One librarian's journey: a transition from department head to assistant director

Citation

Barstow, S. (2002), "One librarian's journey: a transition from department head to assistant director", The Bottom Line, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2002.17015aaf.001

One librarian's journey: a transition from department head to assistant director

One librarian's journey: a transition from department head to assistant directorKeywords: Librarians, Managers, Organizational politics, Libraries, Skills, Job promotion

There is a logical progression from serving as a department head to assuming duties at the assistant director level. While some duties and characteristics of the department head are immediately transferable to the new environment, some will no longer be effective, and still others have to be learned in the new job. Using the example of the head of acquisitions in a medium-sized research library, the following column discusses the issues and challenges of leaving a fairly well-defined set of responsibilities for an unknown and unknowable new position. An overview of the literature pertaining to qualifications and roles of assistant directors in research libraries provides guidance to librarians interested in job advancement and for library directors defining roles for their deputies.

Background

In the summer of 2000, the University of Wyoming Libraries' administrative team consisted of the director, associate director, and assistant director for administrative services, plus assistant directors for collection development, information services (reference), and extended library services (interlibrary loan and outreach). The associate director, in addition to being responsible for day-to-day library operations, was the direct supervisor of the heads of acquisitions, cataloging, access services (circulation), and systems. The associate director was a librarian with faculty status. The assistant director for administrative services was responsible for facilities management and planning, budgeting, statistics and human resources. This assistant director position was at the professional staff level and the incumbent had no prior library experience.

The associate director retired in August 2000, and the assistant director for administrative services accepted another administrative position at the University of Wyoming in October 2000. Due to concerns about the lack of knowledgeable upper-level management in the libraries' administration, it was decided to create a new position: assistant director for administrative and technical services, reporting to the director of libraries. The position would include some responsibilities of the former assistant director for administrative services and include oversight of the technical services departments, while leaving the associate director position vacant. The head of acquisitions was selected to fill this new position.

The head of acquisitions had been in that position at the University of Wyoming Libraries since 1988, and had brought to the position an MBA and experience in the business world, in addition to an MLS and technical services experience. It was believed that the acquisitions librarian's business background would be a good fit for the duties of the assistant director for administrative services, with the added advantage that, since she was a member of the library faculty with years of experience in a line position, her ability to work collegially with faculty in a staff position could be enhanced in comparison to the previous assistant director's non-librarian background.

The head of acquisitions had extensive experience in dealing with the acquisitions budget, the departmental supply budget and departmental personnel budgets. She had some experience with facilities planning from a prior assignment as chair of a task force that planned the building remodeling and move of technical services from the first floor to the third floor of the main library. She also had experience with hiring and negotiating salaries for staff, as well as service on several faculty search committees. These experiences were helpful in the new position, because they provided a basis for understanding the needs of one of the larger library departments and being able to translate them to a global library perspective. Further, the Libraries' Department Heads' Council, of which the acquisitions librarian was a member, acted as a decision-making body, agreeing on such matters as budget allocations for all library departments.

Skills: current and new

Some of the skills the acquisitions librarian uses in the department head role are, at least, partially transferable to the assistant director position. For example, it is the assistant director's responsibility to implement the budgets, monitor expenditures, provide tracking reports, and keep departments on their monetary targets. These budgetary duties are similar to those of the acquisitions librarian, although on a larger scale. In the area of salary negotiations, the assistant director is placed in an adversarial role, defending the balanced budget against the need to offer competitive salaries to hire new employees. Having been on the other side of the discussion when hiring acquisitions employees, the new assistant director is aware of this conflict, but needs to become more aware of the difficulties of enticing technical employees, such as Web page designers, to accept salaries that might cause morale problems among the existing, non-technical library employees, but might still not be competitive for the technical market.

Another area where the department head's expertise is somewhat transferable to the assistant director role is the general concept of getting staff to buy into the unit's goals and work together to achieve them. However, when considering the library as an entity, it is not necessarily clear to everyone which functions are most vital. It may be difficult for a person with a technical service background to understand that their role is in support of public services operations, and that as far as patrons are concerned, the only library staff who matter are the people at the reference and circulation desks. If a department head has not had good exposure to how the whole library works, this hierarchy of patron values may not be apparent. Fortunately, the acquisitions librarian making the transition to the assistant director role had past experience in other library departments including reference and circulation.

