Survival Guide for New Managers from the Education Institute

Speakers: Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones Associates and Ruth Snowden, J. Chevreau Enterprises Inc.

The move into management brings a host of new responsibilities, hopes, challenges and opportunities. Whether you are in a small library or a huge organization, the management skills and strategies are the same. This course focuses on those key areas that will determine your success as a new manager: planning, communicating, balancing and learning.

WHEN
Monday, February 28, 2005 - Part 1
Monday, March 7, 2005 - Part 2
Monday, March 21, 2005 - Part 3
3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Eastern time (all scheduled calls)
TELECONFERENCE

REGISTER ON-LINE TODAY and go to 2004/2005 Calendar. Scroll down to Feb. 28th and click to register!

Check out the new conference program for the Canadian Library Association. Two new tracks, one on technology and one on leadership. Join Rebecca and I, CLA President Stephen Abram, and lots of great speakers like: Gary Price of ResourceShelf.com, Barbara Fullerton, Aaron Schmidt, Darlene Fichter, Randy Reichardt of The Pod Bay Door blog, Steven Cohen of Library Stuff, Rich Wiggins of Wigblog - Things Internet & Otherwise, Michael Vandenburg, and more!

Strategic Conversations with Leaders Series from the Education Institute
Innovation Ideas & Insights
Instructor: Wendy Beecham, Chair, TEC International & Executive Coach.
WHEN
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
3:00- 4:00 p.m. Eastern time (12noon Pacific Time)
TELECONFERENCE — You don’t have to leave your office!!

Description of Wendy’s talk:
Gary Hamel in his famous book “Leading the Revolution” ? states that innovation is not a private act. It is the constant interplay of ideas, perspectives, experiences and values that spawn innovation. It’s actually true that for innovation to be successful it requires detailed customer interaction, superior, defined processes and strong implementation skills ? decision-making, delegating, scheduling, monitoring and feedback. When we talk about the right “culture” for innovation ? think of an environment that is empowering, flexible, welcomes ideas, tolerates risk, celebrates success and encourages fun. How many of us can hold up our hands and state we work in such an environment today? Are we role models of leadership for future possibilities? During this talk, our speaker discusses specific examples of innovation taking place in libraries throughout North America and provides tips for how you can create an environment for innovation in your organization.

REGISTER ON-LINE TODAY at www.thepartnership.ca. Go to 2004/2005 Calendar and click on March 2nd to register.

Leadership skills are critical for very profession, but especially for information professionals who very much need to be “at the table” or “in the game” in their organizations. In order to be indispensable to an organization or a community, information professionals have to have a deep understanding of their audience so that products and services can be developed that really matter to them and make a difference in their work or learning.

I found this week’s episode of West Wing discussing “the presidential voice” as a necessity for candidates running for president sparked the idea of an “at the table voice” for info pros. It reminded me of research that Rebecca did years ago for SLA which culminated in the development of an executive leadership program which she taught with knowledge management guru, Tom Davenport, and others.

Rebecca interviewed senior managers of organizations in the US to find out what it took for anyone to move to the “decision-making table”. She found they needed four things:
* Know where they’re going — have a clear direction which they can articulate
* Cross-functional experience, not just a career in one area
* Financial understanding of ROI and investments, not just budgeting
* Presence — the ability to be felt and heard when walking into a room

So, presence or an “at the table voice” voice is definitely one of the critical success factors for success in any organization. We’re working on ways to further develop the “at the table voice”.

Last night I moderated an SLA Toronto meeting focused on information technology trends with a a great panel: Stephen Abram from Sirsi, Maria Phipps from ME Phipps & Associates, Michael Aprieto from OCLC Canada, Vicki Whitmell, Legislative Library of Ontario, and Greg Ponesse from Factiva.

Lots of interesting discussions ensued. Challenges for info pros were articulated:
* we can’t be all things to all people (in my opinion we can’t say this often enough — we want to please everyone but in the process please none)
* we have to reach our audiences, including the “digital natives” of today (segmenting our market, yup!)
* with the infoglut around us, getting the right information to people to make decisions is critical
* we have to learn to collaborate and work together more with others — we can’t do it all especially if we want to be more than reactive to our environments
* we have to find a way to go up against the “google god” — the belief system that google is “the” place for good info, it’s all we need

Although the group talked a lot about new and emerging technology, the focus was really on people and using technology as a tool to enable what we do — building relatioships with partners and clients, specializing, knowing our environment, and developing leadership and influencing skills. Some good advice heard at the meeting: “Be adventurous in finding solutions”, “Decide what’s good enough for clients, not the best”, “Make IT your buddies”, “It’s not remote users, it’s remote librarians so get out there in their space.”

