Patricia Senn Breivik is tUniversity Library, San JoCA 95192-0028, USAbPatricia.breivik@sjsu.edLuann Budd is the AdmUniversity Library, San JoCA 95192-0028, USAbLuann.budd@sjsu.eduNRichard F. Woods is theUniversity Library, San JoCA 95192-0028, USAbRichard.woods@sjsu.ed

The Journal of Academic Libra

Guest Commentary

We’re Married! The Rewards andChallenges of Joint Libraries

by Patricia Senn Breivik, Luann Budd, and Richard F. Woods

Unions of libraries are not a new phenomenon. As farback as 1963, the American Library Associationpublished a study of school-housed public libraries

for which it was able to identify and survey seventy librarysystems with one or more branches in public schools andeighty-four libraries in communities over 2500 in which themain library was located in a school.1 Models such as thesecontinue to thrive in many communities. More recently,however, the number and types of collaborations have beenincreasing with a growing number of academic libraries beinginvolved. Australian Alan Bundy has studied the developmentof joint-use libraries globally and concludes, ‘‘worldwide, thenumber of such libraries, and experimentation with them, isgrowing. In Sweden, 40 percent of public libraries are joint-use, as are 40 percent in South Australia, 9 percent in Australia,and 8 percent in Canada (but less than 2 percent in the UnitedStates).’’2

While some proclaimers of joint-use libraries see suchcollaborations as necessary but in less than optimistic terms(i.e., ‘‘keeping from being marginalized in the digital age’’3),others see them as an opportunity to provide enhanced services.In the March 2000 College & Research Libraries, editorDonald E. Riggs summarized current joint-use facilities, which

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rianship, Volume 31, Number 5, pages 401–408

serve academic and public constituents. While he notes that ‘‘itis uncommon to find any two joint-use libraries that areidentical in the way they operate,’’ he does predict that they‘‘will become more common in the twenty-first century’’ andthat their emphasis will be ‘‘more focused on improvingservices, rather than boasting about a library’s inventorycount.’’4 Indeed, the literature on joint-use libraries has grownto the point that in 2002 ALA created a bibliography on what ittermed ‘‘combined libraries.’’5

A watershed event in collaborative libraries occurred inJune 2004 with the awarding of the prestigious Gale/LibraryJournal 2004 Library of the Year Award to the Dr. MartinLuther King, Jr. Library in San Jose, California. Thiscomplex, highly visible, and initially highly suspect projectdemonstrates that two existing libraries with their differentmissions, different clients, and different bureaucracies canshare not only a building but also successfully integrateoperations.

The King concept is further articulated in the June 15, 2004,Library Journal cover story on the library.6 It points out thatthe joint library is not a merger; it is a marriage. In a mergerone side or both lose their personality; in a marriage, theyremain two separate entities, each contributing differentstrengths and talents to the partnership. While the success ofthe King Library can to some degree be measured by thesignificant increases in circulation and gate counts, AmericanLibraries columnist Walt Crawford has summarized the truechallenge of this library: ‘‘This is an interesting and potentiallypositive situation: An institution that can be a better public anda better academic library, not losing either identity but gainingfrom the major overlap between the functions.’’7

Whether one considers joint-library undertakings as adefense against ‘‘being marginalized in the digital age’’ or asa wonderful opportunity to enhance the leadership role oflibraries in their communities and campuses, joint-use librariesare here to stay; librarians need to develop the administrativedexterity to make sure they work well. The intent of this article

September 2005 401

is to reflect on how ongoing relationships between theuniversity and city play out in the daily operations of twokey units in the King Library so as to provide insights that canbe of use to other librarians considering collaborativeopportunities. We have chosen to reflect in detail on theHuman Resources and Information Technology units. Theyoffer the highest challenges to joint library operations becausethey necessitate ongoing interfacing of operations withuniversity and city bureaucracies. The university library andthe city library are true partners, but San Jose State Universityand the City of San Jose are not. After a hundred and fifty yearsof co-existing, King Library is the first major and highly visibleattempt to bring San Jose ‘‘town and gown’’ together. It is alsoworth noting that to some degree all integration issues arepeople issues.

HUMAN RESOURCES

As the steel girders went up, planning began in earnest for howto bring together the San Jose Public Library’s nearly 225employees including staff in its seventeen branch libraries8 andthe San Jose State University Library’s eighty-four full-time9

employees in order to integrate successfully services andshared service points. From a human resources’ perspective,creating a new organizational structure that has city anduniversity employees working together in integrated units hasbeen complex, and helping employees thrive in their new workenvironment is an ongoing challenge.

