During our childbirth class – which was sponsored by the hospital where I was going to be giving birth – we were told by our childbirth educator that circumcisions at the hospital cost approximately $500. As we were told this by a professional representing the hospital, we had no reason to believe it was not true.

After our son’s circumcision, we first received a bill for $423, which represented the pediatrician’s charge. This seemed a reasonable amount for her skilled services. Shortly thereafter, we received a bill from the hospital for $2150.80. The surgical procedure itself was billed out at $1907.67 This minor procedure required a local anesthetic and took 5 minutes, after which we spent 30 minutes alone with Reed before the nurse checked our son out and let us leave. I couldn’t fathom why it would be so expensive and assumed it must be a mistake. So last Monday, I marched over to the hospital to get the bill straightened out.

When I spoke to staff in the billing department (including their supervisor) I was told that indeed this was the charge for infant circumcision and that the charge was designed to match what other hospitals in the region charge. The supervisor said that it sounded awfully high, but that was the right price and was actually less than our major University hospital in the area. He offered to give me a 20% discount if I paid it in full right away. I said I wasn’t going to pay it period because I thought the price was absurd. I also contacted the billing departments at three hospitals in our area and found that what they’d claimed was far from the case. All of them charged significantly less for a circumcision and their charges included the physician’s fees. Including the physician’s fee, we were charged $2573.80, of which 16% was for the physician. I can’t imagine what services or facilities were provided by the hospital for this particular procedure that would warrant its fees being so much higher than that of the board certified physician.

So, armed with this information, I spoke again to that supervisor in Patient Financial Services, who said it was out of his hands since he has nothing to do with pricing, but that he would let staff in the relevant department know what I found. His response sounded rather noncommittal, so I emailed the CEO and CFO with my story. The CEO emailed back and wrote that the price sounded very high to her too and that they were looking into it and would get back to me ASAP. The next day, I received an email stating that yes, there had been an error and they’d been charging parents quadruple the price for a circumcision since January 1st. (Scary to think of how many may have made the decision not to circumcise their child solely based on the erroneous price they were quoted.) She said my bill would be adjusted and they’d be reimbursing all others who’d paid the incorrect fee almost $1500. This is when I did my happy dance around my office.

The CEO said she was grateful for my spotting this error and told me to stop by her office sometime for a free lunch voucher. This is what I asked her for instead:

Rather than a free lunch, what I’d really like is to see the folks in your financial services department be/feel empowered to question things. They are the first and often last stop when people have issues with their bill, and if they do not feel empowered to question what they see on their computer screen, patients will not receive the best service. Many patients would have been stopped in their tracks by the financial services staff’s insistence that this was the right price and would not have called other hospitals, especially when I was offered a 20% discount if I paid the bill immediately. I once worked in a public library where we were told that the system is always right; that patrons who claim they returned books that show as still being out are lying or wrong. However, this informal policy disregarded the fact that the library staff were as human as the patrons and sometimes made mistakes. Some of my colleagues wouldn’t even check to see if a book that a patron claimed to have returned was on the shelf; they’d just insist that the patron had to pay for it. I sometimes would find books on the shelf that patrons had been billed for, so I always operated under the assumption that the customer was right until proven otherwise. I think it’s the right way to operate any organization, even Patient Financial Services in a hospital. And sometimes it takes an error like this to remind staff that the computer isn’t always right.

I think it’s something we in libraries should remember. We must ensure that people at all levels in our organizations feel empowered to ask questions and advocate for the good of our patrons/customers. Patrons shouldn’t always have to go to the head honcho to get their issues resolved, because so many will give up after the first roadblock and will simply never use the library again. Hospitals often have an ombudsman who investigates and advocates on behalf of patients. Since that doesn’t exist in our profession, we need all of our front line staff to take on that role rather than blindly reciting policy to our patrons.

The word manager makes many people uncomfortable. It calls up the image of a bossman telling you what to do and forcing you to slave away at doing it. That is not effective management.

A better way to think of a manager is as a servant, like an editor or a personal assistant. Everyone wants to be effective; a manager’s job is to do everything they can to make that happen. The ideal manager is someone everyone would want to have.

Instead of the standard “org chart” with a CEO at the top and employees growing down like roots, turn the whole thing upside down. Employees are at the top — they’re the ones who actually get stuff done — and managers are underneath them, helping them to be more effective.

