We now turn to a reprise of the topic of management, led by Marion Paris, a longtime observer of the library management scene. She is an associate professor at the School of Library and Information Studies, the University of Alabama. Professor Paris is a member of ALA's LAMA and the Library Management Division of SLA. Also, this semester is chairing a review of the management component of her own program's MLIS curriculum.
Please welcome Professor Paris and join us in the renewal of the discussion of education for management.
Contributors to the last autumn's discussion, "Management in the MLS Curriculum," politely agreed that management skills are more important than ever, although eventually I realized that we were probably preaching to the choir about it.
What has actually changed, in 1996, about the way library management has always been taught -- or not taught? What do we really mean, for example by "communication skills," and "people skills?" Rather late in the second week of the discussion it occurred to me that a reference librarian or information broker may be able to get away with a less-than-perfect 30-item database search; and no one may ever know that a cataloger has assigned the wrong call number to the spine of a book; and it probably won't make much difference in either case. A library manager or department head can't fudge the figures, or get away with shoddy personnel practices, or hide for very long from reality in his or her office because management is something our constituents understand. When managers blow it, people know it!
How then, can we justify continuing to turn out graduates who are technically quite competent (I use the work 'technically' in its broadest sense) but managerially unaware; and who, in some cases, remain so for the duration of their careers? An estimated eight out of ten "tales from the real world" I hear from former students involve management debacles, not technical ones.
I look forward to a spirited reprise of the management discussion.
I cannot imagine a library school that is not located on a campus that has a school of business or public administration. These schools hire specialists in management to teach their courses in management. Of course, not all professors (or instructors) in business schools are the world's best teachers either, but there should be a better chance of getting better management courses in schools designed to teach management than in library schools which are designed to teach just about everything (it seems) and who have instructors who are not, generally speaking, management specialists. So send the students to experts to learn management: If a real expert exists in the library school, fine, but if not, don't bring in a practitioner who might not have the skills to be an effective instructor, send the students to the experts.
I received a master's degree in public administration and can say unequivocally that the mangement courses I took there were much better than those (the two) I received in library school. The other thing about that public adminstration school that is relevant here is that when they require statistics, they send their students to the math department for stat courses. They may be in stat courses for non-math-majors, but they are taught by experts.
The trend for library schools seems to be more of this kind of flexibility--students can take more courses outside the school for specialties such as statistics, management, computer science, etc. I always advise students to take the best instructors they can for the subjects they need regardless of which school offers the best instructor. Management is too important to have poor grounding.
What makes sense is the advice to students: "Get the best instructors."
What needs inspected a bit is the implied suggestion that management is management. That's substantially true. But there are differences between "business" management and library "business" management. I do not speak on behalf of either/or; I speak on behalf of both.
Send LIS students to some computer science depts and they will learn about computer innards and the wonderfulness of digitalization. But LISers need to learn about the practice of information transfer, and the origin, behavior and use of information. That's our field. We also have something to contribute to the management of profit and non-profit information agencies that is of little interest to BAers.
Drew's points are not wrong. They need to be addressed. The issue is broader and a bit more complex than his posting suggests.
During the 17 years that I was teaching the management (org. behavior) course at Dalhousie, the course was cross-listed with the introductory course in the School of Business Administration, the textbooks were the same, and so were many of the assignments, especially in matters of personnel management, finance, and planning. We also went out of our way to encourage our students to take other M.B.A. courses such as personnel administration, as well as courses in city management from the M.P.A. people.
For me this was so much a matter of course, that I am a bit amazed that the issue would even be raised. But...
The adjuncts have both the Master of Library Science and the Master of Public Administration. The other faculty member holds an MBA and one has courses in business administration beyond the MBA.
We have students from the Master of Public Administration program taking courses in our school when they have an overload, especially for our human relations class which is considered one of the best in the area because of the reputation of the adjunct faculty member teaching the class.
We even require that faculty teaching administration course by type of library environment hold educational credentials in the areas.
The public library (public administration), the academic library (higher education administration), special (depends on area taken), school (educational administration and curriculum in addition to being certified as a school media coordinator).
