New structure for School Services
The National Library provides services to schools, learners and educators. It also provides advice and support for school library development.
Over the past two years, the Library has worked with its staff and stakeholders to assess customer needs and explore future services.
Geraldine Howell, Director School Services, said "We acknowledge we needed to better respond to the changing needs of 21st century learners and overcome the disparity of access to our services. We have developed a new organisational structure to address these issues and realign our services to better meet the needs of schools and educators."
Consultation with staff about the proposed structure was undertaken in June, and 56 submissions were received. The decisions document is now complete and the new structure is confirmed. New roles will be sized and staff reassigned over the next few months. In general, there was strong support for the new proposed structure, the introduction of a new development team and new Māori and Pasifika advisor roles.
In summary, the new structure allows for new services for schools and educators to be developed and rolled out from 2010. The new structure means the schools in Gisborne, Whangarei and Nelson will now be served from different locations.
Services to remain the same
The supply and distribution of books and other materials to educators will continue to be provided from Auckland, Palmerston North and Christchurch.
The advice and consultancy service will still be available to schools and provided from 11 locations in three regions: Northern, Central and Southern. Schools in Whangarei, Gisborne and Nelson will now be served from their respective regional offices. (Note: Over the last 18 months New Plymouth has been in transition and is now served from Wanganui and Palmerston North).
New services to be offered
A new service development team will be established, their focus will be on designing new services. The services include: an 0800 school library advice service, a virtual school library network and a new professional development model using online and videoconferencing. These will be developed and rolled out to schools from 2010.
Impacts on school services staff
Although the new structure is in place, no decisions have been made in terms of reassigning staff. Of the current positions, 33 will be disestablished and 19 new positions will be created. Our priority will be to seek redeployment opportunities for staff, prior to recruiting for the new roles.
Implementation of the new structure will take place progressively over the following six months to ensure that there is a minimal impact on service delivery.
The changes and new services are another step towards the organisational transformation that has been ongoing since 2007, to help the Library implement a modernised, new generation, National Library that meets the needs of New Zealanders.
