Düren, June 3, 2004

25th Annual IATUL ConferenceTIB – An Organisation with a Cost-Effective,

Strategy-Oriented Approach

German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), Hanover

• specialises in all areas of technology and their related sciences (in particular chemistry, information technology, mathematics and physics)

• founded in 1959

• by now more than 460.000 successfully carried out orders a year

• one of the world‘s largest special libraries and one of the most reliable suppliers of documents within its fields of specialisation

German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), Hanover

• to be able to keep this up and to expand the document delivery worldwide, it is necessary to ensure that prices remain competitive in the marketplace; it is important to adopt an efficient, cost-effective approach:

• constant optimising of business and working processes• growing importance of strategic planning• detailed costed project plans

1. Groundwork

2. Planning Process

3. Outlook

Contents

1. Groundwork – Commercial Booking System

• introduction of SAP R/3 as the commercial booking system

- project from June 2002 till March 2003

- numerous training courses for the staff

- SAP-modules adjusted to the special issues of the library

- building of extensive interfaces to the acquisition system and to the customers management system

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

• development of a system of cost and service accounting

- to reproduce where the costs occur and which services are done at regular intervals,

- to calculate prices more precisely,

- to prove the need for financial recourses of the federation, and

- to supply the library‘s management team with information needed as assistance in reaching a decision for the planning of new products and to enable them to act cost-effectively

• Cost Centres Accounting

- cost centres reflect the organisational structure

- the heads of the organisational units are responsible for the costs arising at the corresponding cost centre

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

• Cost Categories Accounting

- in the plan for cost categories are the total costs that arise in the TIB divided into cost groups according to the kind of the goods and services required

- special cost categories for libraries: e.g. „library royalties“ and „external acquisitions“

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

• Cost Units Accounting

• cost units are the TIB‘s products• all costs will be taken into account for the products

• products (cost units) summarized into product groups:

• Collection Development• Information Service• Document Delivery• Research and Development• General Services

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

- examples for types of activities „Collection Development“:

• selecting stock• East Asian and Eastern European literature• cataloguing (with or without the adaptation of catalogue

data from external sources)• subject indexing (with or without the adaptation of

catalogue data from external sources)• making stock available• ...

1. Groundwork – System of Cost and Service Accounting

• Registration of Time

• in some areas of the TIB it‘s enough to estimate

• particularly in the Document Delivery Service with its different, specialised activities there is a need for registration of time (agreement with the staff council)

• already carried out in the magazine- and reproduction-area

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• management team for the library was set up, to change the TIB in an organisation with a strategy- oriented approach

- library management (Executive Director, Deputy, and Commercial Manager) and department heads

- guarantees that all areas of the TIB work together on devising and implementing the TIB‘s strategy and targets

- meets regularly once a week

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• product-oriented teams have been formed throughout the organisation, to strengthen the staff‘s product responsibility and to be able to agree product-related targets with the staff

large-scale projects with the support of external consultants in the Document Delivery Service and Collection Development groups:

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• Start of the Project

• introductory workshops to inform the staff involved about the planned measures and targets of the restructuring

• process analysis, to fix size and area of responsibility of the future teams

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• Assignment to the Teams

- on a voluntary basis- measures agreed with the staff council to tackle over- or

under-occupancy of individual teams- team-members had the chance to choose the head of

the team and her/his deputy by themselves- every team chooses its own team-spokesperson- to work successfully as a team physical proximity is an

advantage (at the moment extensive moves within the library are taking place)

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• Team Training

- all staff working in teams attended teamwork training sessions

- there is still extensive training necessary to deepen teamwork-knowledge as well as training in communication, how to deal with conflict and presentation of meetings

1. Groundwork – Change of the Organisational Structure

• Project Structure

- project structure with steering committee, project group and team meeting

- internal (trained) process companions to support the teams

- once a process of reorganisation has been completed, team-leader and team-spokesperson groups are established in the individual areas (meet up on a monthly basis to optimise work-processes and adapt them regularly to new conditions)

2. Planning Process

• the actual planning of costs and services is done two years in advance

• Guidelines from the Outside

- issued by the ministry responsible and the scientific organisation responsible

- financed together by Federal Government (30 %) and States (70 %)

- annual targets are to be agreed with the ministry for the product groups; at the same time the planned programmes for the programme-budget are defined

- TIB is to be measured by performance indicators

Performance Indicators

- Examples of general performance indicators for the TIB:• lectures, specialist publications p.a.• days of advanced training attended by each member of

staff p.a.• ...

- Examples of annual performance indicators for Collection Development:

• acquisitions / member of staff (journals, monographs, series, electronic journals etc.)

• speed of acquisition• speed of processing of books and journal issues• book-binding operations / member of staff• customer satisfaction with the quality of the TIB‘s

collection• ...

2. Planning Process

2. Planning Process

• Strategy, Plan for Library Development, Product Groups, Programme Budget

- TIB‘s strategy with mission, vision, model of the TIB and the strategy fields

- annual plan for library development with internal and external projects for the following years

2. Planning Process

projects of the product groups / programme budget are based on the TIB’s strategy and found in the annual plan for library development

for these projects detailed costing has to be done, to be able to apply for the public subsidies needed and to demand the budget required for external projects

2. Planning Process

• Balanced Scorecard

- will be introduced as a control system- to support the project planning and - to ensure, that besides the guidelines of the

Government and other financial sponsors as well as customer‘s wishes, internal processes and staff are taken into equal consideration during the planning process

- to find the individual targets for each product group / programme, first the following questions have to be answered – based on the TIB‘s strategy:

2. Planning Process

Finances (sponsors)• How do we satisfy our sponsors?• Which financial resources do we need in future?

Customers• How do we satisfy our customers?• What new products do we need or how do we need

to change / improve our products?

2. Planning Process

Internal Processes• How can we optimise our processes?• Where do we need to employ new staff members,

where to move staff from one team or department to another, where is outsourcing useful and cost-effective?

Staff• What kind of seminars does the staff have to attend

to cope with new needs (such as digital library, new customer requests etc.)?

• How can the staff participate in planning processes to intensify their motivation?

3. Outlook

• evaluation of the teambuilding processes and restructuring carried out in the Collection Development and Document Delivery Service groups

• training of team-members, team-spokespersons and the head of teams

• in 2004 restructuring of the Accounts Department (with the support of external consultants); followed by the General Administration and the IT Department

• the Balanced Scorecard will be spread over the TIB

• external projects of the product group „Research and Development“ will be transferred into day-to-day operations