Leadership Reflections: Who Are Your Peeps?

Leaders need to surround themselves with colleagues, mentors, and individuals who will support, challenge, and encourage development. Forming a network will aid a library leader in their individual growth as well as provide informal consultants who can see the broader pictures or tease out an issue that might not be evident to the leader. Colleagues who share the same vision or goals will encourage each other and provide support during personal and professional challenges. A library leader should be strategic about selecting and curating a network that will meet a variety of needs as well as being a resource. Doing so, a leader will have a sounding board to consider ideas and strategies while gaining different perspectives. The end result is that a library leader will build professional relationships that will enhance personal and professional success.     

Leadership Reflections: Complexity and Our Adaptable Minds – Collaborative Inquiry and Presence-Based Leadership

Abstract

Our guest columnist is Tim Schlak who, like many of us, is on a journey continuing to challenge ourselves to be better leaders and to more effectively serve our organizations. This column presents several of the latest leadership development frameworks that are novel to library literature. Where many leaders assume our minds and identities are fixed, this paper presents theories and anecdotal evidence that our minds and identities are flexible and adaptable to the causes we choose. Complexity is offered as the central feature of organizational life and the responses we make can be intentionally crafted to help us hold our knowledge and our senses of self more loosely. In so doing, we create room to grow and to muster more effective and authentic responses to the complexity we all face in our libraries.     

Cooperative Reference Desk Scheduling and Its Effects on Professional Collegiality

SUMMARY

Since 1995, reference staff at Oregon State University's Valley Library have engaged in a process of cooperative reference desk scheduling. The system was originally adopted to allow staff to have more influence in tailoring desk hours to their individual work schedules, but the department discovered that it also encourages and reinforces a climate of cooperation and collegiality among the reference staff. This paper describes the creation of the system and examines the reasoning behind it, the steps taken to implement it, and how it continues to evolve in an ever-changing library environment. Also examined is how this system has influenced other work done in the Reference and Instruction Department beyond the reference desk, and how it might be adapted and applied for use in other tasks in the future.     

Navigating the ‘invisible nets’: challenges and opportunities for women in traditionally male-dominated South Asian newsrooms

‘Invisible nets,’ ‘labyrinths’ and ‘glass ceilings’ are a sampling of the metaphors used to describe the impediments and challenges women face along their paths toward professional advancement, including those in media settings. Expanding on previous research, this article investigates newsroom management expectations and experiences related to communication and teamwork as managerial competencies among a sample of female journalists in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Using a quantitative research design, the researchers outline opportunities and challenges for women in navigating the various obvious and subtle obstacles they face as they seek to advance professionally in traditionally male-dominated South Asian newsrooms.     

提高科技期刊编辑与作者沟通效率的研究

科技期刊编辑与作者沟通的效果决定了稿件的下一环节是否顺利以及作者对期刊的好感度.在与作者沟通的前后,如果可以在主观上有意识地去了解作者,分析作者的准备度类型,并因人制宜地换位思考,将有助于沟通效率的提高及日常编辑工作的正常化.     

Applying Organization Theory to the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department

Abstract

Anticipating and adapting to change can prove challenging to interlibrary loan units. By incorporating organization theory into interlibrary loan operations, however, interlibrary loan practitioners at all staffing levels can discover new and more effective ways to respond to change. This article explores five organization theory topics as they apply to interlibrary loan: change, communication, culture, leadership, and motivation.     

Reference Service in the Context of Library Culture and Collegiality: Tools for Keeping Librarians on the Same (Fast Flipping) Pages

SUMMARY

Reference desk service is the public face of our fast-changing profession. Because libraries often have numerous librarians sharing desk duty, consistent service can be a worthy challenge. Practical tools for promoting consistency (in the context of collegiality and teamwork) are explored. Library “culture” and organizational structure influences our professional worklives and personal job satisfaction. Sharing knowledge with one another and interdepartmental collaboration contributes to the advancement of the profession.