Building on strength: preparing the academic library workforce to support transformation - Vivian Lewis (University Librarian, McMaster University)
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This document discusses workforce development for academic librarians in Canada. It notes that 30% of librarians are over 55 and skills in areas like management, leadership, and research are important for the future. Initiatives discussed include competency statements to guide professional development, peer mentoring programs, and leveraging existing leadership programs. It calls librarians to be active in their own continuing education and managers to create opportunities to empower staff through strategic professional development.
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Building on strength: preparing the academic library workforce to support transformation - Vivian Lewis (University Librarian, McMaster University)
- 1. Building on Strength: Preparing the Academic Library Workforce to Support Transformation Vivian Lewis (McMaster University) 2018 CONUL Conference Galway Bay, Ireland
- 6. Matt McCollow Systems AnalystBridget Whittle Digital Archives Librarian Chris McAllister Manager, Library and Classroom Technology
- 7. The Staff Learning & Development Committee is charged to…”promote a culture of learning within the Library and encourage, motivate and support all staff to engage in their personal and professional development …”
- 8. Writing a Song Learning to Knit
- 10. New Roles for New TimesConcordia University Library (research data visualization)
- 11. ● Baud, Appleton, Morris & Sewell, “The Superhero Librarian Roadshow” ● Delaney, “Aligning Library Staff CPD with the National Professional Development Framework…” ● Tumelty, “Staff Support and Development in an Embedded Librarian Project” ● Shankar, “Digital Curation Professional Education and Training in Ireland” ● Murray, “Putting the IT in Team” ● Komarkova, “Education and Training for Special Collections in the Republic of Ireland” ● Tatham, Developing and Delivering a Digital Skills Service”
- 13. IFLA Guidelines for Continuing Professional Development Principles and Best Practices https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cpdwl/guidelines/ifla-guidelines-for- continuing-professional-development.pdf
- 14. CARL Strategic Directions, May 2016-19 “CARL provides forum to explore and advance leadership and workforce development so that its member libraries are leaders within their institutions.” The Strengthening Capacity Committee
- 15. CARL’s Approach to Workforce Development ● Value of collective action ● Competency focused ● Shared responsibility ● Community building ● Peer to peer ● Avoid “reinventing the wheel”
- 16. The 8Rs Study (2003/4): Anticipating a Massive Wave of Librarian Retirements in Canada
- 17. The 8Rs Retirements Recruitment Retention Remuneration Repatriation Rejuvenation Reaccreditation Key researchers: Ernie Ingles, Kathleen De Long, Silvia Sivak, Chuck Humphfrey
- 18. “A parallel concern with that regarding a human resources shortage is the perceived need to rejuvenate mid level staff who, because of downsizing and hierarchical flattening, have not been provided with the opportunity to prepare themselves to fill the roles that will arise from retirements.” The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries, 2006.
- 19. 8Rs Identified Training Gaps 44% of new librarians felt they were not being given sufficient training. 58% felt they had inadequate IT skills to do their jobs. 84% felt they had inadequate leadership skills
- 20. The wave of retirements proved to be manageable ...but interest in workforce issues remained strong.
- 22. The Competency Statement Helps Librarians manage their careers identify strengths and gaps set development goals Library Directors identify skills for new hires Create professional development opportunities for staff The Profession Market to new recruits
- 23. Seven Key Competencies 1, Professional practice (knowledge of the library, campus, scholarly communication ecosystem) 2. Interpersonal competencies 3. Management and leadership competencies 4. Collection development competencies 5. Information Literacy competencies 6. Research and contributions to the profession 7. Information Technology competencies
- 24. Management and Leadership “As leaders, academic librarians are expected to influence, motivate and challenge their colleagues and their community to advance library and institutional goals and objectives. Management skills are no longer expected only of those librarians in administrative positions. Rather, all librarians should understand the principles of budget planning, and facilities, staff and project management.” Kathleen De Long, University of Alberta. Expertise in leadership in academic libraries
- 25. Research “CARL Librarians are increasingly called upon, not just to support the research of others on campus, but to be researchers in their own right. More and more, academic librarians produce research and scholarly works of their own to help them gain better knowledge of the profession and to contribute back their own knowledge, skills and experience.” Amanda Etches, University of Guelph. User Experience and the Mobile Web.
