Rich Mendola talks to LITS employees in the WHSCAB Auditorium.

Rich Mendola (Enterprise CIO and Senior Vice Provost for Library Services and Digital Scholarship) and a few members of his leadership team announced a significant restructuring of Library and Information Technology Services (LITS) at an “all-hands” meeting held in the WSHCAB Auditorium yesterday.

Speaking to an audience in excess of 350 employees, Rich carefully described the current Emory environment and the reasons for needing this change. Yolanda Cooper (University Librarian), John Ellis (Interim Deputy Chief Information Officer) and Marc Overcash (Deputy Chief Information Officer and School of Medicine Assistant Dean for IT) joined Rich on stage and each gave brief overviews of the changes to their departments.

Following the presentations, John Connerat (Chief Business Officer) led a question and answer session.

During his speech, Rich told the audience that yesterday’s meeting would be the first of many opportunities for staff to ask questions of the leadership team as a group.

Over 350 LITS employees were in attendance.

To answer the question, “Why change?” Rich offered his favorite quote from Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Rich stated that they announced the LITS partnership last year with the hope to achieve more connection with the University mission as well as to take advantage of the “growing convergence of library and IT disciplines.” According to Rich, “As we continue to evolve our model, we will be purposeful in our building of stronger teams and recognize how each of our many cultures brings core strengths — we will be unified, not uniform.”

When it came time to announce the individual department moves, Rich invited Yolanda, Marc and John to speak, in that order.

Yolanda introduced herself as possessing a broad and long library career, having come to Emory from the University of Miami. Among the changes she discussed were the consolidation of External Affairs with Marketing and Communication, the move of Academic Technology Services into the Library, and a change in the reporting structure of Library Core Services.

Marc announced the consolidation of the Project Management Office (PMO) and the IT Service Management Office (ITSMO) with his own project managers. Marc also described how Middleware had moved into his area.

John Ellis outlined a new streamlined version of his area, consisting of the Call Center, Enterprise Applications, Enterprise Services, and Infrastructure, including the shift of Classroom Technology from Academic Technology Services to Enterprise Services.

You can follow the presentation slides and see the detailed organization charts at: http://it.emory.edu/MEDIA/LITS_All_Staff_Presentation_2014-05-29.pdf.