Friday at Ontario Library Assocation Conference, Feb 4, Toronto Convention Centre:

I had the great good luck of attending four insightful sessions with some top-notch speakers. In fact, I was very impressed overall with the quality of the presentations as well as the quality of the interaction between the speakers and the audience and amongst the delegates. What a dynamic group!

First off, Dr. Ian Kerr’s session Why Librarians Should Care About Digital Rights Management was the call to action to ensure a balance between the rights of the copyright owners and the rights of individuals to access works. “If all knowledge is behind a fence and it’s illegal to jump over the fence, creativity will be stifled.” The use of TPMs (Technological Protection Measures) have built virtual fences around works to the end of promoting authorized use. But TPMs have also resulted in use being controlled and restricted ability to access content — with the outcome being that the control has been much tighter than traditional copyright law allowed. Dr. Kerr maintained that there are three stakeholders in copyright: the creators — who do not benefit from TPMs; the content owners — who would insist that protection facilitates progress; and the public — who may see the demise of the public information commons (ie. public libraries) through this “second enclosure movement” (the first being the privatization of land in the UK). Surely scarcity — which is what copyright actually protects — can be achieved with a balance in packaging somewhere between Fanning’s (Napster) “free beer chug-a-lug” and Valente’s “pricey wine by the sip”. Dr. Kerr concludes by asking: “Are four layers of protection necessary:

1) copyright law;

2) contract law (licences);

3) TPMs;

4) anti-circumvention / anti-device legislation (as is provided in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act).

I found this session to be very interesting and Dr. Kerr very passionately presented the users’ side of the copyright equation. I have to say that, as a licensing management consultant, I’d be fascinated to see a follow up session presenting the copyright owners’ perspective — or a panel of the two!

Walking into the plenary session with Stephen Lewis, I knew I was a little late but still headed up to the front row of a packed auditorium to try to find a seat — but the only seat available in this front row had a briefcase in front of it, so I proceeded into the second row — only to realize when he stood up that this was Stephen Lewis’ briefcase and I had almost taken the seat right beside him! Oh, those missed opportunities in life! But I am very glad that I didn’t miss the opportunity to hear this extraordinary — and extraordinarily humble — statesman speak. We laughed, we cried, we were challenged and we were reminded of what we can do as librarians and as Canadians. “Do librarians have a role? On the African continent in the schools, there is a desperate need for books — librarians could help by organizing the acquisition and shipping of books to needy schools — we can all help by supporting grassroots organizations like CARE and Doctors Without Borders — we could explore the possibility of twinning African schools with schools in Canada.” Finally, “somewhere along the way, international society has lost its moral anchor. As a culturally-alive profession, librarians should get involved.”

I spent lunch roaming the exhibit hall — meeting up with old friends (including old classmates from McGill library school circa 19XX!) as well as seeing some great products and services. After lunch, I attended Implementing Federated Searching: A College’s Perspective put on by Carolyn Lam and Jane Foo of Seneca College. What a massive undertaking — but with such a worthwhile result. The stats aren’t in but it’s clear the outcome will be more users finding more of the right content at the right time in the right place. Lessons learned: “We cannot ask patrons to adopt our terms — we must serve them what they want or they will go elsewhere.” “For Millenials, computers aren’t technology — therefore, they represent a group of users with different expectations than previous generations. We must design services geared to their expectations / abilities.” Federated searching has its limitations — but a successful implementation can be achieved: 1) understand the limitations = expectation management; 2) thoroughly test — Seneca spent 8 months testing; 3) Have staff expertise in metadata and XML — that way, you’re prepared for those upgrades that start to happen almost immediately; 4) involved the reference staff — they need to understand the product and understand WHEN to use it; 5) provide product training to all staff; 6) invest in a development / testing environment — at Seneca, test and production are all on one server which they discovered to be less than ideal = they’re in the process of buying a new server. The Seneca library services, operating within an organization committed to “virtual everything”, will be well-positioned to service their lifelong learners anywhere!

