Managing Archival Technical Services with Agile Development Methods at Ohio State University
The Ohio State University Libraries is working to efficiently make all legacy and newly-arriving archival collections discoverable online through standards-based description. Over the course of several archival software implementation projects with archival technical services staff, IT staff members observed that the challenges facing archival staff in prioritizing and managing work across project-based, maintenance, and ongoing production needs were similar to those found in software development. IT developers were successfully using Agile software development methods to meet their challenges, and suggested archival technical services staff implement the same solution.
In this presentation, we will explain how implementing Agile helped archival staff to improve productivity overall and increased opportunities for staff to cross-train, develop skills, and lead projects. Agile has proven to be a strong fit for the complex needs of managing continuously shifting work, priorities, and staffing. We will describe several conditions that might make for good use of this adoption in multiple units. We will also explore the additional benefits of building a stronger relationship between developers and archivists.