Changes to Library organisation
25 Mar 2021
Creating Library services to deliver Imagine2030
A message from Professor Christopher Pressler, University Librarian
Dear colleagues
I am writing to update you on the next and final phase of proposed changes to the way our Library is organised which will result in a number of staffing changes by August 2021 and the transfer of three learning spaces to be managed locally by Faculties by August 2022.
The Library Reshaping Project (LRP) is designed to support the delivery of the Library’s Imagine2030 vision and the University’s Our future strategy and will strengthen the Library’s sector-leading reputation and contribution to our University core goals of Research and Discovery, Teaching and Learning and Social Responsibility.
The aim of the LRP is to create an organisation which better supports the University and delivers significant benefits to staff and students by:
- expanding the Library’s increasingly digital focus e.g. the etextbook programme and digital collections discoverability
- absorbing the print collections in Braddick, Kantorowich and Stopford libraries in to Main Library and transferring the learning spaces in these libraries to Faculty
- shifting the Library’s support for research to enable maximum impact on the University’s strategic ambitions around open research
- building on the strategic partnerships with the University’s teaching and learning academic community that has been developed in recent years
- facilitating public engagement with research
LRP will also deliver a more balanced organisational structure with clear succession and development paths for all Library staff, giving them opportunities to develop new capabilities, competencies and skills.
We have already reduced the size of the Library Senior Leadership Team and created a more focused Library Executive Team and five new Library Directorates in summer 2019. In 2020 the LRP used the University-wide voluntary severance scheme to adjust the overall size and shape of the Library staffing model.
The University’s Board of Governors has now approved entering into formal consultation with the campus trade unions on further proposed changes across all five Library Directorates.
The proposals will result in a change to the number of posts required. Whilst 70.87 (FTE) posts will be lost, 61.5 new roles will be created resulting in a net reduction in posts of 9.37 (FTE), from an ‘at risk’ pool of 103.45 (FTE) posts. More staff from the ‘at risk’ group may wish to take the opportunity of voluntary severance than the number of posts to be reduced.
A targeted voluntary severance scheme will be offered to those colleagues in scope and at risk and we will make considerable effort to achieve the decrease in posts in this way. Regrettably, if the voluntary severance scheme is not effective in achieving the required target reduction in posts, then the University will seek approval from the Board of Governors to proceed to a compulsory scheme.
As always, we are committed to ensuring that this process is conducted fairly and transparently in line with our policies and procedures and we will seek to explore opportunities for the avoidance of compulsory redundancy where possible, including redeployment and retraining.
All changes involving people that are undertaken by our University are given very careful and serious consideration. While these changes are essential, I recognise that this is an anxious time for those colleagues likely to be affected by the proposals.
As a result, the Library Executive Team and I will continue to have regular conversations with colleagues who are affected by the process.
Professor Christopher Pressler
John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library
The University of Manchester Library
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