2009 ALISE Conference

8

Educating Library Directors: Stage Three

Maureen L. Mackenzie, Ph.D. PHR
Assistant Professor of Management
Townsend School of Business
Dowling College
And James Smith - St. Francis <jsmith@stfranciscollege.edu>

Educating Library Directors: Stage Three

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the results of a three-stage study that examined the academic educational preparation of directors of libraries.  The director of libraries position is the prevalent managerial position within the library profession.  Librarians work in a wide range of institutions performing a broad range of functions.  Within the performance of these functions a management role exists.  The Master of Library Science (MLS) is the appropriate terminal degree to prepare individuals to assume roles in this field (Gorman 2006).  Most employers within this field require a library director to possess an ALA-accredited MLS degree (Education & Careers 2008).

The research question under consideration was: Do ALA-accredited library education programs properly prepare their graduates to enter library management-level positions?  A multi-method research framework was established to explore the question.  The overall design of this study was exploratory (Morse and Richards 2002) and iterative.  The results from Stage One and Stage Two were used to inform the research focus of Stage Three, presented here.

Stage One reviewed the curriculum of the graduate library degree for 100 percent of the ALA-accredited library programs in the United States and Canada.  Stage Two examined course-level content in detail.

Stage Three focused on the experiences of practicing library directors in the United States and Canada. Among the findings, 55.1% of the library directors surveyed observed that Graduate Library School (GLS) did not properly prepare them to be library directors.  Almost 80% of the responding library directors shared details as to what GLS course content should be offered to help prepare future library school graduates to successfully assume library leadership roles.

Key inferences were revealed by comparing the library directors who graduated prior to 1983 to those who graduated after 1983.  Directors who graduated prior to 1983 reported a higher incidence of elective courses, while those graduating after 1983 reported that the management course(s) was required.  An increase in the number of GLSs offering management courses was also noted.  While 39.1% of the library directors graduating before 1983 reported that their GLS offered management courses, 57.9% of the directors graduating after 1983 reported that their GLS offered management courses.

The responses provide real-world insight in to what practicing library directors have done to gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be successful library directors.  There is some evidence that a shift of perception regarding the need for traditional management training has begun to occur.  Programs that provide management training to information professionals in leadership positions, such as the Public Library Administrators’ Certificate Program, reveal an emerging interest in closing this education gap (Nichols and Koenig 2005).

The authors suggest that this trend should be accelerated.  Library school students should be provided with an opportunity to learn the broad spectrum of management concepts.  There should be consensus regarding the minimum standards that a library manager’s career path requires.  Human resource management, strategy, planning, leadership, managing teams, managing change and conflict, communications, and decision making, should all be universally accepted as part of the requirements for the MLS degree.

Sources provided upon request