ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


730/C&RL News

The W a y  
I See It

Staff-ba sed policy building

B y  K a t h r y n  J .  D e iss

Collaboration f o r  effective service 
support

How does policy get developed and set in your library? How often are paraprofes­
sionals, particularly those working in service 
areas, tapped when a new policy needs devel­
oping or when an old policy needs updating? 
It seems to me that it is not often, if at all, that 
paraprofessionals work on this fundamental 
activity.

I came face to face with this when I discov­
ered that the Northwestern University (NU) 
Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Department did 
not have a current written interlibrary loan bor­
rowing policy. When staff made judgment calls 
they had no thought-out and written policy on 
which to base their decisions, and “corporate 
memory” transmitted practice and procedure 
from employee to employee.

Policy at NU is generally set by department 
head-level staff and above. A long-standing, 
painstakingly updated and maintained P olicies 
a n d  P roced u res M an u al for the library exists. 
Under normal circumstances, the head o f in­
terlibrary loan would write a draft policy that 
would be circulated to the Administrative Com­
mittee (composed of the assistant university li­
brarians and the university librarian) for edit­
ing and approval before finally being enacted.

A policy on which to base borrowing prac­
tices is necessary and it is just as necessary that 
it be developed and written with the full par­
ticipation of not only the half-time profession­
al, but o f the paraprofessional staff—the staff 
that actually do most of the borrowing work. 
Though these staff members have not previ­
ously been involved in articulating and formu­
lating policy, it makes sense to tap their opin­
ions and experience since they are the ones

who will understand, interpret, and apply the 
olicy. Staff buying into the policy at the out­
et is also helpful. Involving the staff early 
uarantees not only that their opinions are 
eard, but that the resulting document is as 

ully informed as possible.
We began by having meetings o f the bor­

owing staff to discuss the purpose o f a policy. 
his involved discussions o f public documents 
s. in-house documents. Agreement was sought 
n broad categories that needed the support 
f policy. No doubt, this method o f “educat­

ng” while “producing” was more time-consum­
ing than it might have been had the group been 
involved in this type of activity before, but it 

as infinitely interesting and rewarding.
After the second and third meetings with 

he staff, the first draft of the policy provided a 
keleton for the whole group to work with. 
diting ensued and draft 2 was drawn up. This 

ime the group met with the assistant univer­
ity librarian for public services to review it. 
side from getting the draft policy to the next 

tep, it was also the first time that the ILL staff 
had ever sat down and w orked  with the AUL 
directly responsible for their department. The 
ree exchange of ideas at this meeting also 
elped the AUL better understand the actual 

LL operation with its attendant challenges.

Include them  in, too
s we reached draft 3 and discussion revolved 

around some quite fine details, the group real­
ized the need to communicate with many oth­
er groups about issues that might have an im­

act on them. Divisions such as collection 
anagement and departments such as refer­

ence, preservation, and our Africana Library 
ould be affected by the policy that ILL was 

developing. It was o f great interest to ILL staff 
embers that their work is so intimately con- 

(Policy cont. on page 733)

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Kathryn J. Deiss is head o f  interlibrary loan a t Northwestern University Library; e-mail: KDeiss@nwu.edu

mailto:KDeiss@nwu.edu