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April 25, 2007
How to allow for change in your institution
David Lee King has written an excellent piece entitled "How Can We Change the Unchangeable, or David’s Rant" in which he discusses the elephant in the room with all this wonderful Library 2.0 stuff. (No, not the "inadequate staffing" elephant--that's the other elephant there in the corner to your left). His elephant is the issue of administrators often blocking change, especially technology changes, and sometimes even those changes that they have requested or initiated. David asks three questions of his readers at the end, and if you can, pitch in a few ideas for one of them over on David's site.
- Steps to take to convince administrators that the library world is different than it was in the 1970’s?
- How to convince administrators that constant change and innovation is good, and that it’s also a necessity in our new millenial world?
- How can we become change agents in a field that’s apparently not used to changing?
What he points out, though, is sad. Many innovators land in a library where they expect to do wonderful things, find road blocks at every bend, and end up either leaving the organization in hopes of a better situation or simply giving up and ceasing to innovate. Is this what we want? I don't think so -- but it is what we have.
So here's my charge for each of you. Think about how you (yes, you) could be blocking change and innovation in your library. Think about why you're doing it. You may feel that you have very good reasons (budget issues may be one of those). But you may be doing things subconsciously or as a knee-jerk reaction without thinking. Just do some self-reflection here.
What can you do to empower change in your institution? How can you move things forward? Then do those things. Please. For the love of squirrels.
April 25, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
Whenever I hear things like this I feel VERY fortunate to be where I am, Oregon State University. The administration is very supportive about innovation and thinking "outside the box." Several librarians, and myself, created infodoodads.com, and when the administrators got wind of it, they were very excited and sent the link to University Advancement and alumni! I feel very fortunate, and it makes me excited to stay and to see where librarianship is headed. It's all good for me, because I LOVE the internet and Web.
Posted by: Laurie | April30, 2007
I agree with the two previous comments. My biggest frustration has not been to convince our administration. Instead, it has been to convince our IT staff that usually advise our administration on technology. Some of us librarians finally made a loud enough noise (and took a long time) to get our administration's attention to take a small step forward. We still don't know how this small step will turn out.
Posted by: Roseline | April28, 2007
Wow. Just the other day I was reading a conference presentation (from a few years ago) by the then manager of Christchurch City Libraries in NZ. It's acknowledged to be one of the leaders in online 'stuff' in New Zealand. She was saying that the only reason they got that reputation was because of the passion and drive from staff. Now there's an administration who understood the need to harness staff not drive them away. Sometimes it's not even library management who need prodding - we're on our third library IT person (he's a guy this time) who is finally making some headway on getting the library its own server. i think it's all about relationships and helping individuals become comfortable with you. If they trust you they're more likely to back you up. Softly softly...can i get you another coffee? :)
Posted by: irkstyle | April26, 2007
Jen, I am a small library director in a town of 18,000 in Utah. I love change. We started a blog in Feb. of this year. My problem is not blocking change it is getting my staff and my public to try new things.
Posted by: Sue Hill | April26, 2007
Jen--it's the "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" model. I've done that too, and been burned by it as often as it's proven fruitful. It really asks individuals to sacrifice their personal reputations in the eyes of administration for the betterment of the organization as a whole. When will we learn to let people just try stuff???
Posted by: Sarah Houghton-Jan (LibrarianInBlack.net) | April26, 2007
Sarah - I think you are preaching to the choir! I read your blog and those of other innovative librarians and get really excited about how we can incorporate those things into my library - then come against the wall of "it might fail" or "I'm too busy". A couple rogue librarians have started just going ahead and trying things - no discussion, no policy, no announcements. Not a great way either, but it is working!
Posted by: Jen Holman | April25, 2007
