From subject selectors to college and interdisciplinary teams

The renovation of the J .Willard Marriott Library, coupled with the changing responsibilities of public services librarians and the decreases in financial support, has forced librarians to evaluate their strategic alignment. The new Knowledge Commons has become the center for in-person reference and technical assistance. An Online Services unit addresses email and chat reference services along with research guides. The Digital Scholarship Lab focuses on data management, research projects involving the use of audio and video studios, usability testing, and new technologies as they become available. The traditional tasks of collection development and outreach to the subject departments became the responsibility of College and Interdisciplinary Teams or CITs. Public services librarians, therefore, had two organizational structures under which to work: task-focused and subject-oriented structures.