09/06/94
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (650) 723-2558
STANFORD -- Stanford's Libraries and Information Resources division has been reorganized and a new position of chief information officer has been created, Provost Condoleezza Rice has announced.
Effective Sept. 1, Director of University Libraries Michael Keller also took on responsibility for information resources and academic information services. His new title is Ida M. Green University Librarian and director of academic information resources.
At the same time, Director of Internal Audit Glen Mueller was named to the new post of chief information officer, with responsibility for development and operation of networking and communications services, information systems, data administration, and technology support services for instruction, research and administrative activities.
Both Keller and Mueller report to Rice in her role as chief academic officer.
The reorganization follows the recent decision of Robert Street, vice provost for libraries and information resources, to return full time to teaching and research (see Campus Report, Aug. 10).
Keller's new organization is responsible for maintaining the integration of the libraries and academic information resources that was achieved under Libraries and Information Resources (L&IR), Rice said. Keller will have some responsibilities for networking and communications services.
Keller said that one of the charges from Rice - one that he takes "very seriously" - is to work closely with the faculty and make sure that the new organizations are "responsive to the faculty."
The reorganization, Rice said, is driven by the need to launch an overhaul of the university's major administrative computing systems.
Mueller's new organization will include the Data Center and Networking and Communication Services from L&IR, Business Information Systems Applications (BISA) from the chief financial officer, the Network for Student Information from the Registrar's Office, and computer support staff from the Office of Development.
Mueller said that in addition to implementing better administrative systems, a key task is to "renew and enhance the infrastructure to serve the instruction, research and administrative technology needs throughout the institution."
The former combined organization was innovative and produced benefits, Rice said, "but we had a problem with four separate organizations working on various aspects of administrative computing."
"We've maintained the structure on the academic side that produces synergies between libraries and information systems, and we are bringing all administrative computing together in a single organization as we go forward with the administrative systems overhaul," Rice said.
The impending administrative information systems plan and President Gerhard Casper's new Commission on Technology in Teaching and Learning are evidence of the university's renewed emphasis both on academic and administrative computing, Rice said.
"We expect to have opportunities to make new and exciting investments in academic computing to support research and teaching," she said.
Rice said that she has asked both Keller and Mueller to find ways to deliver service more efficiently and effectively, and to do it with less overhead.
Keller predicted success with the new organizational structure, saying that he and Mueller "have a great spirit of cooperation."
Keller came to Stanford in September 1993 from Yale, where he was associate university librarian and director of collection development. In the last year he has worked on program and architectural planning for Green Library West, reengineering of library functions and acquisition of several major collections. He also has been actively engaged in the transformation of traditional libraries and describing the expanded vision of research libraries to alumni and friends of Stanford. A former music librarian, Keller's Music Reference and Research Materials, a standard reference work for musicologists, was published this year in a revised fourth edition.
Keller has been appointed to the Commission on Technology in Teaching and Learning and is a University Fellow this year.
Mueller came to Stanford in 1992 from Cornell, where he was director of auditing, to reorganize Stanford's audit department and reestablish working relationships with external audit agencies after the indirect cost controversy. As director of internal audit, he has been responsible for audit risk assessments and for conducting compliance, financial, health care, operational and electronic data processing audits of all operating units and the Stanford Hospital. During the last year, Mueller, a former corporate chief information officer, has chaired the administrative information systems planning team.
Mueller will continue as director of internal audit until the Oct. 3 Board of Trustees meeting, at which time an acting director will be named and a search launched for a successor.
Rice expressed appreciation to faculty who consulted on the changes: Boyd Paulson, civil engineering and chair of the Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems (C- ACIS); Doug Brutlag, biochemistry and chair of the C-ACIS subcommittee on the Distributed Information and Computing Environment; David Dill, computer science and interim chair of the C-ACIS subcommittee on Administrative Computing; and Carl Gotsch, food research and chair of the Committee on Libraries.
Rice said she also heard from concerned faculty members, and "that input has been extremely helpful."
The four committees, along with Casper's new technology commission, "will play important roles over the next year getting the new organizations working," Rice said.
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