I really like the idea that, as a manager, I am working for my employee (well, at the moment, I am sans employee, but up until last week, I had one and hopefully will have one when I get back from maternity leave). My job is to understand his/her strengths and weaknesses and try to motivate him/her to the best of my ability. It’s not just about making sure they come into work each day or filling out performance evaluations and approving vacation time. It’s about helping them be as successful as possible in what they’re doing.

In the post, Swartz also talks about learning about your employees (what motivates them, what their strengths/weaknesses are), delegating responsibilities, prioritizing, and offering feedback. There’s a lot of really great insight in this post (which is more like an instruction manual than a simple blog post), so if you’re a manager or an aspiring manager, it’s definitely worth reading.

Sarah Houghton-Jan – it’s kind of amazing that she had not been recognized as a Mover and Shaker before this given the impact she has had on so many in the profession with her teaching (though her blog, her speaking, her work with InfoPeople, etc.). I was pleased to be part of the mob of people who nominated her this year and am glad this long overdue recognition finally happened.

Jason Griffey – I get warm fuzzies every time I think of Griffey. In addition to having such a generous heart, he has been an inspiration to me in how he has tirelessly worked to make LITA a better professional organization. While I have my moments of trying to make things better from the outside and in, I definitely do not have the patience and persistence that he does to create pockets of innovation within LITA. We all can learn a thing or two from him about pushing for change from the inside.

Dorothea Salo – When Dorothea kept proclaiming over the years that someone like her would never be recognized as a Mover and Shaker by Library Journal, we all knew better. The profession desperately needs people who constantly question the common wisdom, no matter how impolitic it may be to do so, and I admire Dorothea’s courage in always being that voice of dissent/reason. Dorothea’s blog was one of the first I ever read and she was my role model for the sort of blogger I wanted to be. I had the great pleasure to work with her on Five Weeks to a Social Library and I fervently hope to have opportunities to work with her again in the future. She’s just the sort of person you want on your team.

Chad Boeninger – It’s kind of ridiculous that Chad wasn’t named a Mover and Shaker the same year as me. That was the year after he came out with the Biz Wiki, which was the very first wiki subject guide created by a librarian. How many dozens and dozens of subject guide wikis have come from that inspiration??? He has done so much with social software in his library, but in a really practical way that I admire greatly. I always try to rope him into online learning things I do, because he shares my pragmatic view of technology as well as my excitement about the potential of social software. He’s just the sort of person who needs to be teaching. I’ve learned so much from him.

Jenica Rogers-Urbanek – There are a small number of bloggers these days whose posts I always mark “keep new” for later reading, because they always write such interesting and thoughtful content. Jenica is at the top of that list. She is another person who feels like a kindred spirit to me in terms of her views on technology and management. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, definitely do so, because you will get a really level-headed look at whatever topic she’s covering, 100% hype-free. I am so pleased to see her get the recognition she deserves.

Karen Coombs – The girl is wicked smart. Seriously. I wish I knew even 1/10 of what she knows about library technologies — her talent and intelligence make my head spin. But somehow she manages to coherently explain these technologies to the rest of us (in her writing and her conference speaking), which is something a lot of serious techies are incapable of doing. It’s also really refreshing to see a geek girl making a name for herself in such a male-dominated area of our profession. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

Lori Reed – I had the pleasure of having dinner with Lori when I was at a conference in North Carolina this Fall, and it was so nice to get to know someone whose work I’ve admired from afar for years. Lori is an inspirational trainer — she has created great programs at her library, has advocated for all-staff learning programs, and has done a lot to promote the cause of non-degreed library staff. I remember last year’s kerfuffle when someone argued that “paraprofessionals” should not be recognized as Movers and Shakers. Lori exemplifies what a Mover and Shaker is, much more so than many people who do have an MLS.

Michael Porter – If he wasn’t named a Mover and Shaker, he certainly would have been named Best Dressed Librarian or Mr. Congeniality. But there’s so much more to him than his swanky suits and his absolutely lovable personality. He’s also a great teacher, having educated so many thousands of librarians over the years about technologies. And he’s a community builder, especially on Flickr and at WebJunction. He always manages to inspire, while never seeming to take anything too seriously (especially himself).

And then there are the people I don’t know well but whose work I’ve admired greatly: Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap Van De Geer, Geert Van Den Boogaard, Lauren Pressley, Pam Sessoms, Dave Pattern, Rebecca Blakeley, and Melissa Rethlefsen.

