Purpose & Goals

UL Research Institute's Library & Researcher Information Services was launched in 2022 to build the first ever digital library for an independent nonprofit safety science research organization. As a small team working at a research institution, coordinating workflows and timelines for multiple projects is key to our success. Monday.com is the project management system in use at UL Research Institutes and was adopted by our library team in 2023. This tool and others like it can be used to integrate work across library teams in virtual and hybrid environments.

Design & Methodology

I will use the internal reports and dashboards available in Monday.com to provide analytical views of our project boards for research information reports, a service desk for library system issue reports, our annual departmental strategic goals, and others. Literature employed will be project management methodologies such as waterfall and agile.

Findings

Monday.com provides a framework for managing requirements and schedules for multiple library projects. Additionally, the automations, templates, and integrations with other applications in Monday.com save time, for example, by automating email notification of team members when tasks are assigned and completed. Various UL Research Institutes already use Monday.com to ensure they hit their strategic goals. As science librarians, using the tools the rest of the organization uses increases our ability to speak the language of our colleagues outside the library including staff scientists, research directors, and upper level managers.
Action & Impact    We plan to continue to perfect our current project boards as well as expand our use of Monday.com to other areas. In the future, we plan to explore deriving library metrics from our Monday.com site, such as turnaround times and workloads for individual staff members.

Practical Implications & Value

Attendees will come away from the poster on ideas of how they can use project management tools to go beyond traditional office software such as spreadsheets and team members to enhance project management, organizational performance management, and strategic planning.