It is possible (and desirable) to manage up, down and across the organization. This may mean that you facilitate, coax, and/or cajole. As a middle manager, you must understand the organization’s vision and mission, and how your unit fits in. To move forward, you must explain that relationship to your unit and create a climate of trust and optimism. On the flip side, your manager must also understand the work of your unit and how it fits in.

Within your unit, develop a bias toward action and getting things done. Take advantage of opportunities for consensus – which decisions can be made by popular vote? Be clear that this won’t always happen, but that if it is possible, you’ll give your staff that chance. Don’t be afraid to develop new leaders and to help your staff achieve career success, promotions, and advancement.

As a middle manager, you need both people skills and technical skills. Technical knowledge is required to understand the work of your staff, but be careful not to micromanage! Recognize that you are capable of and understand the job, but that it is no longer yours. You also need professional knowledge, planning skills, decision-making skills, and communication skills. Focus on helpfulness, not niceness or likability.

To manage up, propose solutions instead of just presenting problems. If you make things easier for your manager, they will appreciate it just as much as you do when your staff does the same. Develop peer relationships to form a support network for yourself. You will not be controlled by others if you build relationships that make you a valued member of the management team

Recommended reading: Practical Strategies for Library Managers by Joan Giesecke

Jill Canono, Leadership Consultant at State Library and Archives of Florida, began by stating that shared leadership means shared vision, values, responsibilities, and accountability. It also means asking a lot of questions and really looking deeply at your organization, yourself, and your coworkers and employees.

• What do people do to make sense of a situation in your workplace?
• Who is involved? Who ultimately understands it?
• What skills and talents do people have that aren’t being utilized?
• What happens when you experiment and fail? (If the answer to this question is, “20 years ago we tried it and it didn’t succeed so we never did it again,” upper management is responsible for smashing that myth so everyone can move on.)
• How can you encourage experimentation?
• How do you share information? Which of those methods are actually effective?
• What communication barriers exist in your organization?
• Who within your organization thinks differently than you do? What are the reasons you may be resistant to having deep discussions with them?

After you ask all these questions and consider the answers, you also have to commit to change, even (especially) when it isn’t comfortable or easy. Canono’s presentation is available online.

Olivia Madison, Dean of the Library at Iowa State University, continued by talking about how committees work within organizations. A committee can be a microcosm of the larger group, which can be a useful way for managers at various levels to take an objective look at how things actually work. She recommends setting a goal of at least one decision or recommendation to be made for each meeting held. As a leader of a committee, she also recommends that one show enthusiasm, commit to a shared outcome, use/develop one’s project management skills, and get different people involved.

Nanette Donohue, Technical Services Manager at the Champaign Public Library, started by noting that she feels she has what she terms Kids These Days Syndrome: as someone who has been with the organization for awhile and is in a middle management position, it is difficult as you mature to see kids coming and playing on your lawn (read: invading your workplace with new ideas and varying degrees of background knowledge) and even more difficult not to want to tell them what to do. Leadership transition and sharing is about compromise and negotiation for everyone. We all have to learn how to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, to acknowledge that this can be awkward for everyone and move on to the actual work to be done.

Donohue also noted that not all leaders will self-select, and as leaders at all levels we need to provide opportunities for everyone to lead. All opportunities are important, even if the outcome isn’t major. She also recommends being flexible, respecting the experiences of others, and not taking things personally, all of these especially when things don’t go exactly how you want them to or how you would have done them yourself.

As a middle manager, one also sometimes has to take the role of being a member of the group (not leading), and in those cases, you need to make a case for the change you want to make (it needs to resonate with whoever the final arbiter is). One should not be afraid to ask – the worst thing that could happen is that you are told no and (guess what?) it’s okay to be told no sometimes.

As a developing leader, if you’re not getting what you need at your workplace, get involved outside your organization: cultivate connections and participate in association work. Leaders in associations and similar groups are generally friendly and approachable, or they wouldn’t have been elected or even nominated. Donohue recommends the book The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to and For Our Leaders. Everyone follows at some point – even top leaders follow their constituent groups.

(It’s funny…I used my new Dell Mini netbook at the conference and now that I’m home I’m using my regular laptop and it’s like ‘Whoa…this screen is huge!’)

