Committee

And commit me before I ever commit myself to serving on another one of those.

A few months ago I was selected to be a member of a University committee that would be overseeing the purchase of a particular computer product. This puzzled me, as while I have a reasonably computer-oriented background for a librarian, anything I ever knew about products of this type is many years out of date and was pretty minimal to start with.

I soon found that I wasn't picked to serve on this committee out of any idea that I might have useful knowledge to contribute. I was added because our administration likes the Library to have a "voice" in as many University decisions as possible, and so got a spot for a librarian reserved on the committee. (Non-librarian library staff - the people in the systems department who might know something about technical products - apparently don't qualify as "voices".) And the first person who was asked suggested me as a replacement.

But that was okay, because none of the other people on the committee were selected for their knowledge either, apart from a representative from one of the technology vendors who was there to advise us. As far as I can tell, the other committee members were also each chosen to represent a University department. Apart from the committee chair, who had some sort of managerial responsibility in the University's technology department and apparently fulfilled this responsibility unhampered by the slightest taint of computer knowledge.

Fortunately, one of those departments was I.T. Now, the library usually has a Mutually Assured Avoidance policy with I.T., because we're afraid they'll screw up our systems and they've learned that we're more trouble than we're worth. But we both quickly found ourselves ignoring that, because it was such a relief to have someone else there who spoke the language.

Yep. About a dozen people on a computer system selection committee, only two people who had a vague idea what the system actually did. Plus a vendor.

Now, I'm totally in favour of non-tech types having input into software purchasing decisions, especially if they're going to be stuck using the thing. In fact I think it's essential - users are really the only ones who can say whether the system works for them, if the interface is easy to learn and use, if the functionality is there for what they need it to do. But that's it.

We were each given a worksheet with a vast list of possible system features and options organized into various categories, and told to check off the ones we thought our system should have. This was to be fed into an online database of such systems which would then spit back the best system for us. So people like X from accounts who will be doing data entry and Y who's a secretary and might be asked to learn the system someday started merrily checking off different virtual memory management options, setup and configuration features...

I questioned this way of doing things, so the committee chair kindly explained to me that we had to follow a procedure that was impartial. When his superiors asked him why the committee had made the decision it had, he needed to have something to point to. He needed to follow the standard procedure.

At first, this left me with the belief that he cared more about following procedures and covering his rear than about actually selecting a product that would do what the university wanted it to. Later, I came to a somewhat kinder view of him. I think that he somehow believed that following the standard impartial decision process would lead invariably to the right outcome, that stopping and asking if the process made sense for this particular decision, carried out by this particular committee, was both dangerous and unnecessary.

I left several areas of my worksheet blank, as I didn't feel qualified to comment on some requirements. It turned out not to matter much, because the group's combined final worksheet had the delightful result of eliminating every possible system from consideration, much to our chair's dismay.

At that point, when he was at his weakest, I attacked, being completely not up to sitting through any more of this. With I.T. guy, I improvised a more flexible procedure that gave us more scope to argue with the rest of the group when necessary. And we did so, for the next three months... but I'm not up to even trying to describe that part.