Organizational Design

As the organizational structure of the library was beingdesigned, the possibility of creating a third entity (neither Citynor State, but something new) was considered but decidedagainst. Employees of a new third entity would have had togive up their existing City or State benefits and years of servicetoward retirement. A third entity would have had far lesspolitical clout than the City Library or California StateUniversity Library has to obtain funding or meet other needs.Although this option would have resolved many of the staffdifferences and allowed us to address apparent inequities, thisapproach was judged to be detrimental to staff and the librariesin the long run. The organizational design, therefore, wouldhave to honor the existing University and City bargaining unitcontracts.10

Library staff with the help of consultants sought to design anorganizational structure that would maximize the two institu-tions’ strengths and create efficiencies that enabled the samenumber of library staff to provide new and an improvedservices in a much larger building. (The sharp down turn in theeconomy precluded funding for additional positions.) (Fig. 1).

Planners concluded that the best design to meet these goalsincluded four merged units (Academic Services, AccessServices, Information Technology, and Technical Services)plus several non-merged units (e.g., the University runsInterlibrary Services for both institutions, and the City runsthe Children’s Room). Special Collections and Administrativeunits remain separate.

Focus groups were held with the combined staff of each tobe merged unit to brainstorm the best possible organizationalstructure. Several options were created from staff input. Unitsmade recommendations to management. Both City andUniversity HR staff worked with library leadership to ensurecompliance with existing labor contracts.

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After months of planning and in order to allow for workperformance evaluations to be done by someone from eachemployees home institutions, it was decided to have co-headsfor each of the integrated units—one employed by the City, onefrom the University. Within these units, teams comprised ofemployees from both institutions would be led by onecoordinator (from either the City or the University) who wouldcoordinate the day-to-day workflow of employees from bothinstitutions on the team.

At this point unions were notified of the emergingorganizational design and management responded to questionsraised. California Faculty Association made suggestions andthe design was revised. The other bargaining units raised nospecific concerns. While none of the bargaining units’contracts were negotiated with the library’s unique partnershipin mind, three of the unions acknowledged that the organiza-tional design is within their contracts and to date, nogrievances have been filed by them. After a change inleadership of one of the unions, a series of grievances hasbeen filed and are going to arbitration.

Institutional Differences

In considering a merger like King, early on the inherentdifferences in values and priorities of the parent organizationshad to be confronted within the City and State bureaucracies,including the long-term challenges of having different fundingsources and different responses to economic cycles. For anyprogress to be possible, leadership in the parent institutions hadto think differently about the new entity. Many times peoplesaid, ‘‘But that’s just not how the City does it’’ or ‘‘We’re theState and we don’t do that.’’ Inspired in part by thecollaborative model forged by the City Manager and the SJSUVice President of Administration and Finance, these statementseventually changed to: How can we make it work? This samepositive approach was needed for internal library planning, butwhat was not so obvious initially was the impact on personnel,which the institutional differences would have. The followingexamples illustrate how complex these personnel issues are.

A. Staff Performance Evaluations

Performance evaluation criteria are determined by theparent organization and bargained at the system level withthe unions. The process, criteria, and ranking scale differ forlibrary employees working side-by-side in a merged unitdepending on their employer. The agreed upon process callsfor evaluations to be done by each employee’s own institutionwith oral input from other appropriate personnel. Once theperformance evaluation is written, it becomes a confidentialdocument and cannot be shown to a supervisor or team leaderfrom the other institution. It is important that all employees betrained in the differences between the two processes andsupervisors from the other institution have clear guidelines forhow to give input to the evaluation process of the other partyin accordance with union contracts and according to institu-tional guidelines.

Union bargaining also determines if merit salary increaseswill be awarded based on performance evaluations. Again,some employees may be compensated for excellent perform-ance when their counterpart from the other institution, who alsoreceives an excellent performance rating, is not.

King Library management must now be informed ofinherent differences in union contracts and work within them

Figure 1Initially Proposed Organization Chart

Septem

ber

2005

403

to minimize discrepancies. For instance, 5 percent stepincreases are automatic with the city’s MEF contract, butare not part of the University’s CSUEU contract. However,university management can initiate in-range progressionreviews for the purposes of maintaining equity. Universitymanagement worked with campus human resources todevelop a plan that honors the contracts and minimizes thedifferences.

