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About
the MIT Libraries > Library Staff
Infinite
Mile Awards, 2004
Individual
| Team
Innovation and
Creativity:
Bibliographic Access Services' "Wall Push Inter-Section
Team"
back: Beth Siers, Gordon Thomas, Macee
Damon, Stephen Skuce, Ray Schmidt, Kathy Hamilton
front: Mary Jeanne Yuen, Rebecca Lubas,
Linda Cuccurullo, Jane Marcus, Ann Wolpert
Once upon a time there existed in the Libraries
an entity called The Wall. It was not a Cold War
emblem of fear, distrust, and the denial of freedom,
like the Berlin Wall, nor was it a grim symbol of
the repression of creativity and joy, like Pink
Floyd's "The Wall." But it was getting
there!
The Wall was the backlog of new monographs to be cataloged,
that had, to quote an eyewitness, "ballooned to over
double its normal amount," due to a concatenation
of adverse circumstances in the wake of the migration
to Aleph. Well-intended measures were taken, as the problem
increased in magnitude, but they met with limited success.
The Wall's persistence, its ominous spread to every empty
shelf in 14E-210, and then on to just about every empty
book truck that wasn't actually rolling, was so daunting
as to engender despair and doubt that pre-migration numbers
and turnaround time could ever be restored.
This nominated Team, however, did not despair.
Seeing that the old methods were not working, this group "devised
a bold new approach," a new workflow which, in that
it called for unprecedented coordination, with speed,
across sections with differing responsibilities, for each
individual book, would have seemed to be an unattainable
ideal. But this group, with a good will and a
team work ethic, made it happen.
There is still a Wall, but it is now a happy and compliant
wall that has been tamed to an acceptable and sustainable
level. New monographs are made available to Library patrons
in a timely manner, and there is even some time for BAS
personnel to work on special projects that have, of necessity,
been consigned to various back burners.
Sometimes it takes a village. And sometimes it takes that
village to rearrange itself entirely (!) so that things
will work better. In the category of Innovation and Creativity,
we salute the members of the Bibliographic Access Services' "Wall
Push Inter-Section Team": Linda
Cuccurullo, Macee Damon, Kathy Hamilton, Jane Marcus,
Rebecca Lubas, Ray Schmidt, Beth Siers, Stephen Skuce,
Gordon Thomas, and Mary Jeanne Yuen.
Communication
and Collaboration:
Dewey/Humanities Processing Team
back: Amanda Powers, Maggie Bloom, Elke
Piontek-Ma, Jennifer Fauxsmith
front: Amy Martin, Ann Wolpert, Denise
O'Malley
They are lean, but never, ever, mean. They
are agile and swift, resourceful and bold, and totally
committed to high quality outcomes. This
Team is a responsive and collaborative unit that
manages the movement of a myriad of bibliographic
items through the system and supports the collections
work of a dozen subject specialists. In addition
to all that, they are always in the vanguard of
the Libraries' unceasing battle to create more space. They
know how to plan, shift, and move, and they are
experts in logistics and the synchronization of
effort, time, and space.
Although the Team's work appears to be focused
on internal customers, in fact their outlook is
always to make what they do contribute to a better
experience for library users. When they do
a storage project, for example, they are aware of
the need for signage and communication to users. Team
members know that in supporting the collections,
as well as the work of other staff, the Team directly
contributes to the productivity of our users.
They achieve all of this because they take self-management
very seriously, working together to manage projects,
to train and cross-train, to hire new members and
to regularly assess their own progress. This
Team encourages and supports all its members in
taking on leadership roles. Their self-management
and collaborative leadership thrive because each
member of this Team is committed to meeting the
well-known challenges of effective communication
with honesty and openness.
For their ongoing effectiveness in managing myriad
projects and meritorious efficiency in carrying
out processing functions, the 2004 Infinite Mile
Team Award in the category of Communication and
Collaboration goes to the Dewey-Humanities
Processing Team: Maggie Bloom,
Jennifer Fauxsmith, Amy Martin, Denise O'Malley,
Elke Piontek-Ma, and Amanda Powers.
Results, Outcomes, and Productivity:
Desktop Support Group
Nathan Matta, Ann Wolpert, Pam Nicholas
This team
is "among the Libraries' unsung heroes." "Without
a lot of fuss or publicity," they are responsible
for making sure that the Libraries' staff and users
alike have access to a critical tool, without which
most of us could no longer do our work.
For some of us, they provide superb "training,
advice, emergency coverage, or sometimes just a
shoulder to cry on as the situation requires." For
the rest of us, they have proven to be a wonderful "resource" as
we "turn to them with a calm question or a frantic
crisis." In any event, they can be counted
on for prompt and excellent service!
As one nominator said, "this year in particular
they deserve to be recognized because they not only
did the usual tasks while short staffed, but also
wrestled with ongoing security concerns, including
several compromised computers, and took the lead
in moving us toward the WinAthena service which
will ultimately result in both efficiencies and
improvements in service."
For their ability to keep the bits and bytes flowing
smoothly in a graceful and calm manner, the 2004
Infinite Mile Team Award in the category of Results,
Outcome and Productivity goes to the Libraries'
Desktop Support Group: Nathan
Matta and Pam Nicholas.
Community:
Records Management Process Improvement Project
Team
back: Liz Andrews, Aaron Tieger, Liz Phillips,
Tom Rosko
front: Ewa Basinska, Ann Wolpert, Lois Beattie
This brainy, brawny team had a lot on its plate
including learning new software, moving mountains
of materials, freeing up thousands of cubic feet
of storage space, and packing and labeling boxes.
As one nominator said, "At each step along the
way the staff have been tenacious and creative in
addressing concerns as they arose, learning new
computer applications, and welcoming additional
offices to the program while making their service
as seamless as possible for participating offices. Each
team member played his or her part to insure that
the system worked smoothly, from establishing the
policies and procedures, improving the database,
labeling boxes and overseeing their transfer, and
working with members of the MIT community to retrieve
records in a timely fashion."
Another nominator said: "A new era in the management
of the Institute's non-permanent records keeping
has begun because of the work, perseverance and
ingenuity of this dynamic group. Working together
they successfully implemented a program for out-sourcing
to Iron Mountain the storage, retrieval, and disposition
of those MIT records without enduring value."
For designing and accomplishing a project of great
magnitude which will be of benefit not only to the
Libraries but to the participating MIT Offices in
the future, the Libraries' 2004 Infinite Mile Team
Award in the category of Community goes to the Records
Management Process Improvement Project Team: Liz
Andrews, Ewa Basinska, Lois Beattie, Tom Rosko, Liz
Phillips, and Aaron Tieger.
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