Scaling research support at Monash University Library

“Ghost kitchens” are pop-up restaurants geared entirely toward food delivery. They typically rent space in traditional restaurants to prepare food, take orders online, and deliver them to the doorstep via delivery apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats. Ghost kitchens proliferated during the COVID pandemic, which for a time practically extinguished dine-in food service. Restaurants of all descriptions needed to restructure their operations to scale up food delivery as their main service model; ghost kitchens were the extreme example, with the entire service model built around delivery.

The story of ghost kitchens is one of a specific business sector—restaurants—retooling traditional operational structures and service models to meet changing conditions in the marketplace. Gary Pearce, Director, Academic Services in the Monash University Library, touched on a similar theme in a recent OCLC Research Library Partnership webinar, describing how the Library reimagined its operational and service models to scale up research support capacities and better address institutional needs and priorities. As with ghost kitchens, Monash sought to reimagine its services in response to changing imperatives—specifically, the need to deliver research support at scale, within the confines of prevailing budgetary limitations. This situation will surely resonate with other research libraries, and there is much to be learned from Monash’s experiences and innovative solutions.

Retooling operational structures and service models

Academic Services is one of three portfolios at Monash University Library. To address the need to scale research support services and align more closely with stakeholder needs, Academic Services shifted from a traditional liaison librarian model organized on disciplinary lines to a functional specialization approach based on library expertise. This change moved away from multiple teams providing duplicate services to specific disciplines, in favor of agile, project-based service teams that work across disciplines.

A key aspect of Monash’s approach is the creation of a new Library Business Partner role, whose chief responsibility is strategic relationship management with senior leadership in a specific academic area. The Library Business Partner serves as a conduit for two-way communication between the Library and its academic stakeholders: on the one hand, communicating library messaging to the academic unit, and on the other, gathering intelligence and feedback on the unit’s needs and mobilizing capacity within the Library’s service teams to address them.

Pearce provided a rich description of how this retooling of operational structures and service models was conceived and implemented. Here are a few of the themes that emerged from his discussion:

• Acknowledging relationship management as a dedicated role: A key innovation was the creation of the Library Business Partner role to manage outreach and engagement with academic units. The Library Business Partner represents the entire Library and therefore can provide a comprehensive view of Library capacities, as well as expedite responses to stakeholder needs. Separating relationship management from service delivery facilitated a shift from a reactive, transactional model to a more proactive, two-way partnership.
• Emphasizing a culture of agility: Building a service model that was both scalable and responsive led Monash to adopt an agile approach. Academic Services implemented a matrix organizational structure in which staff have fixed reporting lines with flexible membership across multiple service teams—including research support. Staff have the option to rotate across teams to deepen expertise and experience. Work is divided between “business as usual” work and project work, the latter of which can be scaled up or down as needs and resource availability dictate. While this new operational structure could pose challenges to long-standing professional identities tied to traditional service models, it also opens up new pathways to leverage existing areas of expertise and develop new ones.
• Close attention to change management: The new operational structures were a significant departure from previous models. In recognition of this, the development and implementation processes were characterized by consultation, transparency, and communication, including a series of consultative visits to peer institutions facing similar challenges in adapting service development and delivery; presentations to stakeholder groups; regular updates to staff, along with clear milestones and timelines; open channels for questions and feedback; and planning for professional development needs.     

These are just some of the key themes that provide the foundation for Monash Library’s story of transformation, scalability, and responsiveness.

Managing implementation is crucial

Pearce’s presentation elicited many questions from the audience in attendance. Collectively, the questions reflected a keen interest in the implementation aspect of the shift to new operational structures and service models, touching on issues like:

• Stakeholder response and buy-in: how researchers and staff reacted to service model changes; channels for communication and feedback
• Staffing implications: impact of restructuring on staffing counts; work allocations between “business as usual work” and project work; cross-training opportunities
• Strategic relationship management: interest in the details of how the new Library Business Partner role works in practice

The audience’s interest in these topics highlight that a shift from a traditional/subject-focused service model to a functional/specialization model requires attention to both structural innovation and the staffing and stakeholder reactions to significant organizational change.

Additional reading

Pearce’s webinar intersects with several OCLC Research studies that complement some of the themes from the emerging from the service model transformation experience. First, check out our work on social interoperability, which we define as the creation and maintenance of working relationships between individuals and organizational units within an institution. Our report describes strategies and tactics that can help strengthen social interoperability skills—an essential element of roles like Monash’s Library Business Partner. In addition, OCLC Research’s forthcoming work on the Library Beyond the Library—an operational principle that emphasizes the importance of the library engaging with the broader institutional environment through strategic alignment, collaboration, and storytelling—connects with Monash’s ambitions to retool its service model to better align with institutional research needs and priorities.

Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full recording

The webinar and subsequent Q&A offered a richly informative look behind the scenes of a major shift in operational structures and service models to better address the needs of stakeholders. If you didn’t have a chance to join us for the live webinar, please take some time to view the recording. Many thanks to Gary Pearce for sharing his perspective with all of us!