B. Librarian Advancement

The criteria for promotion and advancement are differentbetween city and university librarians. The focus of alibrarian’s assignment, the criteria for promotion, and leader-ship training are fundamentally different between the twoinstitutions. Yet librarians serve together in the same integratedunit, providing services to the same patrons. Universitylibrarians are faculty; they have university professional stand-ards for attaining tenure, retention, and promotion based onprimary job performance, scholarly and professional activities.All city librarians are in the civil service system andautomatically progress through five steps (typically one peryear for full-time librarians) to the top of their salary scale.Librarians may also receive merit increases based on perform-ance. To be considered for promotion to senior librarianpositions, librarians must apply when a vacancy is posted.Demonstrated expertise in leadership skills one criterion formthe basis for their promotion to senior librarian positions andinto management within the public library system. Historicallymost unit heads for the university library have been facultypositions, not management. However, after a year of settlinginto our new organization, the university decided to createmanagement positions to co-lead each merged unit. Thisrevision was needed for campus management reasons, but italso made good sense for the collaborative processes since theuniversity library structure is now more parallel to the City.

C. Compensation

The city and the university have different classificationstandards, salary schedules, and benefits. Different pay for thesame work does not sound fair on the surface but is comparableto no different from long-term experiences in which staff workside-by-side with colleagues who are paid different salariesbecause of differences in education and prior work experienceor years with the University. The challenge has been to helpstaff understand that many factors are considered whenequitable compensation is determined.

The City and the CSU have different classification stand-ards. The main challenge this raises in our partnership is thedifferences in overtime compensation. Information Technologyseries within the City system are hourly employees who arepaid overtime; within the CSU System they are exempt. Asexempt staff, university IT employees have more flexibility butno overtime pay. Those who work extra one day can ask toleave early on another; doctor’s appointments do not requirethe use of sick leave. Since City IT staff are hourly, they receivetime and a half if they work more than eight hours a day.

University library IT staff do not feel that it is fair to beasked to stay late when they know they will not be paid for theextra hours and their City counterparts who are staying late willreceive time and a half. The library cannot change thisdifference, however, by using stipends, the University canapprove additional compensation for exempt staff who are

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assigned additional lead project work. During one severecomputer virus attack, IT staff worked long hours andweekends to restore the network. University staff memberswho were assigned to lead this effort were given stipends.While this is not the same as overtime pay, it does help to giveadditional compensation to those who take on lead projectwork.

Salary schedules for university employees are negotiatedby the Chancellor’s Office for California State University(CSU) employees statewide.11 Salary schedules for cityemployees are negotiated just with the City of San Jose.12

There is a vast difference in the cost of living between smallrural California cities and the heart of Silicon Valley and theCSU salary ranges reflects this. In addition, for several years,the university’s staff union was not successful in bargainingsalary increases for state employees, while the city union was.At the same time, City staff were automatically progressing tothe top of their salary range with each additional year ofservice, while university staff were not. These factors createda widening discrepancy between university and city salaries.This discrepancy was addressed when the university manage-ment initiated an equity review for all library staff based onthe greater complexity and level of work staff faced in thenew library. Despite the difficult state budget situation, thisreview resulted in equity increases for all university librarysupport staff. But this approach is a one-time fix that does notsolve the long-term consequences of the differing unioncontracts.

D. Benefit Packages

Benefits are determined by the parent institutions. City staffreceive free parking in the garage right across the street;University staff have to pay for parking in a university garage aten-minute walk from the library. The University reschedulesfour Monday holidays in order to close between Christmas Dayand New Years, the City does not. University employees andtheir families receive a tuition fee waiver; university employeescan also take one class during their forty-hour workweek.Differences also exist in medical and dental benefits andretirement packages.

Equitable compensation involves more than comparinghourly wages. Benefit packages, professional developmentopportunities, fee waiver programs, and job security also play arole. It is interesting to note that although university salaryranges typically start lower and progression through the rangeis not automatic, city employees are applying for universitypositions. It is hoped that increasingly both city and universityemployees will appreciate the varying benefits of eachinstitution and seek positions in the institution that best meetstheir career and personal goals.