- 26. Information Technology “21st Century CARL librarians are expected to be technologically-savvy. They are expected to thrive in the digital environment. They are expected to be actively engaged in the exploration and implementation of new technologies on their campuses.” Dale Askey, AUL, Library & Learning Technology (McMaster University)
- 29. Adopting a Peer Model Building a community of researchers. 5-6 expert librarians- researchers selected as peers to teach and mentor the participants Tony Horava (U. of Ottawa) leading session at the 2017 LRI (London, Ontario)
- 31. Leveraging Existing Leadership Programs ARL Leadership Fellows ● An 18-month executive leadership program to develop future senior-level leaders ● Focus on strategic vision. ● Includes 3 one-week institutes and an opportunity to shadow a sitting director. ● Helps position library professionals to be “proactive, confident and consequential voices in a dynamic and sophisticated information environment” ● 7-day institute focused on vision, risk taking, creativity, change, power and leadership styles.
- 32. Library Management Skills Institutes I and II A series of two 3-day workshops focused on management style, decision-making techniques, etc. LMSI session participants, Waterloo, Ontario. Supplemented by Offerings from own campus continuing ed divisions ● Most of our campuses have full catalogues of continuing education programs our staff can participate in on general topics like Dealing with Difficult People, Time Management, etc.
- 33. The 8Rs Redux (2013/14) Canadian library workers are aging faster than the rest of the population! 30% of librarians are over 55 years of age - versus 20% of the Canadian population) More diverse workforce (more visible minorities), but still not enough Institutions feel they are delivering many opportunities but practicing library workers still see the need for more (especially in management/leadership skills and research skills).
- 34. Competencies: Updating the 2010 competencies document Management / Leadership: Where can CARL add value (without duplicating) Diversity: National internship programs? Cultural sensitivity training? Research Data Management
- 35. Call to Rethink Your Own CPD Agenda
- 36. Call to action for Library Staff ● Be vigilant ● Be disciplined with your time ● Seek help ● Be active in your own performance review ● Be confident ● Be accountable
- 37. Call to Action for Library Leaders and Managers ● Take care of your own PD ● Create opportunities for others ● Be inclusive ● Be honest ● Empower ● Be strategic in use of resources ● Celebrate
Editor's Notes
- The role of the academic librarian was and is a very honourable one - a profession of tremendous importance. The purpose of our profession (to connect people with knowledge) has not changed - but the specific tasks associated with the role have changed tremendously - in Canada and around the world. These two images capture libraries and library workers in earlier and simpler times. The image on the left shows our historic focus on print materials and the complex task of organizing information through the traditional card catalogue. The image on the right features the very proper and dignified first University Librarian of UBC, John Ridington
- The guidelines lay out the responsibilities for each party - the individual, the employer, the association and the library schools.
- CARL is an acronym for the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (It’s the CONUL for Canada). The association represents the 29 largest research libraries in Canada. I have been a member of the CARL Board of Directors for a few years and active in CARL’s workforce development initiatives since about 2009. One of CARL’s primary strategic focuses is the ongoing development of our own staff. As noted in the association’s Strategic Plan, CARL libraries aspire to be leaders within their own campuses in terms of workforce development. One of our three strategic committees is called the Strengthening Capacity Committee. That group, which I chair, oversees the delivery of many of the resources I will be describing in the next few minutes.
- CARL had been actively involved in workforce issues for many years. That work took on new prominence in the early 2,000s after a ground-breaking study referred to as the “8Rs” project was conducted. The 8Rs study emerged out of a well-documented fear in Canadian research libraries that a huge proportion of the workforce was on the cusp of retiring in the next 5-10 years. Some literature at the time projected that 48% of all librarians in Canada were going to retire in five years! The reasoning at the time made good sense. Years of budget cuts in the late 80s and early 90’s across Canada had reduced hiring. Staff sizes had been reduced and we were encountering difficulty finding people to fill vacancies. (I was hired by McMaster University in the early 1990s. I was at McMaster for eight years before another librarian was hired.) As a nation we wondered…..How would we fill the gaps created by this massive and unprecedented human resource shortage?
- The 8Rs study was conducted by some of Canada’s best researchers - Ernie Ingles, Kathleen De Long, Chuck Humphrey and Allison Sivak at the University of Alberta The 8Rs was a massive study involving literature reviews, focus groups, interviews, institutional survey, survey of practitioners - across academic, public and special libraries. The researchers surveyed 461 library administrators and HR managers, 2,200 librarians and 2,000 para professionals. The research culminated in a major 275 page report titled the Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries (2006)
- While the original impetus of the study was to plan for replacing the workforce, new issues emerged as the research was done. As the data poured in, the researchers drew more and more attention to the need to rejuvenate and retrain our mid level staff to move into more senior positions within our organization.
- The study also identified some very significant training gaps. Many new librarians (almost half) believed that they had not been given sufficient training to be successful in their roles. In particular, they wanted more IT training and more leadership training.
