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When I started writing my editorial for the April issue last week, a mere handful of public libraries had closed to contain the spread of COVID-19, though many had canceled public programming. Less than a week later, nearly 500 have closed to the public. But there are more than 9,000 public library systems in the United States—and we should close all of them. Today, not in two weeks when the April issue lands on your desk.
Taking a step back is about more than just creating an opportunity for others to step forward; it is about making sure that we are getting the most for our profession and communities.
Vocational awe. Burnout. Low morale. Precarity. Undercompensation. Together, the themes I see cropping up in LIS research, conference presentations, and Twitter point to a chronic problem.
Watching libraryland organizations in action over my eight years at LJ, I’ve been struck by the wisdom in structures that ensure the president-elect and immediate past president have roles in governance as well as the current leader. Getting insight into the decision process before you take over imparts invaluable training. Staying involved in a new capacity after your term is up creates continuity—and institutional memory can help prevent beginners’ mistakes.
Proponents of "grit" claim that developing a combination of passion and perseverance is the most significant factor shaping one’s life. The problem is, this contention ignores a great deal and has unintended negative consequences.
As the New Year dawns, I am thrilled to share the news that Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal’s Executive Editor, will be the new Editor-in-Chief, starting January 1. On the same day, I will take on the role of Group Publisher, overseeing the development of LJ, School Library Journal, and The Horn Book. In our respective new capacities, Schwartz and I will build on an effective partnership to bring you what you need to do your important work, through the many projects and initiatives that make up the Library Journal brand as a whole.
From the Bell Tower has explored the intersection between higher education and academic libraries for over a decade. It’s been a time of vast change, but what lies ahead is sure to hasten the pace of what will likely be more radical change. Paying attention to higher education will allow academic librarians to adapt to whatever comes their way.
As the year turns, so come the trends discussions and lists. There are certainly many that impact the people libraries serve, directly and indirectly. As I was starting to make my own list, Oxford announced its 2019 word of the year, “climate emergency,” defined as “a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it.”
Kevin Sayar, previously at ProQuest, was named the new CEO of streaming video platform Kanopy in October. LJ caught up with him at the Charleston Library Conference to hear his thoughts on early days at Kanopy.
Ilona Bray, coauthor of How To Get a Green Card, offers a guide to help immigrants navigate the system.
Editor Peter Sokolowski on the challenges and rewards of editing the dictionary.
Debates over what libraries should fund can get heated, but don't let that stop you from having them. All stakeholders need to not only prepare but discuss the budget, and to understand what new services will meet user demand. Good negotiators need to know when to stick to their guns, even if it means risking an argument. Good leaders also know when to concede and join with the team to ensure progress. Collegiality, civility, and good working relationships are important, but we can’t let the desire to get along prevent us from fully tackling the tough questions
I am very excited to see the recent positive activity around libraries in the United Kingdom. The community there seems to be rallying in a new way to increase understanding of the urgency for library investment—an effort lifted by a renewed effort to articulate how much libraries contribute to the social fabric. Now is the time to build on that good news story, and their strategy is worth a look.
Leadership literature offers abundant lists of qualities that experts say define great leaders. That’s supplemented by lists of qualities workers want in their leaders. There’s much variance. Here is the one quality we can all agree is a must for leaders who want to succeed.
Each year, millions of dollars awarded to libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) fund a variety of processing, digitization, and digital infrastructure projects. In the process, the field creates hundreds of contingent and precarious positions. Workers dedicated to their fields’ missions to steward, preserve, and share knowledge and culture accept low salaries, benefit-less positions, and cycles of precarity.
Sources of joy are found within librarianship, but everyday life can be stressful and hard on our minds and bodies. Science has much to tell us about ways we can achieve happiness. Surprisingly, those things can be a good fit with academic library work.
Three hundred thirty-eight days. That’s the length of time between August 2018, when we first saw the news coverage of Greta Thunberg, a young climate activist in Sweden who started striking in front of Stockholm's parliament every Friday to demand climate action from her country’s leaders, and September 20, 2019, when global Climate Strike Marches brought an estimated four million young people and their supporters onto our streets to demand meaningful action from adults on climate change.
