Please excuse cross-posting.

You are invited to participate in an online survey about the use of teams in technical services in academic libraries. This survey is intended for librarians and staff who work in technical services in academic libraries.

For this survey, "technical services" is defined as library functional areas that are responsible for selecting, acquiring, organizing, processing, and providing access to library collections in all formats, as opposed to the delivery of public services. Typical technical services functional areas include collection development, cataloging, acquisitions, electronic resources management, physical processing, print serials, and preservation. In some libraries, technical services functional areas are centralized and belong to one unit/department/division; in some libraries, technical services functional areas are not centralized and belong to different units/departments/divisions. This survey applies to both centralized and non-centralized technical services.

In recent years, more and more technical services in academic libraries have reorganized into team-based structures. The purpose of this survey is to investigate the use of teams in technical services in academic libraries.

Most of the questions in this survey are modeled after "Use of Teams in ARL Libraries," SPEC Kit 232 (July 1998). For this survey, a team is defined as "a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, The Wisdom of Teams. Harvard Business School Press, 1991) "Though there can be wide variations among team roles and responsibilities, they are usually distinguished from other kinds of groups in our organizations by greater degrees of autonomy and self-governance, as well as by shared decision making. Moreover, team leaders tend to lead through a facilitative process and consensus-building, rather than through traditional command and control approaches." (SPEC Kit 232, p. 3) This survey also distinguishes between permanent teams and project

teams which are used only for a defined period of time for a defined purpose.

Responding to this survey constitutes informed consent to participating in the research. The survey is voluntary, and you may withdraw from it at any time. All responses will be kept confidential and anonymous. The results of this survey are intended for publication.

The survey will remain open until October 22, 2010. It should take around 30 minutes to complete.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Lihong Zhu, Head of Technical Services, Washington State University, email: lzhu2@wsu.edu.

Here is the link to the online survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RGT7VYK

Thank you for your participation,

Lihong Zhu

Lihong Zhu
Head, Technical Services
Washington State University Libraries
P.O. Box 645610, Pullman, WA 99164-5610
E-mail: lzhu2@wsu.edu
Phone: (509) 335-7769
Fax: (509) 335-9589