PC basics, troubleshooting, and web familiarity are essential skills for library staff, especially now that our computer usage is skyrocketing and patrons of all skill levels require assistance. To illustrate one point that presenters Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly make, yesterday morning a patron asked me why she wasn’t able to access a document from her USB drive on our computers. I checked it on my computer and discovered it was an MS Works file (file extension .wps). Our computers don’t have Works and tries to open .wps files as .wpd which is WordPerfect. I explained the problem to her and said that next time she could save her document at home as Rich Text Format (.rtf), which is compatible to most word processing programs. Other options are Works converters and open source software like Open Office, if they feel comfortable downloading and installing something.

That’s pretty basic stuff, and library staff should have the know-how to deal with similar problems. As Holly and Mary emphasized at the program, keep libraries relevant by making sure your staff are trained and up-to-date on technology!

Holly aligns her presentation with WebJunction’s publication “Competency Index for the Library Field”, which is a good starting point and guide for tech training in libraries. Also recommended was Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki.

And, just for fun, check out their blog dedicated to Awful Library Books . Their most recent example is quite retro…very funny!:

Monday at the American Library Association began with song and dance. Before Melba Pattillo Beals spoke about her books Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock High School and White Is a State of Mind: Freedom Is Yours to Choose, the St. Ailbe’s Children’s Choir of Chicago and its dance troupe sang rousing gospel songs on the stage of the ALA Auditorium Speaker Series. Pat Scales of the Association for Library Service to Children then profiled the pioneering African American librarian Charlemae Rollins, for whom her association’s lecture series is dedicated. With some difficulty due to her new titanium hip, Beals then took the stage.

Melba Beals was fifteen years old in 1957 when she was chosen to be one of nine African American students to enter Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, a huge institution with about 4,000 students. Of course, there is a story behind how she was chosen. She had often seen the well-appointed and imposing structure on the way to her shabby black school, and she longed to attend for the current textbooks and better teachers. When the NAACP sought good students to integrate Little Rock, Beals forged her mother’s signature on an application. She did not foresee the storm of violence that would accompany the court ordered opening of the all-white school to blacks. Even with federal troops sent by President Eisenhower to protect the students and restore order, her life was in constant danger during her year in Little Rock Central High. The Ku Klux Klan offered rewards for the capture of any of the Little Rock Nine for the purpose of executing them.

What is most remarkable about Beals is her lack of bitterness for the hate and violence that she witnessed. “If you hate, it’s like sucking a lemon.” She knows that racial hatred is a culturally-imposed stricture that can be overcome. She was blessed after her year in Little Rock High to be evacuated to California to the home of white Quakers, who considered her one of the family. From there she graduated high school and went on to college and graduate school, eventually becoming a journalist and public relations professor.

Throughout her life, in hard times and good times, she has been sustained by libraries. Beals considers the library her home, and currently has an office in her university library. Going “from the back of the bus to the back of the library,” she now gets to see the new books as they arrive. She believes that librarians are “good people” if somewhat too polite. To survive hard economic times and the attacks of right-wing politicians, she thinks librarians need to speak up more and proclaim their cause.

The building itself is pretty fantastic, as the architect was James W. Hammond of Skidmore Owings & Merrill. It is a vintage 1960 building, and with that come blessings and curses. The original furniture and interior is amazing, but as libraries begin to reconsider their program for the digital age much of it can seem cumbersome and inflexible (that’s modernism for ya). Despite these challenges, Skokie is moving forward with some interesting initiatives. The one I’m most excited about is the Media Lab that the gentlemen I mentioned earlier are running with.

The Media Lab is under construction right now, so I will not show any pictures just yet, but I believe it will be a much smaller, sort of modular version of the media creation extravaganza Chicago Public Library has over at their YouMedia space.  This is an interesting and exciting way of approaching the problem of new media literacy in our networked, participatory culture because the services Skokie Public Library will be providing are small-scale, relatively low-cost, and the whole project looks measurable and replicable from my vantage point.

Here’s a few pics from the library.

Check out the green roof, as seen from the staff lounge.

There’s a movie theater in the library…

There was no way to show this, but in the storytime room, the ceiling was full of little fiberoptic cables making it look like a night sky when the lights were out.

Finally, a nice circulating video game collection.

The Michael L. Printz Award is given to a book that “exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature,” and I heard some terrific speeches at the Printz Awards ceremony on Monday night.

