From: Jack McCredie
Subject: MIP Organizational Change

Colleagues:

The purpose of this letter is to let you know about an organizational change in the Museum Informatics Project (MIP) that became effective on January 1. I have asked David Greenbaum, Director of IST's Interactive University Project (IU), to assume the leadership of MIP and to create a new department that merges MIP and the Interactive University. As part of the campus IT strategic planning process, David will be working to develop the mission and plans for this new group. The focus of the integrated organization will be innovative services and strategies that enable members of our community to share, in more effective ways, campus digital collections and content in support of research, teaching, and public service.

For the past several years, Professor Merrill Shanks has done an excellent job as the interim director of MIP by sustaining its important partnerships and services during extremely difficult budget times. When I asked Merrill to provide this leadership, neither of us foresaw the severity of the downturn in campus resources that occurred. I want to thank Merrill publicly for his dedication and thoughtful leadership. In addition, I also want to thank the MIP staff for their continuing good work and patience as we developed this new organization and consolidated our staff in a new home at 2195 Hearst Avenue.

We face exciting future opportunities to discover new ways to make it much easier for faculty, students, staff, and colleagues such as K-12 teachers to use and share the campus's extraordinary digital resources. To reach our potential in this area will require close partnerships among IST and campus and systemwide academic, library, museum, and technology departments. David will be working with MIP and IU partners and customers in the next six months to gather broad input as he develops a strategic vision for the combined MIP and IU group.

I shall strongly support David in this effort, especially by exploring how the developing campus IT strategic plan can include increased focus on the innovative use of digital collections and content. I encourage you to share your thoughts and suggestions with David, members of his team, and me as we move forward in this process.

Regards,

Jack McCredie
Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO