Reflection

The most important things I learned from the course were from People Skills - learning to listen reflectively and how to employ the assertion process.  I also found the article by Cavicchia "Shame in the Coaching Relationship: Reflections on Organisational Vulnerability" to be extremely valuable.  The Leadership book helped me understand the roles and qualities of a leader and the importance of the give and take nature between a leader and his/her group members.  Other points that stick with me are that to be an effective leader you must be a visionary, truly connect with your members on a personl level/meet their needs, and use your networking skills to further your cause. These are things that I maybe knew but hadn't realized their impact on my ability to be a great leader instead of just a good one.

 

If I had to choose a theory that I think defines my approach to leadership, it would be the Situational Approach.  I feel like I tailor my support and directive behaviors to the group members' development level.  I believe a lot of this is due to my experience as a teacher. 

I believe I am already an effective leader at the building level- not that there isn't room for improvement.  At the end of the school year, I sent a document to my principal outlining what I had accomplished my first year as an LMS and what my goals were for the immediate future according to my library improvement plan.  My 2011-2012 goals include:

• Library Facebook (or other social networking) page
• School-wide end-of-year summer reading promotion & program
• Book Swaps – students bring in gently-used books they’re finished with & choose a different one to take home (twice a year- before Christmas Break and summer?)
• A seating area (couch, easy chairs, coffee table, rug)
• More involvement in dept. and/or staff meetings to present demos & ways to incorporate free 2.0 technologies
• Quarterly newsletter
• ebook & ereader research

2012-2013 (after graduation) goals:

• Reshelf fiction by genre
• Revamp library webpage
• More collaboration with the Crawfordsville District Public Library
• Annual Poetry Slams
• Leadership at the state level: presentations at ILF, involvement in Young Hoosier nominee selection, other

Although I don't have them stated as library goals, other areas that I have promoted and will continue promote are content area reading and inquiry (vs the standard research paper).  These are items that I've been laying the groundwork for and would like to see addressed in the school improvement plan. 

I also have been promoting the use of 2.O technologies.  I had shown a L. Arts teacher a Glogster poster that I'd created for a YHB.  She then wanted students to use Glogster for an assignment, but since the free version has access to adult content, our admin wouldn't allow it.  I made my pitch for Glogster and other sites that have a social networking aspect and how that shouldn't be the limiting factor because we would also teach students how to use the technolgy responsibly.  I also pointed out that students were already using Glogster and other similar technolgies outside of school, that we needed to get relevent, and that dozens upon dozens of other schools- elem. through HS- had links to it on their webpages (provided website addresses) and were, therfore, using it. As a result, we are forming a committee to further discuss how to approach this aspect of 2.0 technologies as well as other filtering issues.

What I'm anxious to do is take my leadership skills beyond the building level, to the state/national level.  That is my personal goal, and I believe that once I'm finished with school, I will have the time to devote to becoming a noted professonal in the field. 

 

How do I see leadership issues playing out around me?

I did not have time to post much last week between interning, reading/posting to the forum, homework assignment, and family obligations (nursing home to cut my step-father's hair; shopping/running errands for my invalid mother, and father-in-law visit.) Hope to make up for it this week.

For the small staff and budget it has, the WLPL accomplishes quite a bit.  The director, Nick,  has a very middle-of-the-road management style,  He doesn't like confrontations.  There were times when I thought he should be assertive about what I considered important things not getting done, and he seemed to just brush them aside.  One example that I mentioned earlier in my blog was about  the lack of timely promotion of events.  Maybe just the fact that someone brought it up at the staff meeting was be enough to ensure it didn't happen again.  No fingers were directly pointed but I knew who was being alluded to, so maybe that's all it takes. Or maybe Nick spoke with the person in private; I don't know.  (avoiding the Cavicchia shame factor?) I might have used some of the indirect questioning mention in the article:  “Might it be possible that. . .?”, “Have you thought of . . .?”

At the monthly staff meeting, one of the employees read the paper during the bulk of the 3 hours.  From a couple of comments I heard later, I got the feeling that this was a common occurrence.  Actually, I wasn't surprised by this person's behavior because I rarely see her doing much of anything when she's "working" at the upstairs reference desk, and I know that she has processing/cataloging responsibilities that she's to be working on.  I also have never seen her speak to a patron; she's only spoken to me when I've initiated the conversation, and then her response has been minimal.  I think she is a definte weak link in the staff, and if I was in charge, I would let her go.  I also think that Scott has too much on his plate; he does all the scheduling of events and rooms, promotion, and securing speakers, etc. plus he works the Information desk (main floor) - which is always crazy busy-  including answering the phones.  If they would replace the weak link with a someone who is more outgoing, that person could work the Information desk downstairs/answer the phones and Scott could work at the reference desk upstairs- which is a much calmer place- and get a whole lot more accomplished. (Or put weak link in the tech processing room and hire someone part-time for the Information desk or use some volunteers??)

