Academic Library Directors: What Do They Do?
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Academic Library Directors: What Do They Do? Peter Hernon, Ronald R. Powell, and Arthur P.Young Eleven library directors recorded their work-related activities for twelve days. The activities depicted show them as both managers and leaders, and reflect contact with various individuals within and beyond the institu tion as the directors deal with local, regional, and national issues. This paper also highlights how previously identified attributes compare with their everyday work. or some time now, the au ceptual responses given in the authors’ thors of this article have been earlier studies of leadership qualities and studying the leadership at their relative importance. In other words, tributes of library directors in academic the data allow one to determine how and public libraries.1 Their main focus has some directors actually spend their time been to identify and rank those attributes as opposed to assuming that what they within the broad categories of manage identify as their most important attributes ment, personal traits, and areas of knowl accurately refl ect their activities. edge. The complexity of this research This study examined four primary topic has required the use of multiple research questions: research methodologies. Content analysis 1. In what activities do directors en of documents, the Delphi technique used gage? to identify and progressively refi ne pri 2. Which activities are most com orities, interviews, solicitation of written mon? comments, and thematic modeling have 3. Does the range of activities encom all been used to determine patterns and pass both management and leadership? meaning from the evidence. In this article, 4. How do their reported activities the authors employ the diary-interview compare with the att ributes and activities technique to record work activities over previously reported as most important? an extended period of time. Data derived Two additional, or secondary, research from the diary exercise have intrinsic questions that were probed through the value but also may be used to compare analysis and comparison of diary entries actual work routines with the more con were: Does multitasking occur? and What Peter Hernon is a Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons Col- lege; e-mail: [email protected]. Ronald R. Powell is a Professor in the Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University; e-mail: [email protected]. Arthur P. Young is Dean of the University Libraries at Northern Illinois University; e-mail: [email protected]. 538 Academic Library Directors: What Do They Do? 539 are the most common att ributes (knowl procedure, and the instructions given to edge, skills, abilities, and personality participants. traits) refl ected in those activities? This study took an exploratory, primar Selection of Library Directors ily qualitative, approach to answering Twelve directors, six from ACRL and six these questions. Much of the information from ARL, were invited to participate in gathered is descriptive in nature and the study. One of them had been included would support neither precise compari in the authors’ previous research into the sons across types of academic libraries nor pool of att ributes necessary to guide the generalizations to all academic library di present and next generation of academic rectors. However, the information should and public library directors. This person bring us closer to understanding the was invited to participate in the present common ground between an idealized set study because he had encouraged the of att ributes and workplace imperatives. authors to undertake it. The criteria for selection of the directors were length Literature Review of service, extent of recognition in the Some research (reported since 2000) has profession, gender, geographic distribu focused on the directors of libraries within tion, and type of institution in which the institutions that are affi liated with either person worked. the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) or the Association of The Diary as Means of Data Collection Research Libraries (ARL). Those studies Because it was impossible to observe the explore the managerial and leadership directors for any prolonged length of time att ributes that current and future direc and to visit each campus, compilation of tors should possess, the challenges that a diary became a suitable means of data directors currently face, the qualifica collection. As Colin Robson explained, tions and expectations expressed in job a diary “is a kind of self-administered advertisements, “the presence and effect questionnaire … [that] places a great deal of the doctorate among small college of responsibility on the respondent.”8 Don librarians,” the graying of the profession H. Zimmerman and D. Lawrence Wieder and those serving as directors, the job viewed a diary as “an annotated chrono satisfaction of directors, the amount of logical record” but recommended its use time they spend on leadership tasks, and in conjunction with a follow-up interview. the relationship between job satisfaction Together, these methods approximate and leadership.2–6 This body of research “the classic patt ern of observational re is not confi ned to the United States but search when the investigator is unable to also comes from countries such as Den make fi rsthand observations or wishes to mark. The latt er research even uses the supplement those already collected.”9 leadership barometer, a measurement On occasion, library and informa instrument that profi les managers and tion science (LIS) researchers have used leaders in the public and private sectors diaries, and they may have done so in in Scandinavia.7 conjunction with other methods of data collection.10 As the above-mentioned Procedures literature emphasizes, it was imperative This section discusses the selection of that participants be carefully selected directors included in this study, the and given a detailed set of instructions, a method of data collection, the pretest pretested instrument, and an opportunity 540 College & Research Libraries November 2004 to ask questions prior to (and during) data ones. A routine activity is a repeated activ collection. Furthermore, the diary has to ity or something the directors do several be constructed in such a way that it is times a day. In some instances, such an neither diffi cult nor time-consuming to activity might become a habit. Routine, complete but at the same time is capable personal activities (e.g., coff ee breaks or of generating ample information to exam meals) were not recorded unless those ine the six research questions. activities related to work. Because the Studies of work activity, Henry Mint sole purpose of completing two forms zberg noted, distinguish between the was to simplify the process of recording content and characteristics of managerial responses, the authors did not distinguish work. The former focuses on what man between the forms during data analysis agers do in their work and the latt er ex and reporting. amines where, how long, and with whom they work and what media they use (e.g., Diary Instructions telephone).11 Work activity studies have The instructions asked the directors to used diaries, but in combination with compile an exhaustive record of those other methods, so that it is possible to ex activities that relate to their official role. amine both content and characteristics. An activity even includes discussions A critical question relates to how long about the library, university, and higher directors should be asked to maintain the education and the reading of documen diary. In a discussion of time- and self- tation and the professional literature. management, W. Thomas Porter Jr. noted: The directors were expected to include “You may wish to keep a more detailed activities even if those activities seemed time log … for three to four weeks to see mundane. They also were informed that where your time is being spent. Such an whatever they found notable would be analysis is essential to diagnose the non pertinent to the study. They were in productive, time-wasting activities and to structed to select two consecutive weeks get rid of them if you possibly can.”12 In (between the weeks of September 22 and contrast, Mintzberg pointed out that data November 17)—Monday through the collection has been anywhere from one second Friday—for data collection. If they day to one month.13 Robert L. Adcock, on engaged in work-related activities during the other hand, recommended “a span of the one weekend or if they worked during not less than two weeks.”14 Based on dis evenings, they were asked to make diary cussions with pretest subjects, the authors entries. The time period might involve of this study concluded that maintaining work-related trips. However, the direc the diary for less than one week is insuf tors were advised not to select a period fi cient and that longer than two weeks with more than three days’ absence from places a severe burden on participants. campus, unless such trips were a usual part of their routine. In brief, the twelve- Pretest day period selected was intended as most For two consecutive days during June typical of the academic term for them. 2003, the directors of three libraries (two The diary for nonroutine activities affi liated with ACRL and one with ARL) covered fi ve Ws: when, what, why, who, conducted a pretest of the diary. Based on and where. When refers to the time of the their comments, the form was split into activity, what describes the activity itself, two forms: one to record routine activities why explains the purpose of the activity, and the other to document nonroutine who identifi es the participants (but only Academic Library Directors: What Do They Do? 541 by their position), and where designates As a result, the background information the location of the activity.