LIS505LE Administration and Management of Libraries and Information Centers Instructor: Mary H.

Munroe Monday 4:30-6:30 CST Course Description and Requirements This course is designed to introduce you to a broad range of concepts and skills associated with the management of library and information agencies. Students have the opportunity to explore areas of interest through self-selected readings in both library and general management literature. Discussion questions are used to elicit student insights based on reading, reflection, and experience. INSTRUCTOR Mary H. Munroe, Adjunct Associate Professor of Library and Information Science and Professor Emeritus in the Libraries, Northern Illinois University. Address: 4006 McPherson Dr., Acworth, GA, 30101. Telephone:770-975-3014. email:mhmunroe@[Link]. COURSE REQUIREMENTS There are two required textbooks for the course: Fundamentals of Library Supervision (2nd edition) by Joan Giesecke and Beth McNeil (ALA, 2010) Library and Information Center Management (7th edition) by Robert D. Stueart and Barbara B. Moran (Libraries Unlimited, 2007) The class schedule details the topics and dates for classes. The class is scheduled from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. (CST) on Mondays. All live classes (including the on-campus session) are required. The on-campus session will be Friday, March 2. Assigned required readings are drawn chiefly from your textbooks and e-reserves. Evidence of your reading activity (including the readings you select) should be reflected in your responses to discussion questions and in class discussions. There are three components that make up your grade: required exercises, participation, and a focused reading paper. REQUIRED EXERCISES (65%). Four exercises are included: a manager interview, a management scan, the telling the library story group project, and a personnel problems exercise. Due dates are listed in the class schedule. More detailed descriptions of each assignment are in the next section.

PARTICIPATION (10%). There are two key elements that make up this grade: the extent of participation and the quality of your posted comments. You will need to post your responses to all discussion questions by the due dates and attend classes. A quality posting shows originality and reflection, evidence of consideration of other student responses, and references to your reading (textbook and independent selections). FOCUSED READING PAPER AND BIBLIOGRAPHY (25%). This assignment allows you to investigate in more detail one of the topics covered in LIS 505. Based on your own interests, select a topic for further reading. Broad topics, such as personnel, will need to be narrowed. You can choose a subtopic (such as workplace diversity or performance appraisal) or focus the reading on one type of library setting (such as planning in school libraries or fundraising in academic libraries). You will read at least ten items for this paper, drawing from books, chapters, and/or articles. At least two of these readings need to be from library literature. While you can reference assigned texts and readings from the course, these are not counted as part of the ten required readings for this paper. The paper is a short summary of what you learned from the readings. Think of it as an executive summary of a major paper on the topic. This means you will want to synthesize the information into key points across the readings; you will not describe each reading individually in the paper. Reflect on the reading you have completed and link the topic to the information agency setting. Indicate next steps for your learning about the topic. Where appropriate, cite your readings with parenthetical references, e.g., (Nick and Nora, 1941). An annotated bibliography of the readings for your paper will supplement the paper. Only brief annotations are needed; use one or two sentences, focusing on the content of the reading. You can choose any citation style you prefer -- just be consistent. REQUIRED EXERCISES The manager interview (10%) allows you to learn more from a practicing manager. You choose a manager to interview, preferably in an organization similar to the one you want to work with in the future. Select a person at least one level above your current position in the organizational hierarchy. If you are currently a director, you can interview a peer at another organization or a manager in a different setting. If you cannot locate someone to interview, let me know, and I will help match you to a manager that you can interview by telephone. This is meant to be a brief, preferably face-to-face, interview. If you cannot arrange an in-person meeting, a telephone interview is acceptable. You are required to ask the following seven (7) questions (in any order you desire). Add at least one question of interest to you. Indicate this question in your written summary. Follow-up questions can be used as desired. 1. What are the major challenges you deal with as a manager? 2. How do you respond to or cope with these challenges? 3. In what ways do you plan for and evaluate the operation(s) you manage?

4. How do you help staff work effectively as a team? 5. Please describe a difficult situation you have encountered as a manager and how you resolved it. 6. What is your management philosophy? 7. What advice would you have for a newly hired manager? Following the interview, you will post on a shared bulletin board the key points from the interview. This succinct summary highlights what you learned and will be one to two pages long. This means not only reporting on what information was given by the person, but specifically what you learned as a result of the interview. When you post your summary, identify the position/title and organization of the person you interviewed. The management techniques scan (20%) requires a visit to a major bookstore (think of it as a field trip!) or a visit to a website (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc). The intent of this exercise is to identify current trends among management authors. Go to the bookstore and browse the management and business sections (These are arranged in various ways, so you may have to examine more than one section.) or more than one subject heading on the website. By shelf browsing, identify topics or techniques that interest you. Do not just use the categories or groupings chosen by the bookstore. Following this, examine at least two but no more than 4 titles to see what issues or subtopics are encompassed in that theme area. If you can find reviews use them to evaluate the topics. Then have coffee and a very good dessert (even if you did it online). A written summary will be posted for classmates to read. Tell us briefly what type of bookstore or site you visited and define what themes emerged, some major issues and/or subtopics within those themes, and what titles illustrate each of the themes you identified. Give your observations on these themes and say whether you think the techniques or themes would be helpful to you in your practice of management. The telling the library story (20%) exercise will be discussed during the on-campus class session and time will be provided for groups to plan. Building on what you have learned about planning and evaluation, small groups will work with selected scenarios. From that, the group will design a response to the scenario which includes the type of information to be gathered and how the group would communicate the librarys case to a specified audience. Your group will share the results in class on March 12. This is a group exercise. Sign up on the March 2 class section on the Moodle class page. The personnel problems (15%) exercise uses cases of difficult staff situations in the workplace. You will define the behaviors that are exhibited by the employee in each case, develop strategies for responding to the behaviors, and script some key statements for communicating with the employee. For this assignment, you will use these three cases: the overly social employee, the perfectionist employee, and the bad attitude/unmotivated employee. Envision that you directly supervise these three employees. For each of the three employees, address these points:

1. Describe the BEHAVIORS that define this type of employee. As discussed in class, the key to employee feedback is to be specific and to focus on behaviors, not attitudes. 2. List the ways you (and perhaps others in the organization) can influence and/or modify this behavior. Be specific as to what strategies you will use, linking these strategies to the behaviors you have described. Remember to think about the concept of progressive discipline. 3. Script some key statements (three to five) to use when talking with this employee about the situation.