What We Have Learned—OrganizationalStructures

The complexities of institutional differences that will beinherent in a partnership need to be carefully consideredbefore entering into the union of two libraries. Fundamentaldifferences in the values and organizational structures of theparent institutions and the contractual agreements they haveentered into with unions mandate requirements within whichstaff must function. Addressing details early in the planningprocess with HR personnel and the unions does pay off in thelong run.

It is impossible to get everything perfect upfront and no oneshould expect to do so. With focus and creativity, solutions canbe found. But long-term services and enhanced efficiencies canonly be possible by heavy short-term investments of manage-ment and staff’s time in personnel issues. Without this,productivity is lost because of low morale and/or staff andmanagement disagreements over contract interpretation andalleged inequities. We have also found that as staff come tounderstand the pros and cons of working for the otherinstitution, the differences are less troublesome. Peoplerecruited since the library merged seem to thrive in theintegrated setting.

It is important to upfront agree upon a formula to insure thatboth libraries contribute a fair proportion of staff time to theintegrated units. Care must be taken to balance staff timecontributed by each institution across the whole library, notunit by unit. If one institution needs to cut staff in an integratedunit, the other institution makes similar cuts and redirects staffto work on projects just for their parent institution.

We have also concluded that just because the libraries arejoined does not mean that all units need to be integrated. Itdoes make sense to integrate operations when the number ofservice points can be reduced so staff can be more efficientlyused. It does make sense to integrate when the expertise ofstaff can be leveraged, or when service demands for a unitlargely are driven by one institution. For example, 75 percentof the interlibrary loan services are related to universityresearch so university staff run this unit. Costs associated withproviding this service for the city are reimbursed. On the otherhand, integrating administrative departments would not gainany efficiencies as human resources and finance units mustfunction in alignment with their respective institutionalprocesses. So administration remains separate. But operationskeep evolving, and there is a need to continually ask, Whatworks? What needs to be fixed? Should this service be fullyor partially integrated, or is it more effective to keep itseparate?

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, is the need to committo preserve the distinct missions of the libraries and to establishcriteria upon which to monitor the qualitative aspects ofoperations in keeping with those different missions.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The March 2000 College & Research Libraries editorial notedthat ‘‘Evolving technology is providing fodder for the case formore joint-use libraries.’’13 This proved to be the case for theKing Library. Early planning discussions resulted in decisionsto have a single circulation desk, one general reference desk,one periodicals service point, etc. With public servicesintegrated, it would have been counterproductive, from bothcustomer service and efficiency perspectives to considerrunning separate systems in a merged service environment.Therefore, in forming the partnership, the city and universitylibraries had to undertake a major implementation of informa-tion technology.

Rather than upgrade either of the current online catalogs,Websites, or data networks to accommodate the other partner, thelibraries decided to migrate to a new online catalog and libraryinformation system, build a new Web site, and construct a newdata network with the new network infrastructure extending tobranch libraries. This resulted in a tremendous challenge for thestaff involved in both planning and implementing the systems

that taxed everyone to the limit particularly given the tighttimeframe. Libraries, which may be considering a less integratedjoint-use library, should carefully weigh the options to merge orkeep separate technologies and whether to migrate to newsystems or upgrade current systems.

It was obvious that IT staffing needed to increase to supportthis larger facility with more sophisticated technology andmore end user services. However, one of the major tenets ofthis marriage was that the merger would offer as good or betterlibrary services for both city and university users without anincrease in staffing. This meant that the staff savings had to befound in other areas, and staff savings in other units werecreated largely by integrating basic library services, and atransformation of this significance effectively locked-in themerger of services.

The need to support ongoing operations in separate librarieswhile migrating to and learning to support new systems in thenew library was extremely taxing and training time oftensuffered. But the IT staff from both libraries banded together tocomplete the ‘‘heroic’’ mission to open the new library.However, as the glories of implementation pass into the dailyrealities of ongoing support, significant issues of IT staffmanagement in an integrated organization and service provi-sion surfaced, which continue to affect operations in the areasof unit co-management and work teams, IT management andplanning, and outsourcing technical support.

Co-management and Work Teams

IT planning for a joint-use library needs to focus on teamdevelopment because well-functioning teams within the IT unitare fundamental to its success.

Both IT staffs were used to being masters of their turf, sincemany of them had been the architects and engineers who built thetechnology systems in their respective libraries. For the newlibrary, staff members had to function in an organizationalstructure designed on projected requirements. Moreover, thesmaller size of the separate libraries had enabled senior ITstaff tobe involved in almost every aspect of technology. In the largermore complex infrastructure of King Library, IT unit staffneeded to master a special area as well as to be able to provideback up support for one or more areas.