I do not think that we are the exception. If we are, then we really do have a problem.
We do not train student to deal with specific situations but try to educate (learning experiences) them to deal with a ever changing environment. We emphasize critical thinking and problem solving. Sometime, I think that our efforts fall very short because when I hear what we did not learn in library school, I realize that some of the things listed were not a reality at the time the sayers went to library school, or that could have been dealt with through reading and critical thinking, assuming that secondary, and undergraduate education had been appropriate.
February 18-March 2
Management in the Curriculum, redux with Marion Paris as guest discussion leader.
March 3-16
Transforming the Traditional to the New Age, with Ling Hwey Jeng as guest discussion leader.
March 17-30
Connections to Businesses, with Anna Noakes as guest discussion leader.
March 31-April 13
Training, with Diane Nahl as guest discussion leader.
April 14-27
Implementing the ALCTS Educational Policy Statement, with Bob Warwick, ALCTS Education Committee as the guest discussion leader.
April 28-May 11
Librarians Helping Readers in Digital Artifact Shift, with Paul Doty as guest discussion leader.
May 12-25
Reinventing Archival Education, with Elizabeth Yakel and Margaret Hedstrom as guest discussion leaders.
Are there programs whose Management faculty have been steeped in MIS specifically? The links between LIS/IS and MIS should presumably be solid...
The effectiveness of this program is its mix of management theory and practice, designed for working officials "on the job." It's format encourages the interaction of managers from many departments of local government, from social services to fire and rescue to libraries. The institute includes programs for county managers and commissioners, as well as other elected officials. I learned a lot about the special problems of other departments, and tried to raise awareness of library issues and problems. The institute's home page is reached at http://ncinfo.iog.unc.edu/.
Another possibility (probably already being tried somewhere) is to work with state library associations to offer seminars featuring library managers, and perhaps give students the opportunity to sit in as observers on meetings of library directors.
My background includes an undergraduate degree in management science, and while I have taught an MLS-directed management course in the past, that required course at the University of Missouri-Columbia is currently offered by a colleague whose experience includes being director of a public library. His experiences have been generalized beyond the public library setting to include all types of libraries. I note that the faculty of UM-C have recently voted to support choices in the required mangement course, between this generalized offering and one pertaining specifically to school libraries.
My academic experiences include both a management and a management information systems focus. The MIS perspective (in my experience) is one of focus on corporate information for decision making in support of profit motives, quite different from that of the nonprofit institution. LIS viewpoints on management stem from more holistic considerations of information and information technology. To that extent, they are oil and water.
Whether links between LIS and MIS are solid or not depends on levels of campus cooperation and related interdisciplinary considerations. On our campus, we do not enjoy an overall symbiotic relationship with MIS, primarily because that emphasis is part of the School of Accountancy. Courses at the graduate level in management and MIS require a specific level of accounting, which most students in LIS do not have. Thus our MLS students are hindered from taking such coursework. My own experiences as a student were quite different. At Case Western Reserve University (where no LIS program currently exists) faculty in the School of Management were given appointments in the then School of Library and Information Science. As SLIS students, we enjoyed the opportunity to take courses in management information systems, systems analysis, information requirements analysis, and so forth. I only hope that other programs currently support such cross pollination of course offerings and students, as was done at CWRU in the 1970s.
Educators, what kinds of feedback do you receive from your graduates? Do you administer exit questionnaires or conduct exit interviews?
Has anyone done any longitudinal monitoring lately, to learn how your graduates' management preparation holds up over time? Do you make management a required course? If your program does not require a management course, do you incorporate management instruction into the curriculum in other ways? If so, how? Into what courses?
Would anyone care to defend the opposing view, that management instruction should not be required?
To those readers who are either faculty in, or graduates of, two-year programs, how does management instruction fit into what you do?
Would anyone care to share additional pointers and tips?
Teachers of library management are expected to have a double qualification (1) as managers and (2) as library and information specialists. Above all, teachers need the capability to combine both professional directions in their teaching.
For students, it would be useful to work on case studies (on a theoretical and/or a practical basis): developing management projects or executing evaluations for library and information settings.
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