WM: About three years ago, a Japanese delegation came to the MPL. They brought the Library Director of their city and the head of Public Works. When those us us honored to listen to them looked puzzled, they said that in Japan the notion is that managers need to be able to manage more than one enterprise to be sufficient to their tasks qua managers.But if you looked deep inside [the Strib], there's the news that Minneapolis finally has a library director. It's sort of a gutsy choice because she's not a librarian. Reasonable people can differ about whether that's good or bad. But at least it's not the same-old same-old.
The advantage of a person not a librarian getting the job as our library director is that not being a librarian she will have to ask bunches of questions about 'how does this work'? Budgets being what they are, MPL will have to learn different ways to deliver service since they are going to be asked to cut another $2 million/yr for at least another two years after this year's $3 million budget cut.
This particular predicament can work to the new director's advantage since it will help in creating a cultural change within the library, without which MPL is pretty solidly doomed in terms of pushing into the 21st. Century as a player to be reckoned with (particularly after some of the draconian steps of the Patriot Act which target libraries).
My sense of how to react is to put out the welcome mat for her and help her hear the public perspective on how the consequences of impossible budget cuts are affecting delivery of services.
When Harriet Tubman Shelter changed directors and hired Bev Duso, many in the field of domestic violence spoke gloom and doom. However, Duso raised $6 million for the necessary shelter once the case was made for the need to shelter women and children from violent men. Previously, walking into Tubman Shelter was an exercise in asking oneself to tolerate madness. When all that pain was stuffed into my house and the house next door with never enough room in which to think or weep or grieve or heal or find a way to survive its a wonder anything was accomplished--though lots was accomplished and may the powers that be bless everyone who was strong enough to accomplish that mountain of work. Now Tubman is completely different and women and children can actually shelter in a more serene atmosphere and reconfigure their lives.
This new director and, as a consequence of training, new direction, may be very good for the library.
WizardMarks, Central
Steve Brandt Kingfield
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