Finally, OLITA’s spotlight speaker was Karen Schneider from the Librarians’ Index to the Internet (LII) who presented Musing on Digital Librarianship and Virtual Libraries. (I must confess I had never heard of LII — and I wasn’t the only one in the audience to Karen’s consternation — but I’ve got it bookmarked now!) Karen offered us a list of the top tech trends — all of which are available via her blog at Free Range Librarian – but shared with us what she’s concluded as the most compelling trend: “information is becoming more of a conversation” based upon the result when she posted the top tech trend question to her blog and got a TONNE of responses with lots of insightful (for lack of a better word) conversation. A few of the key trends Karen focused on: ebooks (are back and better!); folksonomies (we’re being discovered all over again!); pod-casting (broadcasting for iPods!); RSS (if you don’t have it, get it!). She shared lessons from the blogsphere: It’s not a “remote user” as librarians like to say — it’s the librarian who’s remote from the user — not vice versa! And finally, “the first mile is the job of the creators — creators need to get stuff out of their heads and onto paper / whatever format. The last mile is the job of librarians — we need to disseminate / provide access to the creators’ works. And this is a great responsibility.”

Juanita Richardson

Licensing Management Consultant, CEDROM-SNi

juanita.richardson@cedrom-sni.com

Gosh darn technology….. it’s great to have friends like Steven Cohen, Library Stuff.net, who help fix your RSS feeds

Thanks! And thanks for Daniel for letting me know it wasn’t working!

What a fantastic beginning! Although it seemed so dreadful trudging in to a conference room at 8:00 a.m. on Thurs Feb 3 for a plenary, that dread soon dissipated. Within minutes, Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children had a room of sluggish librarians laughing, singing, pumping their arms and crying. Now 21, Craig and his brother founded this youth initiative when he was 12. Yes, 12. He’s been on Oprah 5 times and his latest book, Me to We, is a best seller. Yes, a 12 year-old kid in Thornhill, Ontario, read about kids forced into slavery in 3rd world countries, and decided to do something about it. He decided to stop it.

Free the Children is about youth helping youth. This influential international children’s organization that has involved over 1 million children and youth in its projects. Youth members of FTC have raised funds for the construction of more than 400 primary schools in the rural areas of developing nations, providing education every day to over 35,000 children. They have distributed more than 200,000 school and health kits in 38 countries and in excess of 8 million US dollars worth of medical supplies to needy families in 13 countries. FTC currently supports portable water projects, health clinics, alternative income cooperatives and primary schools in 21 developing nations.”

Too often our profession sees a problem and says “we can’t do anything about it — it’s beyond our control — there’s too many issues.’ No more! If a 12 year old can initiate and grow an organization that builds 400 schools in developing countries, then we can certainly solve — or dissolve — whatever problems are confronting us. We can do something about “it” — whatever “it” may be.

Congrats to OLA for bringing in this incredible individual, who got his start by helping to save the tiny Gallanough Library in Thornhill!

Rebecca Jones

We’ve just attended our first conference of the year — the Ontario Library Association Super Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Met lots of friends, colleagues and clients — Clifford Lynch, Jenny Levine, Gary Price, Darlene Fichter, Stephen Abram, and lots of others!

Coming up soon is Information Today’s Computers in Libraries 2005 in Washington DC, March 16-18 We hope to see you there where you’ll hear Clifford Lynch, Bruce James, Mary Lee Kennedy, and Stephen Abram will be head lining the conference. But there are hundreds of other great speakers there as well — Greg Notess, Roy Tennant, Darlene Fichter, Chris Sherman, Genie Tyburski, Gary Price, Megan Fox, Steven Cohen, Tara Calishain, Michael Stephens, Mary Ellen Bates, Aaron Schmidt, Blake Carver, Ran Hock, and many, many more.

I’m also going to check out Sirsi’s SuperConference this year at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Feb 27 - Mar 2 — especially the Executive Track. Keynote speaker and author David Baldacci starts things off, while other speakers include Lee Raine of Pew Internet and American Life Project, Joshua Duhl of IDC, Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch, Rich Wiggins of MSU and more!

And then there’s the Special Libraries Association conference in Toronto this year , June 4-8, for the first time since 1974! The Toronto Chapter has a great information site too! Check out the Dysart & Jones interactive learning forum — Driving Performance on Saturday June 4th. Plan to join us!