There was an agenda for the monthly staff meeting but we didn't get through everything.  When Nick was starting to wrap things up, Ruth, who is in charge of patron services, said that she needed to bring up a couple of circulation issues.  Apparently, the departments are always listed in the same order on the agenda, so the ones at the bottom of the list often are cut short or not given time at all AND they are not put at the top of the list for the next meeting.   I suggested assigning a specific time limit per topic and using a time keeper to ensure everything got discussed and also rotating the order that the depts. are listed on the agenda.

The department heads are definitely more vocal than Nick.   One day there was a conflict over the scheduling of one of the community rooms.  A room had gotten double booked for the second time. The Teen Writing Group was supposed to be meeeting there every other Wednesday; it had been on the calendar since May.  My supervisor, Nancy, made it clear that the other group would have to move because the Teen Group had been scheduled first, plus they had moved the last time. 

Pam is in charge if the children's department and Linda works under her and does children's programming.  WHen I brought up the organizational issue of books in that dept. - too many categories and not patron friendly or shelver friendly - she said that she knew some changes needed to be made but that Linda wasn't always on board.  There had been times when Pam made decisions in which she considered Linda's input but didn't use her reccommendation for whatever reason, and Linda had taken it personally - at one time going to Nick and trying to make Pam out as the "bad guy."  Linda is very good with the patrons and at programming, and Pam is concerned about possibly losing her over some future decision that Linda might not agree with.   We talked about Pam taking Linda aside and basically employing the assertion process.  Maybe I should loan her my book!

One of the general skills that I had listed to work on is time management.  I already keep a "To Do" list and prioritize it, but when you are the lone LMS and responsible for everything, it is easy to get sidetracked.  Anyway, I had the opportunity to observe two different approaches to the same project.  I had typed up a list of Feed read-alikes and was discussing with Nancy formatting options: a table vs columns, etc.  Her suggestion was to just leave it the list as it was and to literally "cut and paste" it to another sheet of paper and photocopy.  At first I was baffled as to why she would want me to do it that way, but then I realized it was a huge time saver.  After all, it's a one-time use list (One Great Read).   I got to see just how much time it would've saved when I got downstairs to photocopy it.  Bekke was at the desk; she took it from me and spent an hour creating columns and playing with margins before we got it printed.  Time mgmt. lesson learned.

Internship Leadership Examples

Examples of leadership mentioned in my blog so far:

·         Questioned the organization of the children’s section

·         Initiated/created a read-alike flyer for the One Great Read title Feed including titles for adults/YA/youth

·         Initiated/created Feed read-alike book display in Teen room (one already downstairs for adults)

·         Initiated and updated end-cap signage on the adult fiction bookshelves

·         Initiated/ generated a list of YA titles for purchase

·         Initiated/ generated a list of children’s book for purchase

·         Questioned the weeding of certain biographies

·         Initiated/generated and posted music, book, movie, and other links to the library’s Teen webpage

New examples of leadership:

Asked and was given permission to revamp Teen Room

·         Created a “new books” display

·         Created a new furniture layout; removed unnecessary equipment

·         Weeded  entire YA collection

·         Redistribute books to balance the shelves;  displayed a book on each shelf facing outward

·         Recommended UV film for east windows of Teen room because of faded book covers

·         Initiated a “Recommended Purchases” suggestion box

·         Created new signage

·         Suggested putting all Stars Wars books together (even though written by different authors) under FIC STA; same with graphic novels about Batman, Spiderman, etc. – house them together under GN BAT, GN SPI etc.

Other:

·         Recommended replacing chair at lower ADA compliant counter/computer catalog with a rolling stool so that it could be easily moved for wheelchair accessibility

This and That

Things I've forgotten to mention in earlier posts:

• Related to my goal of learning how to plan and implement a summer reading program - I mentioned in an earlier blog what the WLPL does for their children's program but neglected to say that Linda and I talked about how that might look for a middle school library.  The main issue for me is funding - both salary and prizes.  I know I could write a grant but I don't want that to be the determining factor for the program's existence.  Students could sign up before the end of the school year but then how do you sustain their interest?  Working on the assumption of a limited budget, we decided that having the library open in the afternoon for 3 days (T, W, TH) midway through the summer to give out prizes, have discussion/activities, check out books would work.  One of my goals for the upcoming year is a revamped library website and a presence on FaceBook.  I would then need to heavily promote the site and FB page throughout the year because those would be my only ways of advertising  the mid-summer library dates once the school year had ended.  The rest of the prizes could be picked up after the school year has begun during before school or lunch.  One of my concerns with a school summer reading program is that I don't want to compete with the C'ville public library's program.  However, I think I might draw different students due to our location and familiarity.  As for as money for prizes, WLPL has several sponsors that donate annually including their Friends of the Library association.  This may be a challenge for me since we don't have a PTA and since I don't live in the community I work in, I don't have as many connections, but I'm sure I can get ideas from the staff.
• Data collection on the summer reading program -  I talked in an earlier blog about how the youth department keeps track of participants' prize levels, but the library also tracks the adult club numbers.  I've actually tallied info a couple of times.  At the adult level, only the number of participants (fill out a form: YA, adult, senior) and number of books read are tallied.  Readers at the adult level fill out a slip noting the book title and then rate it.  These are used for the prize drawings.  This just reminds me that I need to keep data on all of my programs.
• One day as I was working in the tech room on a cataloging project, the book repair volunteer came in to work and I was able to observe her.  She uses only Norbond Liquid Plastic Adhesive to do repairs, which she applies with an artist's brush; she never uses tape (which I often use).  I was amazed at how well the adhesive worked - even for single pages. Took lots of notes and plan to try out her process.
• Stayed late one Wednesday to observe/participate in the Teen Writing Club lead by Elizabeth.  The part of the program is a contest based on Chris Van Allberg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, which I had never heard of before.  Participants chose an illustration from the book to base their narrative of choice.  That night we also completed a writing piece based on a story prompt - slips of paper that we drew out of a container.  (Mine was "It was over as quickly as it had begun.") Even though there were only two teen participants, they were very enthusiastic.  Afterward, Elizabeth and I discussed manga, and she later emailed me a list of sites to share with my students.  Since I would like to implement a Teen Writing Club eventually, this was a valuable experience and I now have a great contact.  Finally, while I was on vacation, Elizabeth hosted a program on animated comic creation. Since she works nights and I work days, I haven't seen her to ask how it went, but she did share resources with me about it. :-)
• Since WLPL no longer has a teen librarian, I made a suggestion list of YA titles to add
• Not impressed with the Evergreen catalog system from either a patron or a library employee standpoint .  Froma a patron standpoint: Call numbers are not obvious and you can't narrow your search by collection location: YA, juvenile, adult.  You also can't search by genre.  From a employee standpoint:  When deleting titles, you can't see whether other libraries have a copy w/o scrolling to the right.  Adds time b/c you need to know this to determine whether the record also needs to be deleted.  Scott tried to print a bucket list of Feed read-alikes.  We know there is a way to do this b/c Bekka printed an earlier version, but between Scott, Nick (the director) and myself, we couldn't find a way to print the newest version.

Sunday, July 17

Worked the reference desk upstairs - pretty quiet day although I did help 5 patrons.  Worked some on my YA website project and figured out with Nancy the work schedule for my last two weeks - 70 hours to go. :-)

Friday, July 15

Deleted a cart of weeded biographies from the catalog.  One thing Nancy does is leave weeded items on the cart for a couple of weeks so that employees have a chance to look through them - in case they disagree. I don't think anyone has the time to look though.  Anyway, I pulled about a dozen titles that we talked through and after our discussion, she ended up putting 5 of them back on the shelf.

Had noticed before when pulling ILLs that in some rows the shelf signage range didn't match was was in the aisles and asked if I could update them.  Apparently certain sections had been reorganized and the signage was overlooked, so I got that done.

Almost finished updating YA NF locations on the catalog.  It is a HUGE list!

Tuesday, July 12 & Wednesday, July 13

Tuesday
I did a couple of new projects on Tuesday.  For one, after I finished my YA Feed read-alike display, I rearranged the furniture in the YA room.  All four club chairs were in a line against the wall, so I rearranged them into a conversation group and also repositioned the 2 display shelving units.  Then I updated and reorganized the 2 bulletin boards; one for library news and one for "other" news.  Gosh, it just hit me; they could use signs: "Library News" and "Community News" or something similar.

The second project had to do with donations.  WLPL gets a couple of hundred donated books, videos/DVDs, CDs, etc. every week.  Before they give them to the Friends of the Library group to sort for the used book store or for the book sales, Ruth goes through everything and pulls popular authors/titles, etc.  These are put on a cart and and taken to the floor to be compared to titles currently on the shelves.  If the donated copy is in better condition, the floor copy is pulled.  That's what I got to do with a cart of fiction donations.   Before I did it though I looked up all the books to see where they were located: mystery, romance, sci fi, or general fiction.  I pretty much could tell by looking at the cover or reading the flap but some of them surprised me.  By looking them up, I could also find out if something was checked out/not on the floor.  When I was finished I asked Ruth to listen to my justifications to make sure I was on track. She was pleased with my reasoning.  On Wednesday Beth will cataloged the "new" and get them ready to be processed and delete the old copies and mark them for discard/donation.

Wednesday - I am halfway through my internship:-)
The cassettes were weeded based on condition and use (if hadn't been used in the last 18 months)while I was on vacation.  In the morning I worked on deleting weeded titles from the catalog and marked them for discard/donation to the Friends.
In the afternoon I continued working on updating the location of YA titles.  Most of the nonfiction was entered as a fiction location and most of the 741.5s got changed to a new Graphic Novel (GN) location.  I also updated any call numbers that needed to be changed from 741.5 to GN and corrected call numbers with typos, for example !33.4 to 133.4.

Thursday - off