The original thought was to create two divisions within theunit. Each of the unit co-managers were given responsibilityfor directing the work of about half of the teams, while theywere held jointly responsible for the overall performance of theunit. Work teams composed of city and university staffmembers were formed along functional lines: network, servers,PC software, workstations, library information system, helpdesk, etc. To effectively deploy staff expertise while main-taining separate organizational lines of authority (to meetunion contract provisions), each staff member was assigned toserve on two teams with their primary assignment on a teamthat was directed by the co-manager from their organization. Inpractice, however, this approach of assigning staff to serve onmultiple teams with direction from different managers requiredtoo much management and coordination overhead to reconcileconflicting schedules and responsibilities, and staff memberswere left feeling that assignments were vague and/or wereunclear as to responsibilities. Also, cross training wascumbersome.

After a year of operation, the IT unit was reorganized (see Fig.2) to place true co-management at the top of the unit and to create

September 2005 405

Figure 2IT Unit Organization Chart

larger work teams so that functional teams that were unnaturallyseparated in the original structure were rejoined in the neworganization structure.

This simplified structure is better suited to daily needs forflexibility, is better understood, and therefore is more comfort-able for staff.

IT Management and Planning

Despite much preparation and planning for the joint-use library,a new IT management structure had to be created, both for theintegration of staff and services as well as to accommodate themuch larger facility and more complex technology. The formationof an IT advisory structure was begun in the planning stages andcarried on through implementation, but it was important to sunsetthe implementation project and to have a clear delineation betweenimplementation and ongoing operations.

A new IT advisory structure was designed to ensure ongoinginteraction of all key stakeholders and to address ongoingoperations as well as for developing new system features andservices (see Fig. 3).

(1) Strategic IT (SIT) Group—monitors ongoing IT operationsand approves new IT projects and directions. Comprised ofSJSU Library Dean and IT Director, SJPL Assistant

FigureIT Advisory Gr

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Director and IT Manager, and King Library ProjectManager. Advises King Library Management Team.Appoints IT Advisory Group members.

(2) ITAdvisory Group—focuses on policy and planning for allaspects of information technology for the library. Com-prised of unit managers. Advises Strategic IT Group.Appoints Operations Groups.

(3) IT Operations Groups (Millennium ILS and Web)—monitors operations, resolves problems, and reviews andimplements new technology. Comprised of staff, not unitmanagers, the Operations Group reports to the IT AdvisoryGroup. Co-chairs of Operations Groups attend meetings ofIT Advisory Group.

(4) Task Groups—formed for project work. Comprised of staffselected for their expertise that may or may not serve onthe IT Advisory Group or the Operations Groups. A taskgroup may be established by the IT Advisory Group or byan IT Operations Group.

For both IT Advisory and Operations Groups, most projectwork is charged to task groups that are established for specificprojects. The IT Advisory Group appoints Task Groups forwork that spans the responsibilities of the Operations Groupsand for areas not covered by the Operations Groups, e.g.,computers and networks, media technology, authentication,

3oups Chart

statistical reports. For the IT Advisory Group, unit managersare appointed at a level to effect policy and plans. In thisarrangement, the IT Advisory Group splits work with theOperations Groups to limit group membership to a workablesize while providing broad-based membership.

While it may be easier in the short term to avoid thebureaucracy of a multi-level IT Advisory Group structure, sucha structure provides reasonable assurance of keeping IT staffinformed of library needs and keeping other units informed ofIT unit plans and activities. These are especially importantgoals in such a complex organization.

Outsourcing Technical Support

One major planning concern was how to obtain reliableInternet access. The public library had concentrated Internetaccess for all of its seventeen branch libraries via a commercialInternet service connection at the central library; however, thecity network did not have a high-speed Internet connection thatcould be deployed for King Library. Internet access for theuniversity library had been provided via the high-speed campusconnection to the CENIC consortium backbone of the Internet;in addition, with the King Library located on a corner of theuniversity campus, it seemed a natural direction to takeadvantage of the university’s high-speed Internet connection.The only alternative would be for the library to obtain, support,and pay for a separate, lower-speed Internet connection. Butthen politics entered the picture.

