TLJ contents TEXAS LIBRARY JOURNAL Volume 84, No. 3 • Fall 2008 88 President’s Perspective Melody Kelly 90 Editorial Gloria Meraz 92 The Maverick Graphic Novel List: page 121 Unmasking the mystery of comics and graphic novels for libraries Alicia Holston and Tuan Nguyen 96 Information Literacy Skills for Education Students: “One-Shot” Library Sessions José Montelongo and Navjit Brar 102 “To have the people see the necessity for it” – Laying the Foundation for the Texas State Library 1835-1909 David B. Gracy II 108 Free People Read Freely – A Report of the page 108 American Civil Liberties Union of Texas Banned Books, Restricted Books, Retained Books The ACLU Interviews George Christian inside back 118 Stephen Abram on the New Generation cover of Librarians Angel Hill and Jim Johnson © Texas Library 120 Newsnotes Association The PTA of Texas and TLA Join Forces Texas Library Journal (ISSN 0040-4446) is published 81st Legislative Session quarterly in spring, summer, fall, and winter TLA Awards by the Texas Library Association, 3355 Bee Texas Book Festival Cave Road, Suite 401, Austin, Texas 78746- 6763. Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Texas Library Journal, 3355 Bee Cave Road, Suite 401, Austin, Texas 78746-6763. Subscription price: to COVER: Photos by Linda Stevens, members of TLA, 94 cents, included in annual Harris County Public Library dues; to nonmembers, $20 per year for domestic, $25 out-of-country. Single issues: $5. Texas Library Journal • Fall 2008 85 President’s Perspective Why Can’t You Run Your Library More Like A Business? by Melody Kelly henever I hear a community discussed was how to transform our Wmember ask, “Why don’t you organizations from good ones to great run your library more like a business,” ones and explain our goals in terms To summarize part of his discussion, I always think of Professor Henry that our external constituents will there are three measures that Higgins and his plaintive cry: “Why understand and support. can’t a woman be more like a man!” In characterize an organization like a the musical, My Fair Lady, Professor So, just how do we answer the persistent library that has transformed from good Higgins goes on to point out all of the question: Why can’t you run your to great (8): library more like a business? My advantages of manly, rational behavior • A great organization delivers personal response has always been over the irrational ways of women. superior performance which is This is the same point the community more emotional than intellectual. defined by results and efficiency in member is attempting to make. After all, isn’t “the library the heart of delivering on the social mission; the university or community?” Then Businesses decisions are based upon • A great organization makes a two weeks ago, Diane Wahl, the UNT facts and reason, while the decisions distinctive impact and makes Libraries’ planning and assessment of non-profit organizations, such as such a unique contribution to the librarian gave me Good to Great and the libraries, are obviously not. community and does its work with Social Sectors, Why Business Thinking Is Of course, in my personal opinion, such unadulterated excellence that, Not the Answer, a 33 page monograph the answer to both the community if it were to disappear, it would by Jim Collins. I now have a guide for member and Professor Higgins is the leave a hole that could not be easily preparing factual and non-emotional same. Libraries and other non-profit filled by any other institution; and responses that will assert that libraries organizations, while similar in some • A great organization achieves lasting and other non-profit organizations are ways to for-profit businesses, are endurance by delivering exceptional not businesses and therefore should fundamentally different. Just as women, results over a long period of time, while similar, are fundamentally neither be run nor evaluated like a beyond any single leader, great different from men. And, in neither business. idea, market cycle, or well-funded instance is one organization or gender This book is filled with ideas that are program. When it hits a setback, superior to the other – just different. revelatory. He is able to articulate it bounces back even stronger than But too often, we read and hear a what we have always known about before. chorus of media pundits and business the differences between libraries and As leaders in libraries, we are passionate personalities loudly stating as fact that business, and he puts it into terms about our libraries’ missions, our ideals, to “make it,” this or that non-profit that are universally understood. “In and the contributions we make to organization should be run like a business, money is both an input (a our communities. After all, we create business, as if using business measures resource for achieving greatness) and communities of ideals and innovation. were the only valid determination of an an output (a measure of greatness). In It is not monetary gain or personal organization’s effectiveness. the social sectors [like libraries], money recognition that is the driving force in At Annual Assembly, many of those is only an input, and not a measure of our professional lives. It is the success in attendance participated in various greatness” (6). He goes on to say, “It of the organization that counts. But discussion groups on Transforming doesn’t really matter whether you can too often, we feel that our libraries are Texas Libraries and Transforming the quantify your results. What matters is so imbedded within a larger structure, Texas Library Association. We left with that you rigorously assemble evidence such as a school setting, that we could a shared excitement and the resolve – quantitative or qualitative – to track not possibly consider using the tactics to continue the discussions within your progress [in fulfilling your unique outlined by Collins to transform our TLA, our own organizations, and mission]” (7). our communities. A major question library and meet the three characteristics A wonderful example is given of how these powers: inclusion, language [to of a great organization listed above. this type of power was used within a persuade], shared interest, and coalition public high school by a teacher who building. In this Year of Transforming What we fail to realize is that as leaders used two of Collins’ good to great Texas Libraries, I encourage everyone in libraries we do have the power to principles: “getting the right people to read Collins’ short, little red book make changes, but it is not the same in place” and “getting things done and realize as I have that these powers direct executive power as that of a within a diffuse power structure.” are the ones we have always had. Now, C.E.O in business. Collins quotes By identifying his goal, setting his we must combine them with the tactics Frances Hesselbein, C.E.O. of the Girl focus, and not being diverted from his outlined by Collins to transform Texas Scouts of the USA, as saying, “Oh you focus, he was gradually able to move libraries from good to great! always have power, if you just know his science department from good to where to find it. There is the power of great. He was able to build a pocket of inclusion, the power of language [to Collins, Jim. Good to Great and the greatness without executive power in persuade], and the power of shared Social Sectors: A Monograph the middle of a complex school district’s interests, and the power of coalition to Accompany Good to Great. organization and in a school system building. Power is all around you to HarperCollins: New York, with a very diffuse power structure. draw upon, but it is rarely raw, rarely NY (2005). J visible” (10). Librarians who make a difference within our communities have always used Texas Library Journal • Fall 2008 89 Editorial Libraries in Need by Gloria Meraz urricane Ike made landfall less • Lamar University, Mary and John Please consider supporting the Disaster Hthan 48 hours ago so we have little Gray Library - funds used to Relief Fund (see below) or supporting a information about the status of our maintain collections library directly. colleagues or libraries in Southeast Texas. • Wildwood Civic Library - funds If your library was one affected by the While we are grateful that the loss of used to replace damaged or lost storm or if you are facing the aftermath life has been minimal (if such a thing is materials of another disaster, you can access a possible), we are deeply concerned with I ask that, once again, the library the status of countless libraries. By the grant application or information about community rally for libraries along the disaster preparedness, go to www.txla. time you receive your copy of the Texas Texas coast. At present, the Disaster Library Journal, we will have a far better org/groups/committees/relief/index. Relief Fund can make only a few grants. html#apply. sense of the damage to libraries. Sadly, I ask that you all consider donating to many of the areas that have flooded the fund to help support rebuilding In times of trouble, librarians are always are the same areas that flooded during in communities that have faced loss among the first responders – first Hurricane Rita. too many times. Despite insurance to provide information, shelter, and During that disaster-filled late summer, coverage, we all recognize the need comfort. I thank all of you for your the library community in Texas and for any additional assistance to help steadfast courage and professionalism.