Lately, as I've been finishing my time in graduate school, I've been thinking about the things I was taught (or not taught) that have come up in my day-to-day work.
Take MANAGEMENT, for example.
The basics of managing a staff, working with other people, delegating tasks, making schedules etc. were never covered in my library school education. Project management and marketing are two huge components of library work and I feel utterly deficient sometimes, not to mention managing a staff, facilities management. I recently purchased on Ebay a 1936 Pratt SILS course catalog ($8!!!) and was shocked to find the first required class listed: Library Administration. The description listed "such practical questions as schedules, budgets, business methods, library buildings…". I guess everyone in the real-world job pool assumes that undergraduate college teaches these basic business skills? My degree did not. The first time I had to do a long-term project with more than one person I just about died. I have seen firsthand how good (or bad) communication across an office can be.
Today I had firsthand demonstration of the importance of management skills when I sat in on another planning meeting with CHS staff – 20 employees attended (18 of them female). The last meeting I attended was an all-staff meeting that included a variety of topics (e.g. paving) but this was a meeting just for the people involved in education and exhibitions. The meeting was run by the chief curator and I thought she did a fantastic job.
I’ve learned a lot about professionalism and management from attending these meetings.
1. Agendas - know what you're going to be discussing ahead of time and stick to it. The chief curator hooked her laptop to the overhead projector and before starting she displayed an agenda with time limits for each planned topic. I've been in so many meetings when a guideline like this might have kept everyone on track.
2. Good Planning - Most of the meeting involved scrolling through supervisor’s Google calendar until the next group meeting. My first thought was, “wow, she’s busy.” And my second was “wow, she’s planned ahead.” She showed the staff everything that she had scheduled between today and next month when the team meets again. My current job uses a shared Google calendar but there’s no way to know who’s reading and updating it and when. This was a good way for her to show her staff, “this is what’s going on - if it’s not on here I don’t know about it,” and it allows staff to see what is coming up for their supervisor. I also think it's important that she recognizes the importance of sharing this information with subordinates and coworkers. I have worked in a handful of library situations where the person in charge works in a vacuum and no one knows what they're doing. This kind of situation can quickly become counterproductive.
3. Have a Leader In Charge – I have only worked in public libraries and lots of times there was no clear organization chart about who was in charge. Meetings, then, would descend into chaos. The chief curator seems like a perfectly nice person (we’ve never actually had a conversation) and she seems to have a good, respectful report with the rest of the staff. Nonetheless, she was clearly "in charge” during this meeting.