The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians

By Todd Gilman

Last fall, when I wrote about why many academic librarians feel unappreciated ontheir campuses, I pointed to their relationships with professors as a major culprit. Yet it also has to be said that many of us librarians are our own (or one another's)worst enemies and that if we were more adept at working together, we could improveour lives and those of our colleagues. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey argues that themost effective are those who have moved beyond both independence and dependence tomaster the art of interdependence -- of working as members of a team, of knowingwhen two or more heads are better than one. In the spirit of Covey, then, I wouldlike to offer my list of four traits that would not only make librarians moreeffective, but happier and more productive, too.

Openness

All too often, librarians -- like all human beings -- do not listen to one another.In a well-meaning attempt to be proactive we may dutifully invite co-workers orsubordinates to weigh in on how we might improve some aspect of our services. Ifthey say things we have already thought of, or agree with (or both), all is well. But if their responses are not what we expect (read: want) to hear, rather thanquestion our assumptions, we become defensive. We may nod sympathetically whiletelling ourselves that nothing needs to change. If the responses seem toochallenging, we may even angrily defend the status quo. Let's face it: It's hard to take criticism, even if it's constructive. It's evenharder to act on it and try to change our behavior, policies, or procedures. Consider a specific example. Academic libraries today are witnessing a drasticdecrease in the number of in-depth reference questions asked at traditionalreference desks -- whether in person, by phone, through e-mail messages, or viavirtual reference systems. It's a striking trend, and even frightening to somelibrarians, because we do not know the cause, what we should be doing about it, orhow it may affect staffing in the not-so-distant future. Are reference librarians becoming obsolete? Surely not in this age ofever-more-complicated searching for information in ever-growing cadres of largelyidiosyncratic databases. But are reference desks becoming obsolete? Apparently so,at least as they are currently conceived. So central has that question become that Columbia University 's 2007 ReferenceServices Symposium in March devoted a substantial portion of the day's proceedingsto a debate between two senior library administrators over whether the academiclibrary reference desk will still exist five years from now ("Be it resolved: Therewill be no reference desks in large academic libraries in 2012"). Based on a show of hands, the majority of listeners agreed that the reference deskwould still exist -- even after hearing all the evidence that gave the remaininglisteners pause. Or perhaps the majority defended the reference desk's futureprecisely because of the evidence they heard. Did all of those people believe what they voted, or were they, in part, hopingagainst hope -- trying to revive a dying loved one by wishing her back to life? Indeed, it is telling that the two debaters themselves chose to focus exclusively onthe value of the reference desk, a philosophical question, rather than on the topicas it was given to them: the viability of the reference desk, a practical questionof supply and demand. In any case, aside from those at Columbia that day, and the one-hour panel sessionthat explored the issue at the Association of College & Research Libraries' 13thNational Conference in Baltimore the same month, how many academic librariansnationwide are really paying attention and talking to each other about the future ofour reference desks? Openness entails a willingness to listen to what the facts are telling us.

Responsiveness

It is what happens once openness has succeeded. Responsiveness means takingappropriate action based on careful listening. Considering alternative models fordelivering reference service would be an appropriate response to questions about thelong-term viability of the traditional reference desk. The trend toward Instant Messaging with library users via MSN, Yahoo, and GoogleTalk -- which needn't be associated with a particular physical space at all -- seemsone great hope for assuring the continued relevance of general and/or "drop-in"academic reference. Offering such a service beyond normal business hours could help,too, not just because our students are nocturnal but because our global community ofusers increasingly works from distant shores. As William R. Brody, president of the Johns Hopkins University, writes in theMarch/April issue of Foreign Affairs, U.S. university researchers are going wherethe resources are, propelled by "open borders, jet transportation, instantaneouscommunications, and over one billion English speakers -- the same factors that arefundamentally reshaping international commerce and the creation and distribution ofwealth." Academic librarians would do well to find ways to be there virtually with them. A more modest hope might be for reference librarians to promote the concept ofindividual research-education consultations during "office hours," as teachingfaculty members do. Yet another might be for librarians to move physically closer toother sites where students are already comfortable seeking academic or other kindsof assistance -- computer clusters or writing centers, for example -- rather thanremaining tethered to the print reference collection, itself increasingly underused. A willingness to experiment with such models is just one example of the enormouspotential of responsiveness.

Collaboration

By that, I refer to the desirability of working -- not in isolation, as so many ofus do -- but with one's fellow librarians to get a job done. Whether it be mounting an exhibit of books and prints to exemplify satire inliterature and portraiture; designing a work flow to streamline identification ofitems for preservation, replacement, or remote storage; strengthening securitymeasures; reassessing the scope of an approval plan; designing a digitizationproject to promote unusual or unique holdings; managing a campuswideresearch-education program; refining a problematic job posting to attract betterapplicants; improving the look and functionality of library Web pages; orconsidering the acquisition of a major gift that will entail a considerable outlayof time and money for cataloging and other processing, working with others is theway to go. A great way to encourage a more collaborative attitude generally would be to set upone or more librarywide wikis. With wikis, librarians from all over the campus cancollaborate virtually to establish best practices, solve common problems, andgenerally feel more connected with their peers. Other social-networking tools (such as Facebook) and social-tagging tools (such asPennTags) that allow community members to collect, annotate, and share resourceshave enormous potential, too. No longer should the main library kick itself for continuing to struggle with atechnical issue that the medical or law libraries resolved two years ago. Another way to encourage a more collaborative attitude would be to follow the modelof Yale University's recent Collections Collaborative Spring Symposium wherelibrarians and curators convened to help one another identify primary sourcesavailable for our readers' research in collections across the campus.

Communication

Nothing is more frustrating than business-related e-mail messages going unansweredfor weeks at a time -- if indeed they are answered at all. E-mail has made timelycommunication so much easier than ever before. The mind boggles that some peoplepersist in ignoring it altogether or treating it as though it were back issues ofThe New Yorker that they hope to get caught up on one day. No librarian enjoys learning from a campuswide e-mail discussion list that adecision that will dramatically affect his or her whole department was madeunilaterally by another department, campus library, or administrator. Ideally, allstakeholders should be consulted before a decision is made -- and their feedbackshould not only be taken seriously but be seen to be taken seriously. In the unfortunate event that a controversial decision has to be made quickly, or byfewer people (or both), at the very least stakeholders should be warned that thematter is under consideration. Choosing an open means of communicating the decision(e.g., a public assembly), and in a timely way -- before rumors start and peoplebecome upset -- can go a long way toward avoiding ruffled feathers and bringingcoworkers on board with you. Colleagues appreciate being kept in the loop. Again, it's all about interdependence.And although Covey's best seller popularized the idea, it's hardly new. As long agoas the 17th century, the English Renaissance poet John Donne wrote, "No man is anisland, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent." Or in this case,every librarian.

Todd Gilman is the librarian for literature in English at Yale University's SterlingMemorial Library. http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/05/2007052301c/careers.html
Wednesday, May 23, 2007