Guardienne of the Tomes

Jenica Rogers, Director of Libraries at SUNY Potsdam, has written a magnificent blog post about her experience as a new director. Before you continue reading here, please go read it. No, really. Read it here. I met Jenica in Monterey at Internet Librarian 2008, where she was gracious and warm and friendly, and I got to know her a bit better on my online social networks. Because I interacted with Jenica this way before she became a director, I find her far less intimidating than I might otherwise. (I admit to feeling the full weight of organizational hierarchy - my family's military blood in my bones, I suppose.) I feel like I can contact Jenica without feeling as though I am "bugging" her, we can occasionally discuss ridiculous things like our love for The Mighty Boorito, and various other things. Perhaps part of it is that I know Jenica is not only The Director, but also a human being. In any case, I not only respect her work, but I like Jenica as a person quite a bit. ...

I just got off of a conference call which served as my interview for the EdD Program at UTC. While I hope (and think) it went pretty well *crossed fingers*, it left me pondering some things libraryish. When we got on the topic of how change tends to impact libraries first since we're on the cutting (or bleeding) edge of technology use, once of the committee members identified with the changes, telling me that he had taken some library science classes, and had been great at Dewey, but now he felt lost in the Library. I asked if the committee remembered having to go to a librarian to have a DIALOG search done for them, and they all laughed and chimed in "Yes!" The conversation leaves me thinking this: to me, the mission of academic libraries is inextricably tied to the needs of the institution's students and faculty (at least, if you're doing it right). We may have done our patrons (or users, or client base, whichever term you prefer) a great disservice if they are...