When you think about climate change, what do you feel? I asked my daughter, Harper, who is ten, that question last month. The exercise was part of a talk at a Drawdown Learn event held at the Omega Center for Sustainable Living. Despite how often we discuss the climate, this was the first time I had actually asked her that. Her answer was not surprising, but it was painful to hear. “I get this bad feeling in my gut,” she said.
Innovation comes in different forms. Library leaders support staff to achieve innovation that establishes the library as an organizational or community innovator. Using the right terminology makes a difference.
As academic libraries open their doors to the public, they’ll experience some of the same challenges as public libraries. Should we follow their lead when it comes to staff social workers?
When librarians move into an administrative leadership position, they may find they get fewer projects completed. That’s fine. It’s more important to contribute to subordinates’ personal growth and organizational progress.
The people of Queens can stop waiting and start using their brand new Hunters Point Community Library. And they should. The 22,000 square foot building, which opened September 24 after long delays and a cost of over $40 million, is a major investment that is likely to be intensely used and long enjoyed.
Every academic library should have a set of standards for how people are expected to conduct themselves in our facilities. If it’s nonexistent at your library, now is the time to create it. If there is one that has languished for years, it’s time for an update.
Even if you think you lead without exploiting the power and privilege of your position, the way your formal leadership or management role affects your library workers might surprise you.
Next Library 2019 in Aarhus, Denmark was just as engaging and enjoyable as the first time I attended in 2017. In fact, it has become one of my favorite learning opportunities, informing my teaching and research. A conference that demands active participation, requires outside the box thinking, and reserves “the right to alterations and surprises” is an enjoyable challenge.
I join those from the library community urging a reconsideration of Macmillan’s recent decision to limit libraries to one copy of new ebooks for the first two months of publication. This one size fits all embargo is, at best, an insensitive blockade. Libraries are key engines of book culture, and willing collaborators in the process of finding a path to access.
If the prospect of going through another change management exercise leaves you groaning and wishing for a better way to adapt to change, you may be ready for change readiness.
While many view natural disasters as levelers—events that do not differentiate based on ethnicity or economic status—this is not the case. Low-income citizens are often hit harder by extreme weather events, due to everything from poorly constructed or aging housing to housing located closer to flood plains.
I wish I could have been in Washington, DC, on June 22 when the American Library Association’s (ALA) Social Responsibility Round Table (SRRT) celebrated its 50th anniversary. SRRT Action Council/Coordinator Charles Kratz invited me, and the message brought back memories of the time when SRRT was first founded. SRRT quickly became ALA’s conscience, and SRRT activism frequently shaped the agenda at ALA conferences in the years after the 1969 Annual Conference in Atlantic City, NJ.
When it comes to spreading library love, the Library Land Project raises the bar. Greg Peverill-Conti and Adam Zand have visited over 200 public libraries—celebrating them, sharing images of them, writing stories about them, and rating them. It's something to learn from.
Why do many academic librarians have a problem referring to their students, faculty, and staff as customers? Public librarians are so over that, and they are benefitting from it.
Fortune’s annual list of the 50 greatest leaders is all about learning leadership from those who practice it best. Does what makes leaders great change over time?
The 2020 Census is upon us, with preparation already underway to count how many people live in the United States, and where. Our public libraries—connected to their communities and relatively ubiquitous—can and will be critical partners in getting this important work done well, and fairly.
No matter what your teaching responsibilities are in higher education, you likely have opinions about extra credit. The challenge for librarians is how to deal with extra credit when they have no control over it.
Those working in libraries think a lot about the who, what, where, when, and how involved in the day-to-day operations. Sometimes, there’s even a chance to think about the why. It can be hard to take time to step back and do so, but it’s worth it, especially when the stakes are high and change is fast and furious. And thinking about why libraries are so important has me considering social cohesion, the glue of a thriving society.
Leaders must make tough decisions. At times quick decisions are needed, but even then wise leaders will take time to act thoughtfully and consult in the interests of the best outcome.
There is no such thing as a totally independent library board when the library’s funding stream is controlled by another entity. Libraries will never achieve consistently satisfactory funding levels as long as they are one of many agencies governed and/or solely funded by a larger political unit. When public libraries compete for funds with police, fire, sewers, schools, planning, and assessor’s offices, they lose. The tremendous cuts and closings weathered by public libraries in the UK over the past decade provide a cautionary tale.
