{"id":70780,"date":"2014-05-07T07:45:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T12:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=70780"},"modified":"2014-05-07T19:12:05","modified_gmt":"2014-05-08T00:12:05","slug":"your-library-board-who-are-they-why-are-they-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=70780","title":{"rendered":"Your Library Board: Who Are They? Why Are They Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Hawtin, Head Editor, INALJ Saskatchewan<\/a><\/p>\n

Your Library Board: Who Are They? Why Are They Here?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"George<\/a>As a lifelong library lover and avid community volunteer, I applied to join my hometown\u2019s library\u00a0board in 2008. In my early twenties with little formal education or business experience, I loved the\u00a0library, but I knew very little about librarians and their work. I didn\u2019t understand that librarians generally\u00a0have master\u2019s degrees.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t know anything about cataloging or reference or library programming.<\/p>\n

You name it, I didn\u2019t know it. Nonetheless, my enthusiasm and record of community involvement\u00a0convinced the selection committee to appoint me to the board. Despite my inexperience, almost\u00a0immediately, I was playing a significant role in major business decisions \u2013 hiring a new chief librarian,\u00a0developing the library\u2019s strategic plan, building community partnerships, overseeing millions of dollars in\u00a0library spending. The more I learned about what librarians actually do, the more I fell in love with the\u00a0profession, and after my term on the board ended, I went to library school. There, I found an understandable undercurrent of skepticism toward library boards.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most library\u00a0board trustees, like me in 2008, know significantly less about libraries than do the librarians they\u00a0employ; it is understandable that professional librarians might resent having to answer to non-librarians.\u00a0If you find yourself frustrated with this organizational structure, here are some things to keep in mind.<\/p>\n

Most trustees:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Love the library<\/strong> A very few people join library boards to feel important, or to push a political agenda (\u201cMore\u00a0censorship!\u201d \u201cLess censorship!\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t want to pay fines!\u201d), or because their favourite hockey team\u00a0missed the playoffs and they need something to do with their weeknights. But almost every trustee I\u2019ve\u00a0ever known becomes a trustee because they love the library and want to help it be the best it can be.\u00a0They\u2019re not (generally) harsh taskmasters or imperious overlords. They came to the library in a different\u00a0way from you, but for similar reasons.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Appreciate your skills and want you to make the most of them<\/strong> Some trustees, like me, don\u2019t fully \u201cget\u201d librarians at first, but they learn quickly that library\u00a0professionals have the skills that keep the libraries running. Trustees want you to use your skills,\u00a0and professional experience to make constructive suggestions and recommendations\u00a0that will strengthen the library. Note that every library has its own policies regarding board-staff\u00a0relationship—some are very hierarchical, where library staff bring ideas to their supervisors, who bring\u00a0those ideas to management, who bring them to the chief librarian, who brings them to the board chair,\u00a0who reports them to the full board, whereas others are flatter and encourage direct communication\u00a0between board and staff at all levels.<\/p>\n

Find out what system your library uses to communicate ideas\u00a0from staff to board, and then take full advantage of it \u2013 directly or indirectly, board trustees love to hear\u00a0staff\u2019s ideas about how the library can get better.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Have business skills and\/or community connections that you can use for the library\u2019s benefit\u00a0<\/strong> At many library schools, courses in the business aspects of librarianship (management, human\u00a0resources, budgeting) are optional, if they are offered at all; these are skills librarians have to pick up\u00a0over the years, through experience, professional development, and osmosis. Many library trustees have\u00a0business or professional backgrounds (I was obviously the exception). Those trustees can give useful\u00a0advice on the topics library school has failed to address. Library trustees with business experience can\u00a0also make the library appear more \u201cbusinesslike\u201d and \u201cprofessionally managed\u201d; in some ways, these\u00a0assumptions are faulty, but they can impress funders and lead to more money coming into the library!<\/p>\n

The other area in which library trustees can be useful is in providing community connections. In today\u2019s\u00a0job market, librarians rarely serve the communities where they live. If you\u2019re starting as a librarian in a\u00a0new community, you might have creative ideas for programming and community partnerships, but not\u00a0know how best to implement them. That\u2019s what boards are for. Want a grant from your local Rotary\u00a0Club? Someone on your board is probably a Rotarian, or knows one. Want to set up a joint program with\u00a0the local school board? Great \u2013 call the school superintendent or principal who\u2019s moonlighting as one of\u00a0your board trustees, and they can help make it happen. Board trustees are almost always chosen because they can bring something tangible to the library,\u00a0either in practical business skills or in community connections. And they almost always volunteered for\u00a0the job because they want you to use those skills to help the library.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Stay out of the librarians\u2019 way<\/strong> When some librarians learn that the chief librarian \u201creports to\u201d a board, they have nightmares of a\u00a0Dickensian brute standing behind them cracking a whip. \u201cCatalogue faster! Cut down on your expenses!\u00a0Put on a brief skit for my amusement! Go! Go! Go!\u201d But, really, most trustees are very hands-off,\u00a0especially when it comes to the day-to-day. Very rare is the trustee who\u2019ll interfere with a librarian\u2019s\u00a0work. (If that happens to you, tell your supervisor!) They provide strategic and business direction at\u00a0their (usually) one-evening-a-month board meetings; they sometimes agree to do additional committee\u00a0work amongst themselves or alongside librarians; they sometimes show up at library events; they\u2019re\u00a0resources you can access for advice in their areas of expertise, but generally, the last thing they want to\u00a0do is boss you around or get inappropriately involved in your work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The relationship between library staff and library boards can be an awkward one in some ways, with\u00a0some creative tension between people who have different skill sets, but librarians and library board\u00a0trustees can and should work together to harness that creative tension and employ it to benefit the\u00a0library. We\u2019re all on the same team!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Hawtin, Head Editor, INALJ Saskatchewan Your Library Board: Who Are They? Why Are They Here? As a lifelong library lover and avid community volunteer, I applied to join my hometown\u2019s library\u00a0board in 2008. In my early twenties with little formal education or business experience, I loved the\u00a0library, but I knew very little about librarians…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":70493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,6210,5946,168,5903],"class_list":["post-70780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-george-hawtin","tag-inalj-saskatchewan","tag-library","tag-library-board"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/George-Hawtin.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-ipC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}