ACRL Leadership Discussion Group Community

topics for investigation

• Nobody knows what administrators do--perceptions of libns who are administrators
• How have organizational changes affect leadership
• Authority – what does it mean, how does it impact Leadership
  • Leadership without authority/ Authority does not necessarily mean leadership
  • Authority does open vistas that we do not see
• Managing is not leadership. However, Managers need to be leaders—is there anything we can to help, support, train, those going into management positions without leadership training?
• Leadership on campus, outside library. Library as Leader on campus
• Leaders as bullies; how to navigate an environment where poor leadership is present, particularly if it is above you (as in the person or people you report to). Dealing with bad leaders in libraries Managing your boss--especially bullies
• How to help supervisors mentor other supervisors under them?
• Definition of leadership that includes those who are not nominally leaders; How to encourage line leadership/leadership from non-managerial positions
• Assigned leaders as opposed to real leaders
• What do people who want to lead feel they lack
• Young librarians needing skills—mentoring the “green” out of new librarians; How to help new librarians grow out of newness; How to lead our freshest librarians
• Promote the profession and why we are in it
• Something for more experienced libns who feel unappreciated
• Leadership and communication
• Damage control is consequence of decision-making by fiat

Ideas/programming:

• Speed dating leadership--would have to be done in person.  Have to identify issues--we can identify in this group.
• Might know/let’s identify people who are particularly good at aspects of leadership

Goals & Tasks:

• We want this group to attract people new and mid-career
• ACRL now allowing interest groups. Do we want to do this?  Differences between?  Rudy will look into this
• There is an archives leadership institute to look at
• All of us identify something to use for reader discussion

Sources:

• Article on mobbing in the workplace--C&RL
• NYT Corner Office article every Sunday
• Harvard Business review blog
• Revealing Academic Leadership by Lee ? bowman and Joan V. gallos

Join us at ALA Annual for a discussion on valuing librarians as faculty.

Location: McCormick Place Convention Center N140

The discussion will be lead by three library administrators who believe in the value of the faculty role for librarians. Following their talks, there will be time for discussion.

Lori Phillips
Associate Dean, Associate Librarian
University of Wyoming

Kathlin Ray
Dean of Libraries
University of Nevada Reno

Susan Barnes Whyte,
Library Director,
Linfield Library

The ACRL Leadership Discussion group invites you to join us for our new webinar series. Our first webinar will be held Feb 8th at 3pm EST. Register at http://bit.ly/LDGMentoring.

The webinar itself will take place at The webinar will be held at https://umconnect.umn.edu/acrlleadership/

Mentoring relationships have long been opportunities to gain trusted insight into our careers, aspirations, and daily lives from those in more experienced positions. Successful mentoring may take a variety of forms, but all require the active participation of individuals to nurture and focus their aspirations towards tangible goals through mindful reciprocal relationship building. As leaders in our communities, we are often responsible for supporting the mentoring efforts of our colleagues while at the same time searching for mentoring resources ourselves. This webinar aims to provide information and ideas on a new way of thinking about mentoring for individuals in library and archival environments. Modern Mentoring can take place at any age, experience or career level, and across library job functions, by expanding our definition of mentoring relationships and encouraging the individual to seek the mentoring they want. We will provide information on new types of mentoring dynamics and ideas on building and mapping individual mentoring networks for those in library and archival settings.

The webinar will be led by Darla White, MA, MLIS, Archivist and Records Manager, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School

Inspired by her own desire to find mentors and to become a leader in her library community, Darla has been involved in a number of mentoring initiatives and believes that it is the responsibility of the individual to find the mentoring they want in their lives. Darla has coordinated mentoring programs for the Harvard Library Community, has served as Co-chair of the Mentoring Sub-committee of the Joint Committee on the Status of Women at Harvard Medical School, and is a participant in the Society of American Archivist’s match mentoring program, in addition to starting her own personal peer mentoring group, and fostering numerous one-on-one mentoring relationships.