Congratulations all of you!!!

On a less encouraging note, I’ve heard from several people who were worried about how people at work might react to their recognition. While I’m constantly amazed by how open and encouraging most people in this profession are, it’s a sad statement on our profession that people should worry about such a thing when they’ve done something good. It’s an awful way to feel — wondering and worrying about what someone might say about it and, even worse, what those who don’t say anything might think of you. In the survey that Chrystie Hill and I did of Movers and Shakers, we found that nearly half of those named Movers and Shakers were not celebrated by their institution. And those people had a significantly more negative view of their work, their colleagues, etc. than did those who were celebrated. How must that impact their sense of motivation at work? While I’ve experienced it, I still don’t understand why people wouldn’t congratulate a colleague who was honored for their work. And what kind of message do administrators send when they don’t celebrate things like this? Are they saying “be a good employee, but don’t be too good“??? If library administrators want to encourage their staff to do their best work, maybe great work should be celebrated. Any honor for the individual should be seen as an honor to the organization.

So to those organizations that are already planning parties for their Movers and Shakers or are at least giving them a hearty pat on the back to show them how much you appreciate them, good for you! I hope you continue to attract the motivated, exceptional employees you deserve.

In the beginning of my talk, I showed screenshots of library blogs that haven’t been posted to, MySpace pages that haven’t been logged into, and podcasts that haven’t had new episodes in years. And I talked about some of the reasons why these 2.0 projects may have failed:

The first reason is that frequently social software implementations are not tied to institutional goals. Research has shown that libraries have been much more successful in marketing information literacy instruction when it’s tied to University goals/General Education requirements/etc. It’s the same with 2.0 technologies. Whatever we’re doing should be tied to the library’s strategic goals and planning. If it’s not tied to the library’s goals, then how will it be seen as a priority?

Similarly, 2.0 technologies should be planned for in a strategic way, which I think has not happened at a lot of libraries. Some libraries jumped on the blogging bandwagon because they thought (or were told) that every library must have a blog. Other libraries started wikis because staff were really excited about the idea of having a wiki. Neither are good reasons to implement a technology. We first need to understand the needs of our population (be it patrons or staff) and then implement whatever technology and/or service will best meet those needs. We need to have clear goals in mind from the outset so that we can later assess if it’s successful or not. These technologies may be fun, but they’re simply tools. We don’t walk around with hammers looking for nails to smash in.

In some cases, social software is treated as one staff member’s “pet project.” The use of 2.0 technologies in the library is often one person’s initiative at their library. They will make a passionate case for a blog, wiki, or whatever and will end up handling every aspect of its implementation. When that person leaves their job or gets too busy with other job responsibilities, guess what ends up being abandoned? I heard a horror story from a library that entrusted one staff member with running their MySpace profile and when she left under not-so-friendly circumstances, she refused to give anyone at the library the login information for their profile. This is just as foolish as a library only having one person who can access the back-end of their server or ILS. What if that person gets hit by a bus?!?!? Cross-training is a critical component of building an effective organization, and the same should be the case with any 2.0 technologies a library implements. Making it one person’s sole responsibility is a great way to doom a project.

I think one of the biggest reasons for problems with 2.0 technologies is also one of the major reasons why so many libraries are using them — they’re just so easy to get started with. It takes five minutes to start a blog, a wiki, a del.icio.us account or a MySpace page. And yet, keeping 2.0 technologies going takes significantly more time and effort. Blogs need to be posted to, MySpace pages need to be updated, and wikis need content. And something that people are very excited about maintaining in the first month or two of its existence might lose its allure over time. If there isn’t a plan for how you will maintain the tech from the get-go — be it scheduling posting and moderation, updating the software, etc. — it’s very possible that it will be abandoned when staff become less enthusiastic about it or they just get busy with other things. Libraries need to plan for the implementation and continued maintenance of 2.0 tech in the same way they plan for the technologies they pay a small fortune for. Even 2.0 tech costs money in terms of staff time, so it’s important to take it just as seriously as costly tech.

