To the Editor:
I was especially interested in Andrea L. Foster’s “Strains and Joys Color Mergers Between Libraries and Tech Units” (The Chronicle, January 18) because I was responsible for both the library and the information-technology organization at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and David Dodd, who was quoted in the article, worked for me there.
While breaking down the silos at Charlotte was certainly a challenge, David’s assessment of the situation is inaccurate. When I chose to leave the university, the provost split the library and IT organizations apart because she felt that the likelihood of finding a replacement for me who truly understood both was not very high. I believe this is the crux of the question about merging libraries and IT units.
In my experience and observation, the success or failure of a merged library-IT operation depends on how well the leader truly understands both organizations. They are not as similar as many university administrators think they are.
In some cases, mergers have been pursued just to get access to the library’s space and budget to support the university’s IT infrastructure, which most institutions are struggling to fund adequately. There are synergies that can be realized between libraries and IT shops, but largely the similarities are in the management concerns of the two entities (staff and budget size, keeping desks covered, etc.). It is a terrible mistake to try to make a library into an IT operation, or vice versa. To do so would be like an arts-and-sciences dean’s trying to make an underperforming biology department look and act like a successful art department.
I would also argue that to reconstruct a library that has been forced into an IT model takes more money and effort than it does to reconstruct an IT operation that has been mismanaged.
I have advocated strongly for changes in academic libraries. Libraries are facing daunting challenges, but that does not mean that they are irrelevant. Libraries are in the best position to assist us with the burgeoning amount of information we all are dealing with, using skills that IT organizations do not have.
In the 1980s, a well-known university downsized its computer-science department in the belief that the field had no future; as a result, Melinda Gates decided to go elsewhere for college. Universities that pare down or radically alter their libraries to look like IT units today may find themselves in an equally embarrassing position in the future.
Bil Stahl Associate Provost and Chief Information Officer Western Carolina University Cullowehee, N.C.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 54, Issue 23, Page A39