Engaging with succession planning is vital for libraries because of increased staff turnover and budget turmoil. Administrative succession planning is typically a top-down approach focusing on developing individuals. Technical succession planning focuses on continuity of services through documentation and capturing institutional knowledge. What works best when you are a middle manager? How can you begin to capture that elusive institutional knowledge to ensure that it is preserved? This session will help attendees understand how to engage with succession planning at the level of a middle manager by combining a case study of a real-life succession planning debacle with lessons learned and best practices identified in the library literature. The case study that is presented is about merging services and changing staff on the Course Reserves team as streaming media reserves was brought under the centralized electronic reserves umbrella. Attend this presentation and emerge with a framework on beginning conversations with seasoned and new employees, tips on creating documentation, identifying competencies, planning for cross-training and looking at how all this ties into job descriptions to ensure that work remains within the scope of the position while allowing for skill scaffolding and creating paths for promotion.