Finally, I think a lot of library staff end up abandoning 2.0 projects because they simply aren’t given time to work on them. We all have lots of duties that are non-negotiable in our job — reference shifts, instruction, web updates, committee appointments, etc. — and blogs, wikis and podcasts are often seen as something “extra.” If you create a weekly podcast and are totally bogged down one week with library instruction, it’s pretty obvious what won’t get done. While administrators may initially say that implementing 2.0 tech is important to keep up with other libraries and our patrons, they may not give you any additional time to work on these things. I’ve heard that complaint from a number of people at talks I’ve given. If you already have a full workload, your Director tells you that it’s critically important that the library have a blog, but doesn’t free up any time for you to work on it, he or she is sending a really mixed message about its import.

Two attendees actually asked when they should abandon a 2.0 project that just doesn’t have the ROI they were hoping for. Here are some of my thoughts on that:

I think before you abandon a project, you should try to figure out why your 2.0 technology isn’t having the impact you’d hoped for. That way, even if you do need to abandon the project, at least you’ve learned valuable lessons about your population from the failure. We can learn a lot from trying things and failing that can help us better meet our patrons’ needs in the future.

If it’s something your patrons aren’t visiting/using, think about why that might be. Are they not aware it exists? Then try doing more marketing. Is it just not meeting their needs in its current form? See if there’s a way you can make it more useful to them. Maybe your podcast is too long or your blog posts are boring. You should survey your patrons or at least talk to some of them and figure out how you can better meet their needs. Are there barriers to use that your patrons find unacceptable? See if you can bring those down. Our distance learners didn’t use our IM reference service when we first launched it 3 years ago, because most of them didn’t use IM normally (their average age is significantly older than that of our undergrad population) and weren’t exactly going to download a client and create an account just to chat with us. When we started using MeeboMe, everything changed, because the students just had to type words into a box and click enter to chat with us. So look for possible barriers to use. Are you making it too difficult for patrons to comment on your blog or add content to your wiki? Bring those walls down.

If it’s something that’s failing because staff aren’t contributing to it, you need to try to understand what’s behind their resistance. Make sure you’ve done all you can to secure buy-in. Are staff comfortable with the technology? Are they not being given time to add content? Did you offer trainings on it? Are there any technology barriers that you can bring down — make it easier to post, make the wiki/blog/etc. the homepage on their computer, even post things for people to get them started, etc.? But honestly, if most staff members don’t recognize that there’s a need for a library wiki or library blog or whatever in the first place, or the project isn’t strongly supported by administration, it’s not going to be a good fit for your library. That doesn’t mean that it might not be a good fit in the future, but it’s not a good fit now. I’d been wanting to create subject guides using a wiki at our library for a really long time, but waited until my colleagues recognized a need for it (and our Head of Public Services saw a need for it) to actually develop one. And I made sure to offer trainings so that people could practice editing the wiki in a safe space with a knowledgeable facilitator there. Had I introduced the idea earlier or not offered trainings, it would likely have ended in failure.

These are just some thoughts off the top of my pregnancy-addled head. What tips would you give to people who have implemented 2.0 technologies in their library and just aren’t seeing much return on investment from them? What can libraries do to get off on the right foot with 2.0 technologies?

I’ve been particularly remiss in not writing about the Triangle Research Libraries Network Management Academy, which I attended in early November in beautiful Chapel Hill. It was truly an amazing professional development experience, and by the end of the week, my head was so full of ideas that I was practically chomping at the bit to get back to work (not what I usually feel when I enjoy a conference). I learned so much that will benefit me directly in my work, helping me to be a better manager, coordinator, seller of ideas, and project manager.

All of the sessions were great, but some definitely spoke to my immediate needs as a manager more than others. The sessions that I found most valuable were on Wednesday and Thursday of the week where we discussed performance management and communication (managing people) and resource planning (project planning and management). As a brand-new manager, these are two areas I really struggle with. It’s hard for me to find a balance between being hands-off and micromanaging people. While I do well with a more hands-off approach (just tell me what our goals our and I will figure out on my own how to get it done), some people require more supervision. Wendy Hamilton Hoelscher from Duke University taught us a way of approaching the supervision process that really made sense to me, and that I plan to employ from now on. Lynda Aiman-Smith, management professor at NCSU, taught us so much about planning, which will be important as I am leading a lot of projects now where I’m working with people who are not my direct reports. We talked a lot about managing people who we are not directly responsible for supervising, and it was something almost all of us have to do in our work. I feel much more confident in my ability to lead and manage as a result of this Academy.

