Director Christina Dunn explained that the Institute of Education Services, which includes the library, is being reorganized under legislation passed last year that transformed the Office of Educational Research and Improvement into the Institute of Education Sciences. As part of the shift, the institute is reassigning 40 staff members to other offices that are now understaffed. Among those being moved are six of the eight NLE staffers that are with the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and 12 or 13 of the other NLE staff, leaving six federal employees in the library. Dunn said the 5.5 FTE MLS-level librarians, who are all contract workers, are not affected, nor are the two federal-employee professional librarians (including Dunn).
“It sounds like we’re losing a lot of people,” explained Dunn, “but if you were actually designing a library from scratch, you would not have hired this many people.” Dunn said the staffing changes won’t affect the library’s services, which are used by Education Department employees and D.C.-area education associations. “We’ll get more people under contract, if we need them,” she added.
On June 27, the Education Department released a contract request for proposal (RFP) to dismantle the ERIC system with only minor changes to its draft statement in April, despite a large number of public comments opposing its approach. The final RFP continues to eliminate all 16 clearinghouses and replaces them with a single contractor.
Posted July 14, 2003.