City library IT staff did not have confidence in thereliability of the university as an Internet service provider(ISP); however, university library IT staff had experience withthe university as a highly reliable ISP. City IT staff also did nothave confidence in the reliability of commercial providers andwanted a backup system to provide more security for Internetaccess.

The final decision left the public library agreeing to pay theentire cost to provide an alternate ISP in case of failure of theuniversity Internet connection; however, due to cost, the Citysubscribed to an inadequate alternative Internet connection,which would not have provided the bandwidth capacity toserve as a true fail-over option. That decision came withanother type of cost for both parties: A change to the networkdesign to support fail-over to an alternate ISP that added alayer of complexity to the library network and createdongoing costs to both libraries in terms of uncertain reliabilityand support efforts needed for the more complex technology.After a brief shakedown of the network connection andfirewall settings, the university has proven to be a veryreliable ISP, and the fail-over equipment was removed fromthe network.

Also, there was the question of who was going to supportthe new telephone system. Both libraries had telephonesystems supported by parent institutions and neither had usedlibrary IT staff for telephone system support. Faced with theneed to support a new telephone system without adding newstaff positions, the decision was made to outsource all supportfor the telephone system.

The city, which used a Centrex service from a commercialprovider, was not interested in supporting a telephone switchfor the joint-use library, but the same lack of confidence in theuniversity that the city displayed in selecting an alternate ISP(with perhaps some fear of falling under university influencetoo much) was a contentious factor in finally selecting the

university to support the new telephone system for the library.In fact, the university did such a good job of supporting thetelephone system during the first year of operation, that the citylibrary is now engaging the university to support the satellitetelephone systems that are being installed as new branchlibraries are being built and older ones remodeled.

The most fundamental IT question was whether the jointlibrary would be an independent entity for technology orwhether it would be subservient to its parent organizations. Inone vital area of network design, the city IT departmentchallenged the library planners to defend the decision to installan independent, Windows 2000 active directory networkstructure when the city IT network was based on the olderWindows NT standard. City IT staff felt that the library wastrying to take too much control of the technology. Theuniversity network was also based on Windows NT but, bythat time, campus IT staff had acknowledged that the librarywould be operating an independent network. The universityoffered advice but did not challenge the network design.Eventually, following a series of formal technical discussionsand the design of a secure VPN connection for library staff toaccess the city network, the city’s IT management approved thelibrary network plan. After a shakedown period, the independ-ent library network with secure VPN connection to the citynetwork is serving well for both library and city needs.

On the other hand, the libraries rely on their parentorganizations for e-mail systems rather than taking anindependent approach, and it will be an ongoing challenge tointegrate electronic mail technology in the library. Universitylibrary staff members use IBM Lotus Notes desktop clientsoftware to access the campus Notes e-mail server via a POP3connection. City library staff members use Microsoft Outlookdesktop client software to access the city hall MicrosoftExchange e-mail server via the secure VPN connection. Bothlibraries have features that aid e-mail communications withtheir colleagues in the city and university respectively thatwould not be possible in an independent system, but neitherlibrary can employ those same e-mail features for intra-librarycommunications for all library staff.

Some technology issues for the joint-use library can becomequite complicated and depend on local conditions. Theseparate city and university libraries were part of largerorganizations that were able to rely on basic technologyservices. With the joint-use library, it is necessary to establish atechnology (but not legal) entity to maintain independence andto utilize the parent organizations basic technology serviceswhen possible.

What Have We Learned—IT Operations

Developing the integrated IT unit was a groundbreakingundertaking as there were no models from which to choose. Todate, there is a paucity of references in the literature for sharinginformation technology in joint libraries. An article aboutplanning for IT in King Library was published in 2004 in theHaworth Press edition of Resource Sharing and InformationNetworks.14

Nomatter how large or how small the libraries may have beenbefore, the new library had to have a much larger IT unit, whichcould not be managed as casually or collegially as in the smallervenues. While it is always a challenge to reorganize a unit, thefears of staff andmanagement are magnified in an integrated unitand must be addressed or the process can come to an abrupt halt.

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In unit staff meetings, it became obvious that team leaders didnot feel empowered to direct staff from the other libraryorganization. Position descriptions for university staff wererevised to add language that addressed their responsibility as ateam leader to communicate management’s work direction tocity staff and as a team member to receive management’s workdirection from city team leaders. City IT staff, working under amore general job classification description, were officiallyinformed in writing that city team leaders may be required tocommunicate management’s work direction to university staffteam members and receive management’s work direction fromuniversity staff team leaders. Differences of salary and benefitscontinue as a concern for the integrated IT unit and may be animpediment to best performance, but staff are already taking onnew responsibilities and working more closely together in thereorganized teams. To support progress, knowledge transfer andcross training are emphasized as important objectives.