Friday morning was also fantastic as Susan Nutter and Sarah Michalak (UL’s for NCSU and UNC respectively) came to visit and talked about being Directors. Susan Nutter is a bit of a hero to me; what she’s done at NCSU and how she’s supported innovation and talent in our profession is inspiring. She’s the kind of director I’d like to be one day. What struck me most is how much Susan’s early career experiences mirrored my own. She started her first management position after working for three years, by which time she felt like she’d been doing the same thing forever and felt very ready for this new responsibility. She admitted that she made a lot of mistakes in that first management position (which I am most assuredly doing as well) but learned a lot from the experience (which I most assuredly am). There have been times when I’ve wondered if my impatience would hinder me in my career. Seeing that someone who has risen to the top of our profession was similarly impatient gives me a lot of hope. Maybe impatience isn’t such a bad thing as long as it’s tempered with also being politic. It’s my impatience that led to the things I’ve done that led to my promotion.

But it wasn’t just the speakers who were terrific. It was also amazing to spend a week with 35 exceptional members of our profession. Engaging in a dialogue with them and hearing about their experiences and insights was such an incredible learning experience. It was nice to bounce ideas off people, to discuss the things each of us struggle with, and to realize that we’re all dealing with many of the same issues. While I did feel like the course was geared towards folks working at ARL’s, I still got a lot out of it. While we don’t have the money or man-power that an ARL has, I am very lucky in that I get to be involved in my library’s operations at all levels. All professional librarians here are involved in budget discussions and decision-making. We get to help make big decisions that impact the entire library. I don’t feel like there’s anything at my library that’s shrouded in mystery or that I can’t try to fix. So while I definitely felt more like a “have-not” at this Academy, I also feel lucky to have the opportunities that working at a small library afford me.

Would I recommend the TRLN Management Academy to others? Without hesitation! This was, without question, the best professional development experience of my career so far. If you’re a new manager or coordinator, this is a brilliant opportunity to help you find your footing. The participants at the Academy ranged from being very early-career to folks with 25 years of professional experience. It was nice to have that diversity of experiences and perspectives, as we all had so much to learn from one another. I will treasure the experience and look forward to putting much of what I learned into practice.

Management is an area I’ve been itching for more training in, especially since I am now a manager and coordinator of a very important piece of our library’s mission (instruction). In library school, I had a class on management, but it was extremely theoretical. Still, of all the classes I took, it was the one that interested me the most (no one has to twist my arm to read more Peter Drucker and Harvard Business Review articles). I just wish there had been more after it that focused on human resource management, budgeting, planning, etc. When so many people come out of libraries and go immediately into management positions (or even directorships), it’s critical that this training be received in library school. At least I was lucky to have several years to get my feet wet before diving into a management position.

I am really excited to have been chosen to take part in this intensive course where I’ll meet up-and-comers in the profession (and see some I already know) and learn about management from some really amazing instructors (PDF). I’m not sure if I’ll be blogging the Academy or not, but if I think my reflections might be of use (and I’m not too mentally/physically exhausted), I definitely will. Pregnancy has taken a lot out of me, so I try not to make a lot of promises these days about doing things that may require more energy than I have. At the very least, I’ll write a wrap-up post so people know how it went and whether or not it would be worth their while to apply for this next year. From what I’ve heard from a previous participant, this should be a really fantastic experience.

I know some people really want to be named a Mover and Shaker by Library Journal. It is a great feeling to be honored like that… or at least it should be. But I think few people who have not yet been named a Mover and Shaker really think about how it might impact them at work; what their colleagues’, supervisors’ or administrators’ reactions might be. Ever since being named a Mover and Shaker myself in 2006, I’ve heard lots of stories from other honorees who’ve had negative experiences at work after being named a Mover and Shaker (though, to be fair, I’ve also heard lots of positive stories as well). For some, the award was ignored. For others, it was specific people (like their supervisor or director) who purposely ignored it. For others, it actually negatively impacted them at work because others were jealous or thought that the honoree was taking credit for all of the library’s success. One person told me their director yelled at them about it. My experience leaned towards the negative too, though it was not nearly as bad as other people’s stories. My Director forwarded an email from the Vermont Libraries listserv about it to everyone in the library with her congratulations, but no one else said a word about it to me. I ended up feeling embarrassed about it and from then on avoided mentioning anything about my book, speaking gigs, or anything else that I did outside of work. It sucked, because I felt badly, almost guilty, about something that should have left me walking on air. And lots of other people ended up feeling the same way. How can that not have some impact on the way they feel about their job?