- Sometimes the future doesn’t turn out the way you expect. For a variety of social and demograhic reasons, the much-feared tsunami of retirements didn’t really happen. Instead the rate of retirements became a very steady and manageable wave. Mandatory retirement was struck down in 2012. The economy hit pensions hard. For one reason or another, many people detayed their retirements and continued working.
- In 2010 we turned our attention to the recruitment and restructuring components of the 8Rs study. A small team (of which I was a lead member) decided to frame out a list of core competencies required to be successful in a 21st century CARL library. We looked at other competency statements already in existence (ALA, SLA, etc.) The feeling was that, although written for Canada, the concepts could be applicable to other countries.
- We saw many benefits for crafting a competency statement. For individual librarians, we thought such a statement could provide a simple road map for managing their careers. It could be used as a checklist against which to benchmark their own development. What were their strengths and were their gaps? What development goals should they set for themselves to further their careers? For library directors and HR directors, the competency sttaement could assist with new hires (what should we ask for in the job posting?) What new professional development opportunities should I offer my staff? And finally, we viewed the competency statement as a promotional tool for the profession as a whole. What skills and competencies do our newest recruits have? What do we value?
- We identified seven core areas of competency that could be reasonably expected of all librarians - regardless of their specific positions within our organizations. The understanding was that experts in specific areas would typically have a deeper knowledge and stronger focus on specific areas but that everyone would hold a core level in all areas. The statement is available online. For purposes of time, I will not go through all seven competency areas. I will flag three areas that were of particular interest when the statement was released…. #3: Management and leadership competencies. #6: Research and contributions ot the profession #7: Information Technology competencies
- First, management and leadership skills. You will recall from the 8Rs study that management and leadership skills were called out to help prepare our many mid-level librarians to assume higher-level positions. The Competencies document went a bit further by making clear that management skills (project management, budgeting, etc. are required of all librarians - not just those in administrative positions. We’ve seen Kathleen De Long before. She was one of the researchers on the 8Rs project and writes extensively in the area of management and leadership competencies.
- Reseach skills also emerged as a signfiicant need. Librarians in most Canadian research libraries are expected to do their own research as part of their jobs. They are evaluated on the basis of the number and quality of articles, book chapters, conference presentations and studies they write. It is a condition of their employment. This is Amanda Etches - a very prominent Canadian librarian researcher with an area of focus on user experience.
- Finally, technology skills appeared very prominently in the Competency Statement. Canadian research librarians are expected to be “technologically savvy.” They may not all be able to program or to install a server - but they ARE expected to be active in the digital world, to be knowledgeable about the basics of dignitization, social media, etc.
- So far, I’ve covered the real heavy lifting...the identification of training gaps. What have we done in Canada to fill these gaps? We have focused our attention on specific areas where demand felt greatest and where we felt we, as an association, could add the most value. First, we focused our attention on research skills - an area where our librarians expressed intense demand for help.
- The Librarians Research Institute has been running every year (with a one-year hiatus) since 2012. The Institute aims to help our librarians advance their personal research skills in a supportive community environment. The Institute is an intense one-week experience bringing together approximately 30 practicing librarians from around the country to immerse themselves in the research process. Gwen Ebbet, who is a prominent member of the IATUL conference, was also a major champion of the Librarian Research Institute.
- The LRI uses a peer-model approach. Each Institute is led by a program director and five to six peer mentors. This image shows Tony Horava (from the University of Ottawa) leading a session earlier this year.
- Assessment and evaluation skills has been another area of huge concern for Canadian research librarians. The area involves the effective collection and management of data, the use of new kinds of software programs both to support library decision making AND to support librarians individual research projects. The CLAW has been running since 2013 - with the next workshop happening this coming fall. The Institute involves a lot of active learning opportunities.
- Leadership and management training has been a strong focus for Canadian librarians since the first 8Rs study. We have some excellent opportunities available to us right now that are highly competitive and sought after. We have the Northern Exposure to Leadership program offers an opportunity for approximately 30 carefully-selected future leaders to meet for an intensive program in a beautiful retreat setting in Emerald Lake (one of Canada’s most beautiful places). Many of Canada’s newer University Librarians, myself included, have been fortunate enough to be chosen to participate in the ARL Leadership Fellows program which involves several weeks of site visits over an 18-month period. We know we need more.
- In recent years, we’ve expanded the offerings of a wonderful program created by our American colleagues at the Association of Research Libraries called Library Management Skills Institute (LMSI). This set of two three-day workshops focus on management style, decision making techniques. And of course these offering sit on top of the rich general offerings provided by our continuing education groups on our own campuses.