school year. Also budget for a summer cataloging institute by 4 Librarians to work 40 hours each in order to catalog items that cannot be cataloged during the school year because of volume or difficulty.

3. Plan to keep the Library System Administrator in the budget for next year. Also budget for next school year to continue to contract with a cataloger to do cataloging   or to hire a District Cataloger.

JUSTIFICATION:

Aside from the roughness of switching systems, it appears that between 10% to 30% of the Librarians' previous instruction time with the students and teachers has now gone toward the library technical tasks associated with doing the campus cataloging and processing. A Library System Administrator and a District Cataloger would support the Librarian doing these new tasks and minimize their time loss to students.

Also, data integrity cannot be maintained without a Library System Administrator and a District Cataloger. Without data integrity library resources may not be found when needed. And our quality data brings to the district close to $100,000 worth of online resources through the State TLC project. Our data was the best (2nd best behind Dallas) in the state. Without a Library System Administrator data integrity will suffer.

CONCLUSION

Studies over the last 40 years continue to show how libraries support the development of reading in the student. Research during the '90s repeatedly demonstrated that a well-staffed and well-stocked library is one of the highest correlaters to high student achievement. In order to be effective, the campus Librarian needs the time to spend with the students and staff. Hiring the Library System Administrator and the District Cataloger will assist in relieving part of the technical tasks associated with cataloging.