I discussed this phenomenon with Chrystie Hill at the Mover and Shaker lunch at ALA Annual in 2007. At the blogger salon later that week, she mentioned the idea of writing something about this for Library Journal, and I said I definitely wanted in. At Internet Librarian in October, we sketched out our ideas for a survey of Movers and Shakers — not just to look at how their places of work reacted to the honor, but questions that really get at how libraries can support and motivate innovators in their organizations. We also looked at their concerns about their library and their goals for their library and themselves. In January, we sent a link to the survey out to all of the people named Movers and Shakers between 2002 and 2007 and got a 41% response rate, which was pretty great!

The fascinating responses we received became the basis for our article “What We Need” which appears in the October 1st edition of Library Journal. Through the survey, we discovered many of the critical elements that keep Movers and Shakers motivated and loving their work. We discovered what discourages them and how much actually being recognized for the good things we do really means. I hope anyone who manages people or wants to manage people in the future takes a look at this and really considers how they might be motivating or demotivating their staff. Because if the elements discussed in this article impact Movers and Shakers so profoundly, imagine the impact these elements have on your entire staff.

There are lots of library schools doing students a serious disservice by not making it clear that anyone coming out of library school these days needs to have some minimal level of technology skills. Where I went to school, Florida State, was definitely one of those (not sure if they still are). In 2004, you could get out of FSU’s program without having taken a single technology-related course. And I had friends who chose that route, graduating without the ability to even create a “hello world” HTML page. And it’s not just the sort of tech stuff that Dorothea does that they are lacking. There are basic tech competencies that people just aren’t coming out of library school with. Like the ability to scan the horizon to see what’s new in library technologies. Or the ability to logically troubleshoot technologies instead of throwing up your hands the minute something doesn’t work like it should. Or the ability to critique and compare technologies. I wrote a post a while back about Skills for the 21st Century Librarian where I argued that these “big picture” skills were ones that every librarian should have, regardless of position. I still feel that way and I am appalled by those library schools that are graduating public service librarians who are prepared for librarianship of the 1970s.

I am hardly a techie and would be embarassed to call myself a techie in the company of folks like Roy Tennant and John Blyberg. I call myself a “cut-and-paste techie” because I can figure things out by seeing how other people made stuff work and then modifying what they did for our needs. I’m good with web design — I’m very comfortable with HTML and CSS and I can use PHP and JavaScript to do the little things that make maintaining a website much easier. I know enough about server maintenance to keep it running (but it helps that our stuff is backed up daily so I can’t break anything TOO badly). I’m willing to play with code to see if I can figure it out. I’ll try something, break it, back out of that change and see if I can figure out how to do it right. I’ll do that until I accomplish what I set out to do. Everything I know, I’ve learned from trial and error. In my library school program, there were no classes available that taught scripting languages. I want to learn how to code. I want to be able to build things from scratch. But with the number of hats I wear at work right now, I’m lucky if I have time to read a single article in Library Journal during an average month. I can do a surprising amount with the skills I have, but I feel myself bumping up against the limitations of my tech skills from time to time. And it bugs the heck out of me. I guess we all feel that way sometimes.

But what qualifications are really important for someone whose job isn’t specifically to develop applications? There used to be more of a clear line between people who did public services stuff and people who did systems stuff. That has really changed. We’re seeing all these hybrid jobs out there — these web/reference librarians, or distance learning librarians, or user experience librarians, or emerging technology librarians for public service, and more. There are all these public service jobs that require people to do all the traditional public service stuff (reference, instruction, liaison work, collection dev, etc.) as well as wearing the techie hat. And it’s a good thing, because you want people who are focused on user services to be aware of the technological landscape and what could be implemented to improve the user experience. But what skills are really important for these people to have? I think that largely depends on your relationship with your systems and/or IT folks. If the systems/IT folks can implement anything you dream up, then you just need to know how to dream. But the more likely scenario is that they’re stretched too thin maintaining the technologies the library already has. And while they’d love to spend time coding up cool applications for end users, it’s just not a top priority. So where does that leave public services? It leaves them needing someone in public services who can deliver on what they dream up.

