As hierarchical systems are being challenged across institutions, including academia and librarianship, many professionals are evaluating what it means to be a leader. Although management may be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about leadership in their library, true leadership is not intrinsically bound to formal structures of power and authority. Thus, leading can be found at any level of one's organization, but it is often the mid-career librarian who is best poised to think deeply about what it means to lead and how they want to leverage their early career successes into future opportunities for personal and professional growth. This panel will bring together mid-career arts librarians offering insight and reflection on their leadership journeys. Panelists will specifically engage with the concept of leading from where you are, which emphasizes looking inward to identify skills, knowledge, and abilities that foster innate leadership qualities that some librarians may not have considered they possess. Speakers will also discuss ways to hone leadership skills formally and informally at the institutional, local, and national level.
This session focuses on sustainable leadership within academic arts librarianship, with the intention to de-center traditionally administrative or formalized positions of power as the status quo of library leadership. Attendees of this session will hear from leaders across the visual and performing arts working in academic libraries who represent a wide range of leadership roles and opportunities. Each speaker will offer individual strategies for successful, sustainable leadership while collectively fostering a discussion with attendees about the opportunities and challenges of leading from where you are. Speakers for this session will come from university libraries of varying size and ranking, from different regions and backgrounds, and will speak to issues of leadership regarding gender, race, and other identifiers.
Some questions panelists may address include:
-How can one be a leader who does not reinforce or affirm institutional or hierarchical structures?
-What are different ways of getting involved in formal leadership roles within service groups and professional organizations?
-Why is it important to function as a thought leader in your institution or at a national level?
-How does someone identify opportunities to serve as a thought leader?
-Why is it important to pay it forward and lead as a mentor to early career librarians?
-When did you realize you had become a leader and not just an employee or manager?
-How can arts librarians hone their leadership skills and approaches?
-How can informal leadership approaches foster EDI in the workplace or profession?
Panelists will present their thoughts and recommendations on these topics and allow time for questions from the audience to engage in a discussion. Although focused on academic libraries, the advice given by the panelists is anticipated to be broad enough to be applied to several types of libraries.
This panel is co-organized by members of the ARLIS/NA Academic Libraries Division and the ACRL Arts Section. Panelists
- Sarah Ward, Hunter College - City University of New York
- Maggie Murphy, UNC Greensboro
- Courtney Stine, University of Louisville
- Jamie Vander Broek, University of Michigan
