Much has been said over the years about working with IT professionals. What are the recommendations when it comes to fostering collaboration and support from an IT team that may be taxed to the max already from other units in the organization – and whose members may be unfamiliar with the details of library content?
Anonymous
Anecdotes about library catalogue upgrades and content deployment to desktops being delayed by limitations in IT resources are familiar … so the question is of interest to many. We can't expect IT team members to focus on our concerns without a good bottom line reason, so we are once again in business case territory whether we (as examples) need a library icon placed on the corporate intranet home page, require support to allow seamless access by geographically dispersed employees to library content, or stand in a situation where a library intranet presence must be revamped altogether. I hope these thoughts may be helpful:
Job 1 is to build collegial relationships – possibly through jobs 2-3 below if there aren't opportunities to build "coffee bridges" – with IT staff members (not just the IT manager). Common areas of interest such as social networking and personal identity security could be conversation starters.
Job 2 is to ensure IT team members understand the role of the library or information centre as being similar to their own: "Just as you provide the indispensable tools and data by which business is carried out, so do we provide access to resources to support employees' decision making." Arranging a lunch presentation to IT – showing how employees use and depend on the information supplied by the library – could be a good way to begin the orientation process. In this job, it is important to signal to the IT team that we are well aware of their current work focus, work load, and enterprise contribution.
Job 3 is to cast any request for support into an enterprise business case: The knowledge workers are asking for X and we have done Y but now need the support of IT to accomplish Z. Under no circumstances should a request for support be interpretable as a "request from the library". Under all circumstances should such a request be presented (for example) as "employees are in need of … so they can perform their jobs to meet [organizational goals]; while the required content is indeed available, IT support is required to now present it to the desktop".
Job 4 is to (a) describe our requirements in language IT professionals can translate to what it means they need to do and to (b) detail what we have already done and will/could be doing. A table of tasks with desired delivery dates is a tool for the IT manager planning out resources. Such a table is most likely to result from prior consultation with IT personnel, which presupposes job 1 was achieved and is constantly attended to.
The bottom line is … make the case with a view to organizational gain. It's not about what the library wants (do discard any library lingo). It's about what the organization needs in order to succeed.