Advocacy & Communication
Beginnings of Leadership
When I first set foot in my class on management, we were asked a seemingly strange question: what, precisely, is the difference between leadership and management? How are they intertwined and how do they differ? I had never quite thought about it before, assuming at first that a manager must be a leader. The more I thought about it though, the more I began to see the nuances involved. It was from this that I began to explore the concepts of management and leadership and understand them in a greater depth throughout the course of the class.
Related: First blog on Leadership and Management
Case and Practice
At the end of the class we were posed a challenge in the form of a case study, mine in particular being on the issue of listening and communication and the management of employees. The case involved a curious cast of characters, starting with Mr. Jackson, a well-meaning but passive director who found himself called before the board of the library and dismissed from his position as the situation with his library's staff had spiraled out of control without him even realizing it. Mr. Jackson was baffled and confused—he had an open door policy and, on the rare occasion that someone would come in, he would duly listen and then refer them to the appropriate channel through which he or she could file their complaint. In truth, this strategy was hardly up to the task as he did little to actively listen, communicate, and understand what was going on just beyond that very door.
The clash of personalities that underlined the conflict showed just how difficult effective management can be and how making the necessary decisions can themselves prove challenging. Nonetheless, if one is to lead let alone manage, difficult decisions have to be made and situations carefully assessed.
Related: Case Study
The Mission of Advocacy and Communities
All of this provides the foundation for what is perhaps the most crucial mission of the modern library: advocacy and innovation. With budgets running thin it is often public services such as libraries that get put on the chopping block. It was actually in my orientation for the program itself that we covered this topic in a small group with Dr. Carmichael and Dr. Chow. On the surface it seems simple to a politician. What does a library provide, books? Well, is not everything going digital these days anyway? So what do we need libraries for?
The thing is, libraries do more than just serve as fancy warehouses for books. They are a place for the community—everyone—allowing equal access to educational and technological resources that many simply cannot get a hold of in their own homes. Not everyone can afford an internet subscription let alone a computer, and even with digital books these things still cost money. Most people might be able to buy their absolute favorites, but that is nothing compared to the wealth of resources that are held in a library, with books stretching back centuries alongside modern releases. There are books that may fascinate, entertain, and educate that someone may not have even discovered without walking into a library—especially as bookstores become increasingly rare. It goes beyond books though as libraries provide education, not just in the passive form with encyclopedias and historical texts, but in the active sense with information literacy, teaching the community how to interact with and excel with emerging technologies, not to mention providing opportunities for people to learn together, engaging in all manner of hobbies from photography to art to sewing to writing to gaming. Furthermore, libraries provide a place for people to go after school when they might have nowhere else to be, a fact which, when coupled with the educational and socializing opportunities that the library provides, can reduce crime and keep people safe.
Taking away the library is not simply a matter of losing some books. It is a matter of losing a crucial heart of the community. It is important for the library to advocate for itself, helping those distant politicians to realize that libraries are still relevant and are only growing more important with the advent of new projects such as maker spaces, places where people can learn, play, and experiment in new ways with resources, such as 3D printers, which are not likely to become household items anytime soon. In a society that is growing increasingly unequal, we need more—not fewer—places where everyone has equal and free access to resources and opportunities and where people from every level and part of society can mingle and interact without barriers.
Of course, libraries should not just be marketing themselves. It is also important that they look to and engage with the community so that they can perform precisely this purpose. A library which falls out of touch with its own community is bound to fail, not only because it has failed in its very purpose but also, in simpler terms, because no library is capable of saving itself—it is the community that is the most powerful advocate for the library, and if the community ceases to care for the library, then its days are numbered.
It is an issue which we covered not only in that initial orientation but in a number of discussions in every class from foundations to management to reference to emerging technologies to digital libraries and more. We are steadily realizing that libraries cannot be passive organizations anymore, and that it is crucial that we acquire the tools necessary to both understand and communicate our purpose and engage with the community to create something wonderful and enduring together.