Building skills for the building

Dealing with facilities issues requires an entirely different set of skills in some ways, although the ability to treat people at various levels of the university organization with courtesy and respect is a useful skill in any position. A background in acquisitions, where few librarians oversee many staff, is a good learning ground for treating staff respectfully and appreciating the contributions of well-trained staff without formal education. This understanding is very helpful when working with carpenters, movers and electricians who may have had bad experiences in the past with faculty. However, it is also necessary for the new assistant director to learn the language of facilities and construction to be able to understand what she is being told. For example, while managing a remodeling project, several problems were discovered: windows were not installed properly several years ago and light fixtures ran the wrong way across the ceiling. Being able to listen to experts explain what they need to do, and making decisions that enable them to do it efficiently and cost-effectively, not only benefits the library during the current project but may also determine whether future projects will be done on time and under budget

Organizational communication

Although a department head may believe he/she is aware of interdepartmental politics, the loss of political anonymity faced by a new assistant director is not coupled with enhanced awareness of how to deal with high-level political situations that arise. A department head reporting to an assistant director may suffer the frustration of suggesting ideas that never come to fruition. By the time the ideas travel up the chain of command and are discussed in some high-level meeting, they may never be heard of again. The other side of the situation, from the assistant director's point of view, requires giving consideration to all the various worthy ideas proposed by the department heads. Balancing the ideas against each other in light of organizational goals tempered by budgetary constraints is a skill that must be learned over time. In a perfect world, these deliberations would be clearly explained to the originators of the ideas, and they would understand why their ideas could not be implemented. In reality, each middle manager, regardless of top-level efforts to communicate goals and decisions to the rest of the staff, still feels like nobody is communicating with him/her and that his/her ideas are not given the consideration they deserve.

On the other hand, if the assistant director is busy thinking about several potential projects at once, and the department heads are competent, they will probably be left to do their work with little interference. The same cannot be said for the assistant director, whose responsibilities are often subject to forces outside of library control. The assistant director, while in a fairly elevated position in the library hierarchy, is not privy to the discussions of the university administration, and may be required to react very quickly to situations of which he/she was not aware a few days earlier. The provost's request for information about the library often comes without warning, when the library director is out of town, and requires an immediate response. Assuming the director has been keeping the assistant director informed, these requests should not come as a surprise, but when the president asks the provost for information, the resulting ripple effect is felt all over campus. A department head is rarely subjected to this kind of communication environment, but an assistant director must be ready to react.

Organizational skills learned as the head of a large and complex department, such as acquisitions, are transferable to the assistant director level. However, the increased complexity of the new position leads quickly to the discovery that it is impossible to keep multiple projects straight in one's head, particularly when the projects have few common elements. It is much easier to think about the various processes in the acquisitions department than it is to contemplate building, remodeling and repair projects at the same time as budgeting, statistics gathering and salary issues. No matter how well organized the department head thinks he/she was, it is not enough to keep little lists of tasks on scraps of paper. If the new assistant director inherits a method of tracking projects from a predecessor, this may form the basis of a workable system. Asking for advice from apparently well-organized role models may be useful. There are also many books on how to be better organized. The important thing is to find some way that works and stick with it. The assistant director position requires the incumbent to be on top of everything, all the time.

Stay a flexible manager

Flexibility is an extension of the ability to keep track of a variety of tasks. Unfortunately, the ability to shift gears rapidly between projects does not come naturally to all managers. In acquisitions work, for example, a linear approach is often the most effective way to expend the materials budget in a timely and effective manner. Staying with one task to completion is a luxury rarely given to the assistant director. To be successful at this level, the assistant director must enjoy coming to work with a list of tasks for the day and tossing it in the trash the minute she walks into the library. A sense of adventure and willingness to go where the day leads, while not losing sight of absolute deadlines that cannot be avoided, is vital.

Conclusions

The experience gained as a department head in a research library can be the basis for solid performance in an assistant director role. Many of the department head's skills are transferable to the new position. However, it should not be assumed or expected that a new assistant director will have all the skills necessary to perform the new job, if only because these positions tend to be very loosely defined. Opportunities for training and mentoring should be provided to assist the new administrator in the transition.

Suggestions for further reading

• •

  Hernon, P., Powell, R.R. and Young, A.P. (2001), "University library directors in the Association of Research Libraries: the next generation, part one", College & Research Libraries, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 116-45. This article includes lists of attributes and skills for library directors; such characteristics are also relevant for assistant and associate directors. There is an excellent bibliography for further study.

• •

  Lenzini, R.T. and Juergens, B. (1994), "Mission-oriented management: librarian-trained directors in nonlibrary settings", Library Trends, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 105-20. Although this article focuses on former librarians who have achieved in other settings, it is interesting to note that the types of skills developed in both arenas are quite relevant to a discussion of success factors for assistant and associate directors of research libraries.

• •

  Myers, J.N. (1987), "The assistant/associate director position", Technical Services Quarterly, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 3-12. This article discusses the vital role of the assistant/associate director in decision making, leadership, management and empowerment. In all but the smallest organizations, the level between the director and the department heads can facilitate communication and help the organization run more smoothly.

• •

  O'Connor, T.F. and Duchon, M.I. (1993), "The college library assistant director: serving at the pleasure", Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 12-15. This article provides an interesting view of the variety of job duties held by assistant directors, and concludes that the director's wishes play an important role in determining the assistant director's responsibilities.

• •

  Sullivan, M. (1992), "The changing role of the middle manager in research libraries", Library Trends, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 269-81. This article provides a detailed discussion of the middle manager's role in integrating the needs of upper-level management with those of the staff.

Sandra BarstowAssistant Director for Administrative and Technical Services, University of Wyoming Libraries, Laramie, Wyoming, USA