Hamline University has decided to realign our undergraduate education department with our Graduate School of Education. Tentative launch date is July 1st. I knew this was going to be coming down the turnpike, but not that soon. What is going to happen? Not really sure as not a whole lot has been laid out yet. Kind of like a “details to follow”, just this time, quite a few details. As the liaison to GSE, I will probably be working closely with our undergrad ED liaison and I am sure our GSE Library Taskforce will grow with membership…and probably get a new name. 
I am not sure how big a change it will be for the library, but I can see certain things maybe being a bit easier. The children’s curriculum lab and literature collection is actually “property” of the undergraduate department and this has been a problem in terms of how it is staffed and the actual collection development. GSE and our MFA (writing for children and young adults) programs have long wanted to contribute more and have more say into this area of the “library”. Where we, as librarians, have had very little say into this. We have had better conversations about this over the last few months and even before the realignment discussion came to pass. Now, I would imagine that we will have more fruitful discussions about the lab. I do not want to talk about the “ownership” of the lab, as I think this is still a somewhat contentious and political issue. Other things we will need to take care of? I would imagine over the next few years and with the development of new curriculum, that the library’s funding allocation for the school will change. Will this mean more money or more headaches? I am not sure yet. Also, will this mean new programs within the school that I will have to help develop? And the biggie? How will my and my colleagues teaching schedule change? Anyway, big things a happening at the university.
