BackTalk: Assuming Command

Back when I was in the Navy (and, no, I tell my kids, the ships did not have sails!), it was apparent that for career and funding purposes there existed different “communities” within the service. Aviation, surface warfare, and submarines, for example, were three major players competing for money and career advancement.

In the navy, however, once “flag-rank” was attained, identification with a given community was discarded, and leadership applied fleetwide. This happens in the corporate world, too, where top executives often move from industry to industry, applying their leadership skills.

Not so in librarianship. Read any advertisement for leadership positions, and you will see requirements for specific experience in a given type of library. Instead of recruiting leaders who have broad experience leading different types of libraries, potential library employers too often exclusively seek library experience of the very same type, only piled higher and deeper.

While possession of the MLS degree is still considered necessary for anyone to enter the field, there also exist myriad further requirements to join a given community within the profession. Certification is necessary to be a school librarian; a law degree is the norm for law libraries; a second master's degree or Ph.D. is needed to be a subject specialist in academic libraries; and AHIP certification is required for medical libraries.

Specialization is fine and perhaps necessary. Once a librarian moves up in the organizational structure, however, specialization can also become a hindrance to effective leadership.

Each type of library today increasingly seems to have its own ethos and requisites for entrance, often based on wrongly perceived notions of individuality. Further, each type of library seems to be guarding its “turf” by adding more and more requirements. This problem becomes even more pronounced for library administrators attempting to cross community lines in search of new positions.

This represents professional parochialism at its worst. The perception that different types of libraries require specific leadership skills serves only to pit one type of library against another, to the detriment of all libraries.

Are there not more similarities than dissimilarities among types of libraries? Are not the core processes such as reference, technical services, and database searching comparable regardless of type of library? Many of you would readily agree. Nevertheless, try landing a job in one type of library after spending years in another.

I pride myself on being a library administrator. While my experience has been primarily in public libraries, I know I can run any type of library because my leadership skills are equally applicable, and the successful application of these skills is not library-type dependent.

Library governance is very often the reason given for restricting library leaders to certain communities, the assumption being that different types of libraries are governed differently. In fact, libraries are generally governed quite similarly: an academic librarian reports to a dean; a school librarian to a building principal; a hospital medical librarian to a vice president.

If any library is more unique in this respect it is public libraries, which must deal with politicians and board members—universally useful skills, as any director will attest.

Why penalize potential library leaders by restricting their movement to within one library community? To assume a public library director cannot lead an academic library, or that a school librarian cannot lead a public library is simply false. The principles of leadership can apply to all types of libraries.

In the navy, at the eight- to ten-year point, aviators will move out of the cockpit to assume command. While trained as pilots, and still very much pilots, they become, first and foremost, the people in charge.

The same is true of librarians. You may be initially trained as a cataloger, reference librarian, or children's librarian. You may start in an academic, public, or special library. But as you rise, you prepare yourself to assume a broader command.

It is time to rethink how the library profession uses its top executives. For our careers and the sake of those we serve, we must convince those who recruit library management that there is a core of leadership knowledge common, and applicable, to all libraries. We must put aside the growing parochialism and narrow-mindedness emerging in library communities if we are to solve the many challenges facing our institutions today. There comes a point where being a generalist with the ability to see the forest at the expense of the trees becomes a necessary, desirable trait.