Since the dawn of the Internet, claims have been made that libraries were doomed to obsolescence. While that has proven a false narrative, what is the possibility that libraries might someday achieve “peak library”
Library tourism has long been a thing, but a new website devoted to highlighting libraries worldwide offers a chance to tour some far-flung institutions from wherever you happen to be. Launched just a few months ago, Library Planet (libraryplanet.net) is a “crowdsourced travel guide for libraries” created by Christian Lauersen of Roskilde Libraries and Marie Engberg Eiriksson of Gladsaxe Libraries, Denmark.
Last month, I had the pleasure of digging into just how they are also key engines of a book-rich society and, as such, a critical part of the book market—active, engaged builders of excitement about connecting the information, ideas, or perspectives readers need to thrive.
Few leaders ever anticipate dealing with a crisis of epic proportions. But as recent events in higher education demonstrate, leaders whose fortitude was formed in such a crucible bring a unique skill set to the position.
Those who once claimed the Internet would eliminate the need for physical libraries had it exactly backward: the demand for public spaces has only become more acute as digital technology enables everyone to fill their needs individually and privately online.
If you’ve not already encountered it, “frictionless” is a word you may be hearing more in libraryland. While we want to deliver good experiences, librarians may want to think twice about eliminating friction.
Spending two days learning more about the process of cocreation and how it applies in libraries was inspiring and mind-shifting as the possibilities multiplied.
If leadership is mostly learned rather than an innate ability, then continuous learning is a vital contributor to leadership growth. “Never stop learning” is good advice, but it is one of those tasks that’s easier said than done.
Some higher education institutions will struggle to survive over the next decade. The outlook for mega-universities could hardly be more different. They continue to add students, but what impact is this growth trend likely to have on future academic librarians?
Count me among those thrilled to see the American Library Association (ALA) adopt sustainability as a core value. This decision by ALA Council, which passed with overwhelming support at the Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, affirms the important work so far in this area and provides a springboard forward for libraries to activate around sustainable thinking.
Leaders can all too easily go through the paces on auto-pilot. Go to this meeting. Deal with that situation. Those leaders who are adept at taking notice of what’s less obvious are more likely to innovate.
Every sector of the higher education industry faces challenges, but the future outlook for small colleges is even direr. Amidst talk of closures, mergers, and other decline, should librarians at these institutions be worried?
As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Libraries Initiative came to a close at the end of 2018, I joined many in reflecting on the massive contribution of that decades-long investment in libraries and what it now makes possible through its legacy partners.
One school of thought in leadership suggests those who do it well can role play some area of their work for which they are less than authentically passionate. While that may be a useful leadership skill for unique situations, there are some things leaders should never fake.
My postelection depression was triggered by all the rancid rhetoric coupled with the fear and deep concern brought on by the bomb mailings and the killings of two in a market in Louisville, KY, and 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Seasoned leaders know the importance of having their 30-second pitch about the library down to perfection. If you’ve somehow overlooked this or are new to leadership, now is the time to craft your pitch.
Author and advice columnist Heather Havrilesky learned a great deal about libraries when she inadvertently sparked the ire of Library Twitter.
Those of us working at a college or university have a considerably different perspective on higher education than our fellow citizens who learn about it from the media. How might higher education deliver a better message?
In my last column, I shared a conversation I had with Sally Pewhairangi, a New Zealand librarian working on a new website called The Library Boss. We explored how confidence in our abilities is just as important as competence. We finish our discussion this time with a deep dive into qualities that should be part of the information professional’s skill set.
ON JULY 15, WE RELEASED NEW WEBSITES FOR LJ AND sister publication School Library Journal (SLJ) in a soft launch encouraging feedback and constructive criticism. If you haven’t explored them yet, please do. This is a major step forward for us as we continue our evolution in an increasingly digital world.
Library core values can align with contemporary social justice issues. Library leaders who find it difficult to grasp the social justice movement need to think about how they should use their leadership to understand, if not embrace, social justice issues and the staff who support them.