Finally, it is important to avoid politics in decision making asmuch as possible by exploring any reasonable alternative andassessing the ‘‘product’’ as well as both one time and ongoingcosts associated with each. Frequently such background workwill produce a clear ‘‘winner’’ for both partners. This was trulyevident in the libraries decision as to which online system to useas well as in the negotiations to determine an Internet serviceprovider, select network design, and as to which agency wouldsupply telephone support.

SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM

In closing, it should be noted that a critical ingredient indealing with ongoing challenges and more generally in makingthe King Library a success and keeping it a success is theSenior Leadership Team. The original membership includedthe director of the San Jose Public Library, the dean of theUniversity Library, the SJSU provost and vice presidents forAdministration and Finance and Advancement, the citymanager, and the director of the San Jose RedevelopmentAgency. With the completion of construction and the capitalcampaign, membership has been decreased. The team nowbrings together on a quarterly basis the library leadership withthe city manager and the university vice president forAdministration and Finance, plus whoever else is needed(e.g., city budget director). This high level oversight of andsupport for the project is a major reason why it has worked sowell and continues to do so. It is this group that hasacknowledged that the King Library could not function if ithad to adhere to every City and every University rule andregulation. Had, for example, the City/University IT negotia-tions broken down in the planning stage, it is to this group wewould have gone. Every library marriage needs this kind ofparental support undergirding it.

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NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Ruth M. White, The School-Housed Public Library—A Survey,Chicago: American Library Association, 1963.

2. Alan Bundy, ‘‘Joint-Use Libraries: The Ultimate Form ofCooperation.’’ Planning the Modern Public Library Building.Westport, CT, Libraries Unlimited, 2003, p. 146.

3. Charles Kratz, ‘‘Transforming the Delivery of Service: The Joint-Use Library and Information Commons,’’ C&RL News, Vol. 64,No. 2 (February 2003). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2003/february1/transforming.htm(June 14, 2004).

4. Donald E. Riggs, ‘‘Joint-Use Libraries: Thinking Out of theBox,’’ College & Research Libraries, Vol. 61, No. 2 (March2000). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/backissues2000b/march00/candrlmarch2000editorial.htm (August17, 2004).

5. American Library Association, ‘‘Combined Libraries: A Bibliog-raphy.’’ ALA Library Fact Sheet Number 20, 2002. Available:http://www.ala.org/library/fact20.html (August 17, 2004).

6. John N. Berry III, ‘‘The San Jose Model: Gale/Library JournalLibrary of the Year 2004: San Jose Public Library and San JoseState University Library,’’ Library Journal, Vol. 129, No. 11(June 15, 2004), p. 34.

7. Walt Crawford, ‘‘The Philosophy of Joint-Use Libraries,’’ Ame-rican Libraries. Vol. 34, No. 11 (December 2003), p. 83.

8. Since that time the number of SJPL employees has been decreaseddue to budget cuts and the number of branches has increased.

9. The university also employees 110 part-time student assistants whoserve in all the units.

10. With the decision to merge units, we wondered about sharingemployees but decided against it. In King Library, everyemployee is either employed by the City or the State—Neverboth. If a portion of the position serves both institutions, oneinstitution reimburses the other for a percentage of the employ-ee’s salary and benefits, but the employer does not change. Kinglibrary employees are represented by four bargaining units:Municipal Employee’s Federation (MEF) representing city staffand the City Association of Management Personnel (CAMP)representing city management; California Faculty Association(CFA) representing university faculty and California StateUniversity Employees Union (CSUEU) representing universitystaff. University management is not represented, serving ‘‘at thepleasure of the president.’’

11. CSU salary schedules are available at http://www.calstate.edu/HR.12. City of San Jose salary schedules are available at http://

www.sanjoseca.gov/employeeServices/payplan.13. Donald E. Riggs, ‘‘Joint-Use Libraries: Thinking Out of the

Box,’’ College & Research Libraries. Vol. 61, No. 2 (March2000). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/backissues2000b/march00/candrlmarch2000editorial.htm (August17, 2004).

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