Shelagh Straughan
Leadership in the Library W
hen thinking about the idea of leadership in the library, I considered it from a variety of angles — my approach, that of my colleagues and that of my students. After mulling and conferring, I realized that for me, it comes down to three critical actions: letting go, pushing through and keeping up. Letting go We are a profession of people who take care in planning and preparation, which in my case can lead to a bit more rigidity than is needed in service of my students! When touring school libraries before a renovation a few years ago, I was amazed by a school that allowed for fresh possibilities by demonstrating flexibility in new furniture placement. When their new items were delivered, they placed them all in the middle of their library and let the students move them where they wanted. They agreed that it might look messier and less photogenic but was far more creative and functional than they could have imagined. In this spirit, I’ve tried to exercise my flexibility muscle. In our annual reading marathons, I focus more on having enough comfortable furniture and less on where it goes. Students have enjoyed creating their own reading nooks (with the odd blanket fort) and it’s less strain on my achy-breaky back. In general, I try to worry less about setting furniture straight and focus more on how awesome it is that students feel comfortable enough to move furniture in our space. Additionally, and with the nudge of COVID-19, I’m embracing the opportunity to reimagine programming. It’s been exciting to see the resurgence of pleasure reading in our students. This has resulted in more interest in our book club, but our members’ schedules haven’t aligned. To address this, we created two different book clubs based on student availability, which led to a Battle of the Book Clubs. Students decided on a book list in November and each club has committed to reading three to five of the titles; students are now planning a week of friendly competition including trivia contests, book cover redesign, playlist creation, costume parade and a cooking competition. This student-generated initiative should be a lot of fun this year, and I’m grateful for my self-enforced flexibility that allowed them to run with it. 14 Ontario School Library Association
Pushing through I know I’m preaching to the choir when I say that leadership can involve a whole lot of “fake it ‘til you make it.” The longer I serve in this profession, the more confident I become about admitting ignorance or fear. For example, one of the very best ways of connecting with our student body is by making a chapel announcement. We start our day in chapel four mornings a week, and even though capacity was reduced due to COVID-19 policy-related limitations, standing at the front of a large, formal Anglican sanctuary is still daunting, even when not at the usual 500-person capacity. However, having a captive audience is too good of an opportunity to pass up for messages that are timely and significant, like the recent Freedom to Read Week. What kicked this message up a notch was featuring students who pushed through their nervousness to join me. Wow was I ever glad I did! Students shared books that are meaningful to them — All the Bright Places, Bridge to Terabithia, Maus, Speak, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — all books that have been challenged in other schools. They were sufficiently surprised and concerned that there may be schools or libraries without these books; they agreed to speak about why they felt this would be a loss for that community’s readers. Here is an excerpt from the follow-up email our headmaster sent to the students who spoke: “Important. Timely. Relevant. Sensitive. Personal. I would also say, ‘authentic’. The critical piece of getting any message across. It was so raw. So real. So you. And it required you to be vulnerable, in your own manner. You spoke from the heart. You did not read notes. Your personality and sincerity were so evident…I was so impressed.” It took a fair amount of nudging to have these students speak, but they were so happy they did. The same is true for me; how annoying but true that pushing through my discomfort is a good thing! Whether it’s speaking at staff meetings to talk about copyright or highlight a new database (I’ve learned to swallow my fear and go for it) or learning new a technology (I still feel wobbly when setting up two laptops with camera and