M.T. Anderson, who won an honor for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves and E. Lockhart, who won an honor for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, had especially provocative things to say.  Both wrote sophisticated books that some teen librarians, intent on getting their teen patrons to read, may dismiss as too complex to have much teen appeal.  (As much as I love Octavian,  I have not found a teen to recommend it to yet.)  M.T. Anderson noted how often he and others “underestimate teens.”  Teens are not jaded, “bland and blank.”  They are “eccentric,” and curious about the world.  He observed that there is “only one taboo left in young adult literature: intelligence.”  Why, he wondered, were Lockhart’s references to P.G. Wodehouse and Michel Foucault in Frankie considered more elitist than references to fashion labels in many popular teen series?  Wodehouse,  he pointed out,  is not an “intimidating author,” and is one that many of us actually discovered in our teens.  “It takes an adult to make a child hate knowing things,” Anderson warned.

Lockhart observed that adults often treat young adult novels “as if they were billboards” for moral stances.  Literature should be ambiguous, complex and argued over, she said, declaring that “nothing has pleased me more than to receive mail denouncing Frankie as a borderline psychotic.”

And this is why the Printz Award is so important:  it helps to establish young adult literature as a literary form,  one that celebrates ambiguity, complexity and intelligence, and one that deserves to be the subject of passionate debate.

One last note – I was pleased to hear Melina Marchetta, who won the Printz Award for Jellicoe Road,  mention Enid Blyton’s Naughtiest Girl in the School series in her speech.  I was lucky enough to read my English mother’s copies of these 1940s schoolgirl stories as a child and grew up reading them over and over again, eventually writing numerous parodies of them.  They tell a strange story of an unintentionally Socialist boarding school in which students must surrender all of their money for equal redistribution, and are harshly judged by a jury of their peers.  If you read these, you will learn what a “tuck box” and a “jam sandwich” are, and you will be forced to learn the intricacies of old British currency, when a pound was twenty shillings, and five shillings was a crown, and there were also half-crowns, farthings and ha’pennies to contend with. Track down the series if you can!

I may be putting words in their mouths, but these are the messages that I perceived during the mostly optimistic program.

The printed reference book is not dying; it is simply shape-shifting to digital materials. Scholastic and Grolier are going strictly online with some of their titles. Some investment publications are dropping print. (This latter point needs to be double checked and reported on more fully.)

Reference sources in PDF format are difficult to use. Avoid these if possible.

Print directories are unnecessary, a luxury that few can afford. Even the revered Encyclopedia of Associations just sits now that people can find organizations quickly through the Internet.

Many reference items can move to the circulating collection. They just sit in reference and may gain new life if borrowed. Tyckoson has not physically moved the reference books to circulating but almost anything may be borrowed. When offering reference books, he has even said “How long would you like it?”

There are many reference volumes that cost a fortune to acquire that are mostly useless now. Getting rid of them is a political and environmental problem. Better World Books will take many items, but think of the end users before you send them out-of-date materials.

The need for reference services is as strong as ever, especially with the bewildering maze of information available through the Internet. Library vetted resources can help immensely.

The value of the library can not be measured with the same benchmarks as in the past, as some of its services in the online world are indirect.

Just putting links to databases on library websites is not enough to get clients to use them. There has to be marketing, including the example of the reference librarians. Johns recommended creating widgets that let clients search databases from their own iGoogle webpages.

Polanka recommended Booklist’s new blog Points of Reference which will deal with many of these issues in the coming months.

Speaker:  Kathleen (Kathy) Mayo, Lee County Library System, Ft. Myers, FL

This was fun.  I learned about OLOS, ALA’s Office for Literacy and Outreach Services.   Kathy gave her “12 step program” for serving the elderly.  Arriving late, I missed the first 3!

1. ??
2. ??
3. ??
4. Utilize engaged dedicated volunteers.  For things such as computer classes, volunteer coordinator, website. . .
5. Collections.  Don’t forget to keep elderly in mind; they don’t always like just what’s popular.  Large print is only one piece of what they need.  Music, sound recordings, old radio shows.  Program resources for activity directors at residential homes, etc.   ElderSong.   DVDs of old movies, etc.   Book discussion kits.  Talking books (they’re finally becoming digital!)
6. Programs both in and out of the library.  Character portrayals.  Humanities programs.  They like to “feel like they’re going back to school.”  Local history.  Book and film discussions.  Gaming.
7. Accessibility.   Great signage.  Electric doors.  Book drop accessible from car—may be hard for elders to get out of car and use other book drop.  Lighting.  Magnification tools.  Basic assistive devices.  Captioning for programs.
8. Great web site dedicated to interests of elders.  See Hennepin County, Cleveland.  Blog—introduces them to social networking.  Make it easy to fine the services you offer for them.
9. Consider a Senior Space in your library.  You already have a Teen Space!  Dedicated computers for them.
10. Promote what you’re doing for them.  Flyers in large print!  Presentations at organizations.  See Lighthouse International.
11. Staff.  Have services to seniors in somebody’s job description.  They should represent the library at coalition meetings.