I’ve seen an increasing number of job ads these days asking for people with knowledge of 2.0 stuff — blogs, wikis, Flickr, etc. I know this has been seen as something really cool, but it worries me in some ways. What does knowledge of 2.0 tools mean? You have a blog? You read blogs? You edited the Wikipedia? You have a Facebook profile? It’s important for librarians to keep up with the hot technologies, but does it make someone a techie? No. Can you install MediaWiki software on a server? Have you moved blog content from one software to another (say Moveable Type to WordPress)? What do you do when your blog or wiki’s database becomes corrupted? What mechanisms would you use to prevent spam on a blog or wiki? Can you customize our blog or wiki to look like the rest of our website? I wonder if we’re really asking the right questions. Frankly, if no one in public services has tech skills in the first place, would they even know what to ask? It’s also critical that these librarians have skills that transcend knowledge of the latest and greatest. These libraries need to ensure that they hire librarians who will still be useful to them after Facebook, blogs, wikis, and the like are “so five minutes ago” and we’re on to the next batch of stuff. You need people with skills that are bigger than specific tools.

But more than having people with skills, I worry about the way many libraries’ technological infrastructure is set up. Lots of libraries have no access to a server. They’re controlled by the school or municipal IT department. That’s how it was at Norwich when I got here. To make changes to the website, we had to contact the University Webmaster who had a LONG list of change requests from every department on campus. When I was hired, a big part of my job was supposed to be creating screencast tutorials for the distance learners, but IT wouldn’t give me server space to put them online. I feel very lucky that when I said I couldn’t do my job without access to a server, my Director let me get a VPS and run it myself (which was a little scary at first, but there haven’t been many issues I couldn’t handle). It’s given me the opportunity to try out all sorts of technologies and choose the best ones for our needs. I’m grateful that I was able to gain the trust of the Webmaster who gave me FTP access to the server the University website was on so I could be in charge of the library pages. When I look back on the past almost three years I’ve been here, I’m blown away by what I’ve been able to accomplish. I love this profession because I can do concrete things that improve services for our patrons. If I don’t feel like I’m moving forward, I’ll end up a dead shark.

When I see major academic libraries that are using PBWiki or WetPaint and blogs that are not locally hosted, I know that’s not a place I’d want to work at. If you have money, technologically savvy people and you’re using free, hosted stuff that you have little-to-no control over, something is seriously wrong with the way your organization is structured. I think some organizations haven’t figured out how to deal with these 2.0 tools. Who is supposed to support it? Who makes the decisions and has the control? There are so many potential turf issues when you have technologies that public services librarians want to implement for the end user. The systems librarians may not have time to maintain this stuff, but they may not feel they can’t trust the public services librarians to take the ball and run with it.

So, I think the problem is so much bigger than library schools still teaching students that this tech stuff is optional (which is not to say that isn’t a huge problem too). It’s also the way organizations are structured. So many libraries have a 1.0 org chart for a 2.0 world. They’re not structured to support public services technologies like blogs, wikis, etc. They’re not set up to allow for the sort of experimentation and agile decision-making that is required to meet the changing needs and wants of our users. So I don’t know that in an environment like that, hiring an emerging technologies librarian or a 2.0 librarian or whatever is the answer. You’re just putting a band-aid on a problem that goes to the heart of how your organization is structured and how decisions are made.

I’ll be curious to see if and how larger libraries address these issues over the next few years. I love that Berkeley’s New Directions Initiative has the goal of “support[ing] an open process that will allow the Library to understand and adapt to the evolving information needs of our faculty and students.” And I’m blown away by what Jeff Trzeciak has accomplished at McMaster in terms of creating a more agile organization that is ready to meet the challenges of the future. I think many libraries will have to go through similar processes over the next few years or we’re going to have a whole lot of dead sharks on our hands.

The authors base the strength of a workplace on how employees can answer the following 12 questions:

“1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?”

If staff can say yes to all of those things, you have a very healthy workplace. If not, I think that’s a red flag to look at workplace culture and your own management techniques. I’ve had great managers who made me feel good about my work and energized, and I’ve had terrible managers who made me count the minutes until I was free of them every afternoon. I can attest that one’s manager and workplace culture make all the difference between feeling motivated to achieve and doing the minimum amount to keep your job. When I feel like my supervisor has faith in me… when I feel like my efforts are recognized… when I feel like my manager cares about what I’m working on… when I feel like my decisions are supported, that’s when I do my best work. I see this just in working on my class for San Jose State University. Debbie Faires, Assistant Director for Distance Learning at SJSU’s SLIS program, has been so supportive of my course preparation and so encouraging of my experiments with Drupal, that it makes me want to do better. When I feel supported like that, I want to put 150% in. If I was in a situation where everything I did was criticized and where creativity was not encouraged, I’d probably end up putting less of myself into my work. I know that’s terrible to admit, but it’s true.

