I have a question regarding staff development and I am hoping someone can provide some advice.  I have two vacant librarian positions in my Library Systems department.  I need to fill those vacancies with software/systems developers in order to move our initiatives forward.  We have encountered reluctance on the part of our human resources to repurpose those librarian positions into developer positions.

Has anyone had success in posting Systems Librarian positions using education and experience requirements consistent with software developers?  We have sufficient flexibility in hiring librarians, but the skill sets differ significantly between librarians and developers.  Ideally, we would want someone with backgrounds in computer science rather than library science, for example.  I'm curious to know if anyone has tried this and been successful.

Bob Samson
Head of Library Systems & Technology
University of Texas at Arlington