Partly as a case study of my library management course and partly out of my own curiosity, I began surveying librarians, library employees, and library managers today about their perceptions of the workplace. It’s meant to be more than a neutral evaluation morale, but also snapshot of the library workplace climate. Being engaged in work is more than just about performance, but it’s about expectations of both the employees and the employers. It’s about how supported, developed and utilized employees feel. I know that this translates (especially over the long-term) to how librarians and library employees ultimately serve the public and feeds into public perceptions of us as “the library.” Hopefully at the end of this project I’ll have enough surveys to compare the library to some other industries and organizations.

The major complaints came from unfriendly jargon and terminology embedded in the interface and dialog boxes. Communication is the most important thing when it comes to new technology. What makes sense to a user interface engineer is undoubtedly not going to make sense to the average user. In fact half of the stuff barely makes sense to me. If something doesn’t work or match, I would love to see a pop-up or dialog say, “That didn’t work. Let’s try again. Enter your password twice. Make sure they match.” or

“You didn’t change the name of the file you are trying to print.”
“Let’s try again. Enter a shorter name for the file, one that is easy to remember. ”
“Now enter your password. ”
“Enter your password again just to be sure that there wasn’t a typo.”

“Great!”
“Now your file is ready to be printed at any print station. You have 3 hours to retrieve it.”

One of the more intriguing ideas is that the Invisible Workplace, the place where social networks within the company, know what’s going on before the senior execs and often before the market itself. Much of it simply riffs on a variation of the tipping point personas (Gladwell’s connectors, mavens, salesmen) using another management consultant’s terminology. By tuning into the social networks that exist in any corporation, Extreme Leaders will have a better idea of what is really going on instead of surrounding themselves with brown-noses and kiss-asses who insulate and isolate themselves and leadership. No matter how it is put this is the difference between poor leadership and great leadership.

The writing is snappy and informal, and a little repetetive. The text, full of bulleted lists and bold headings, flows quickly and won’t tax a casual reader despite occasional SHOUTING outbursts.

Scant on real case-studies, solid research, or many concrete examples the book is a quick fix for managers and leaders who are looking for one, today. The recent fad for the 2.0 convention (Business 2.0, Web 2.0, Library 2.0) makes the book a management resource for today, but not really tomorrow.

I attended a very well organized, useful, and fun workshop titled Rethinking Library Collaboration and Partnerships in San Francisco held by InfoPeople. The workshop instructor, Joan Frye Williams, knows her stuff. The class reminded us of the strengths that the library has and really emphasized leading with our strengths when we are ready to approach folks with partnership ideas. Libraries tend to come across as beggars and not really partners. By sharing what we do have to offer puts us in a better position to negotiate collaborative partnerships. The rest of the class and the framework built on those concepts and really created an easy framework (built around a courtship metaphor) for how to find likely partners, get to know them, and start a partnership. What I really liked was that all of the exercises were not just exercises but actual processes that were part of the larger goal. This is where the modern librarian needs to be headed and I suggested that we get her to speak to a group of students and she was all over it. In all honesty, this is how all classes should be taught.