This really got me thinking about Tyler’s post the other day at Library Garden: Do we encourage our employees to leave? In some situations, I’d say yes. I like what Tyler says here about the fact that there might be factors we’re not even aware of that encourage employees to leave:

“If your system sees people leave and then watches them flourish in another position, you shouldn’t brag that “they started off in this system.” It should raise questions as to why your system couldn’t seem to hold on to him/her. Employee retention has always been difficult in our profession but, sometimes, we unknowingly encourage people to leave.”

While I agree with Tyler that pay, vacation and hours are issues, I think that in many cases, people are willing to take less pay, less vacation and work crappier hours (within reason, of course), for a truly great job in a truly great environment. Professional investment in the development of staff seems like more of an issue, because it says a lot about an organization when it is not willing to support professional development of any kind. Even if an organization doesn’t have money to send people to conferences, they can give employees time to listen to a SirsiDynix talk or to buy employees some books to learn a new programming language. Opportunities for advancement also are an issue for those who want to move up the ladder. Especially at small libraries, the opportunities to move up often are few and far between, so it’s inevitable that some folks will leave if they are primarily interested in advancement. Still, a great culture can often make up for a lack of opportunities to advance and a smart manager would be willing to shift an ambitious employees’ job responsibilities around a bit to give them the sort of experiences they are looking for.

These are things that people have told Tyler they quit over. I think that there are often a lot of reasons why people quit that they don’t talk about. Like the culture in an organization. If everyone comes to work miserable… if all they do is complain… if people do the minimum to keep their jobs and never want to change since that means more work… what enthusiastic person would want to stay there? There are many libraries that sadly reward longevity over initiative and hard work. I’m a big believer in employee recognition programs that recognize good work, not just years of service. People want to feel like there’s some benefit to their hard work, even if it’s just a pat on the back. When people work twice as hard as their colleagues with no recognition of that, they will eventually stop working that hard or will leave for a place that does appreciate innovators and hard workers.

A little encouragement goes a long way, as Janie’s comment on Tyler’s post indicates:

My first year of teaching I had a principal who visited our classrooms regularly both while we were teaching and after hours just to chat. He was not being intrusive, just interested. About once every 6-8 weeks I would receive a quick handwritten note from him complimenting on something that I had done recently. Sometimes it was just two sentences to say he liked how I had done a bulletin board display and other times it would be a paragraph or two summarizing several things he noticed that he liked. I loved working in that school and for that principal. I have never worked for anyone like that again, but during a stressful first year as an 8th grade teacher it help me keep my sanity. I still have those thank you cards tucked away.

I think people also need to feel supported by their managers. They want to feel encouraged to make independent decisions and know that those decisions will be supported. When I was in library school, I worked in circulation in a public library. Part of my job was collecting overdue fines as people couldn’t take out any more books once their fines got up to $25.00. Most people paid their fines, no problem. Others would complain. I remember there was a woman who had lost three books. She didn’t deny never returning them, but she didn’t think she should have to pay it since her taxes fund the library. I respectfully stood my ground with her and she started saying that she’d call the mayor and complain about us. Then my supervisor came out and told the woman she’d wipe out her fines. This teaches patrons that rules don’t matter if you complain enough and it taught me that I won’t get backed up by my boss when I’m enforcing her policies. I felt like I’d been cut off at the knees. When staff don’t feel empowered to make even the smallest independent decisions, how are they going to feel about their job, their manager or themselves?

Though I haven’t gotten too far into the book, I think this is a must-read for anyone who manages others. Many managers often don’t realize the impact they have on the morale of their staff. Some see their job as being about making sure people don’t screw up, giving permission for vacations, and doing yearly evaluations. They don’t see their job as being about support, empowerment and mentoring. And those managers are the sort that ambitious people are likely to run screaming from; regardless of pay or vacation or support for professional development. A bad work environment affects every other aspect of your life and no one wants to come home from work every day feeling defeated.

So, if you’re a manager, how would your staff answer those 12 questions? If you imagine you’d get a lot of no’s or, even worse, you have no idea how they feel, you might want to consider whether or not there’s anything you can do in your position to change that. I know some middle managers don’t have the power to make many changes themselves, but there are always ways to encourage, motivate and support your employees.