(Somehow I only ended up with 11!)

Things/ideas expressed by members of the audience:

• Veterans programs through the Library of Congress.   Recording vets’ stories.
• created series of lectures (on social security, keeping elderly parent in their home, etc.) in conjunction with hospital, through a grant from local Agency on Aging.
• Working with American Society on Aging.  (ASA)  Their 2010 conference is in Chicago.  ALA is starting to explore collaboration with them.
• There isn’t enough being written about library services  to the elderly.  Plea:  Share your ideas, programs, etc.  Write them up and share them.

Although the presenters were from academic libraries, I believe much, if not all, of their content can be applied to any teaching situation—whether presenting workshops for library users, or staff, or at a conference.   Speakers:  Monika Antonelli, Minnesota State University; Lisa Hinchliffe, University of Illinois-Urbana; Beth Woodard, University of Illinois-Urbana.

See http://fleetwood.baylor.edu/lirt/program.html for their handout, powerpoint, and other supportive materials.  I’ll share some of the points I took away.

Assessment:

• Assessment for the purpose of improvement—improving learning through assessment.
• Students need feedback early and often.  Otherwise, they assume they’re getting it right.
• Assessment doesn’t require any special training.

Think about:

• what do you want the student to be able to do?  (outcome)
• what does the student need to know?  (curriculum)
• what is the learning activity?  (pedagogy)
• How will the student demonstrate they’ve learned?  (evidence, assignment)
• How will the teacher know the student has learned to do it well?  (criteria)

A common mistake is to start with the third bullet.  I couldn’t help but relate this to the way I teach public  library directors how to prepare and get their budget.  A common mistake is to start with the budget, rather than the library’s strategic plan (the desired outcomes).

Library classes, workshops, presentations cover way too much.  Consequently, learners learn very little.

Students have different learning styles.  Workshops must try to convey information using different styles, but we must also help students stretch their styles.

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle:  Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, Active Experimentation.  You need all 4 in order to have a good experience.

Learner-Centered Teaching:  Get the students involved in their own learning.  Give more feedback.  Move students to new places.  Give them authentic activities related to things they would normally do.

Teaching is a performance!  Pay attention to your body, voice, and stage.

Body:  You can stand on a chair.  You can sit on the floor.  You can move around.  Don’t talk while you’re moving.  Do these things with purpose, to make points, not just to do them.

Voice:  Relax your throat.  Use silence, rather than “um” and “uh.”  Vary your voice like a musical instrument.

Stage:  consider props, music, dress the part.

This session was also part of the Empowerment Conference.   (Sidebar:  The Empowerment Conference sessions I went to were great—small groups, interactive presenters, and practical topics.)

Presenter:  Maureen Sullivan, Organization development consultant.

Leadership in today’s organization requires teams, collaboration, innovation, cooperation.   It includes involving and engaging those who carry out the organization’s vision.  Leadership is influencing others to achieve results.  LISTEN to those you are trying to engage.  Leadership includes anyone in any organization.

Leadership requires Emotional Intelligence.  It is a partnership between leaders and followers.   Resonant leaders are in tune with those around them.  The creative parts of our brains light up in an atmosphere of hope.  They go dim in an atmosphere of negativity.

Emotional intelligence requires:

• Self Awareness
• Self Management
• Social Awareness
• Social skills.

A good leader will say we have to make changes; we have to collaborate.  When there are difficulties, no matter what position you play in the organization, say to yourself:

• I am doing what needs to be done.
• I am playing this role.
• Is this problem/issue about me?  I don’t have to take it personally.

So much of this is common sense.  But it’s hard work!  How do we “live it”?

• Mindfulness, personal commitment.  Take stock during the day: how am I doing?
• Hope.  Focus on possibilities.
• Compassion.  Empathy, interaction.

PDCA:  Plan, Do, Check, Act.   See the works of Walter Shewhart. 

Selected sources:

• Learning to Lead: a Workbook on Becoming a Leader
• Resonant Leadership
• Primal Leadership
• Becoming a Resonant Leader
  
• Center for Creative Leadership (see this site)