And the Canadian Library Association conference with President Stpehen Abram is in Calgary this year, June 15-18. Our friend and colleague Dave Snowden is headlining. Join us there for another exciting Dysart & Jones interactive learning forum — it features Dave Snowden too — New Strategies for Solving Problems.

Of course, then there are the fall events which I’m now starting with my colleagues to plan –

Internet Librarian 2005, Monterey CA, Oct 24-6 **Note the new dates, it’s earlier!

KMWorld & Intranets, San Jose CA, Nov 15-17 ** Note new dates & new venue!

If you are interested in speaking at either of these events, go to the web site, and send in a proposal. We’d love to see you at these events.

Marriage was a metaphor used repeatedly at the recent two day Education Institute Leadership Summit “Building Capacity through Partnership and Collaboration” — itself a partnership of OLA, LAA, BCLA and SLA. Over 90 delegates representing a cross-section of the information industry from across the country laughed, argued, listened, discussed and learned along with Ken Roberts, OLA President and moderator for this event, as a great group of dynamic, thought-provoking speakers shared their passion for and experiences with different partnerships. They presented us with some fundamental principles for building partnerships and alliances, case studies and lessons learned. We were offered vision: “Look outside your immediate sphere. Build a bigger tent!” “Push the envelope — you can always pull back!” “Build sustainability to ensure long term success!” And we were challenged — sometimes uncomfortably so: “Librarians are on the peak and just about to fall off the cliff.” “If public libraries didn’t have a monopoly, we wouldn’t be able to compete.” “Content is critical to a civil society. We need more activist librarians.”

Opening keynote speaker, Glen Murray, the former mayor of Winnipeg, told us to imagine the possibilities. “We’ve all experienced some challenging times in the past 10 years. We’ve seen a disconnect in our value sets, pitting culture / arts / community against pipes / pavement / police.” He urged us to take the kernel of an opportunity out to our corporate leaders, government officials, unions and challenge them to become full citizens.

Deb deBruijn offered us the principles of partnering and concluded with the image of the “human pyramids” she had seen in Barcelona, Spain. “Together we are stronger.” And while building a human pyramid – or a partnership – may look easy, like all aspiration and achievement, it actually requires careful planning, strategizing, practice and hard work.

Daphne Wood from the Hamilton Public Library together with the Event Production Representative from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats talked about how they developed their game plan during the pre-season, created a win-win-win strategy based on under-promising but over-delivering which resulted in a touchdown for both their organizations.

We heard about the model of The Alberta Library from Lucy Pana where they created a collective vision of library service based upon their community values of lifelong learning, leadership, respect and openness. “Mostly we got it right!”

An extraordinary marriage between San Jose Public Library and the University Library of San Jose was presented by Jane Light of the San Jose Public Library. This arranged marriage between two (mostly) willing partners allowed them to set goals and respond to leadership challenges. Result: “This is what a learning community is!”

Deb deBruijn and Lucy Pana came together to lead an interactive and dynamic debate about partnering skills. Once we had agreed that the categories of political skills, people skills and business skills were well-assigned, we realized that the dilemma was: “Do we always need to build it — or can we buy it?” Sometimes it makes sense to hire the expertise in rather than always having to do it all ourselves.

Rebecca Jones moderated the diverse panel of Mike Ridley, Liz Kerr and Darrel Skidmore in a discussion of real-time implications for partnerships and alliances — specifically the Ontario Digital Library and the Federation of Public Libraries initiatives. “Is it time to stop dating and just move on?” Hopefully not.

The closing keynote was offered by Dr. Catherine Henderson who demonstrated her “keep your sense of humour” partnership style while describing the challenges in bringing the Bell Centre for Creative Communications to fruition through working with various not-self-evident partners. One of her many pearls of partnership wisdom: “There’s a fine balance between vision and hallucination!”

This was no hallucination. Having set a lofty programming goal, this Education Institute Leadership Summit offered us a sound vision: partnerships come in many forms. And all libraries need these various types of partnerships to build capacity, strengthen their positions, and meet changing needs. With all the nodding heads I saw in the audience, many of us are saying: “I do!”

Juanita Richardson, MLIS, MBA

Licensing Management Consultant, CEDROM-SNi

juanita.richardson@cedrom-sni.com