Why I Became a Director

I've talked a lot here about what it's like for me to be a library director, how I go about my daily work, and even about the path I followed to this stage of my career, but I didn't realize until recently that I've never talked about why.

Truth be told, I never expected to be talking about this at all. Back when I was a baby librarian, my director went on maternity leave and a couple of us split her duties between us... I took on her committee responsibilities. Let me tell you: I did *not* enjoy that. I was talked over and ignored, even in small meetings, and when my director came back I firmly told her that I thought she was a crazy person for taking that job and that I'd never follow in her footsteps.

And yet, over the intervening years, I set about gathering all sorts of knowledge and skills that equipped me to follow exactly that path. For instance, I became increasingly interested in how a library fits into the overall landscape of parent institutions, in assessment beyond information literacy and programming, and in building relationships beyond the library and even beyond the campus walls. I was preparing myself to become a library director, despite my repeated avowals that I didn't want that job.

Flash forward a bit to me attending a small, CLIR-sponsored symposium about the future of libraries at library arts colleges. If I remember correctly, it was geared more towards library directors but I was already going to be in Milwaukee for another conference earlier that week and my boss asked me if I wanted to go to two instead of just one. How do you say no to something like that? At that symposium, I was my usual loud self. I remember saying something along the lines of, "perhaps at your institution you can get away with doing things like that, but the culture is very different where I work." The person I said that to was this very self-important kind of guy, and a few other people in the room appreciated me confronting him. Afterward, I ended up chatting with someone I admired a lot at the time, and the fact that I wasn't a library director came up. The person I admired told me, point blank, that I should be one.

I have to admit that got me thinking. I, like so many people, had moments of "I could do a better job than that" when watching my directors. I'd also learned about the gender disparity in academic library leadership (women make up an estimated 80% of academic librarians, but only 50% of administration roles). But still I resisted. I love instruction and I don't love meetings. Then one day I mentioned the conversation with the Much Admired Librarian™ to a couple of friends, both of whom were and still are library directors. Both of them said "yes, you definitely should be a library director." I talked about it with my director at that time, who also agreed, and I started applying.

So, why did I become a library director? 30% natural progression; 30% feminist agenda; 30% thinking I could do a better job; and 10% peer pressure.