 Welcome to this Information Services Today webinar on Career and Leadership Strategies for Information Professionals. This webinar addresses content from Part 6, Information Horizons, specifically focusing on Chapters 36 and 37. This chapter is part of a 10 webinar series representing the diverse authors and topics of the second edition of my book, Information Services Today in Introduction. As the editor, I am thrilled to be presenting this webinar series in conjunction with my textbook, Information Services Today in Introduction. Hearing directly from the contributing authors as they reflect and share their insight on today's information landscape is a unique opportunity to glean from their expertise both the opportunities and challenges that lie on the horizon. Kendra Albright, who is presenting with us in this webinar, stated in her chapter that effectively leading change initiatives can help organizations create and shape a positive future and increase the organization's chances of survival and success. Part 6, Information Horizons, Strategies for Building a Dynamic Career as an Information Professional, concludes the textbook by motivating readers as they manage their career in the information profession. Chapter 36 provides career-specific management strategies that guide readers, whether they are new to the information field, changing careers, or current information professionals considering a new direction into their careers, to discover how skill sets match up to a variety of opportunities both within the library field and in other information environments. Chapter 37 addresses the importance of leadership and highlights the various opportunities that new and current information professionals can pursue. Of tremendous value to the book are its contributing authors. These authors were specifically chosen for their expertise, passion, and commitment, not only to the field of information science, but also to the professional development of tomorrow's information leaders. I would like to now introduce the panel of authors for this webinar. Kim Doherty works as a career consultant at the School of Information at San Jose State University. She is the founder and president of Doherty & Associates, an information strategy and content development company. She is the author of chapter 36. Kendra Albright is professor and director of the School of Information at Kent State University. Previously, she taught at the University of South Carolina where she also served as director of the African Studies program. Before joining USC, Dr. Albright taught at the University of Sheffield where she was the deputy director of the Center for Health Information Management Research. She is the author of chapter 37. There are six key themes for the second edition of Information Services Today in Introduction. Chapters 36 and 37 address four of those key themes. These chapters all provide an overall state of the field beginning with the history of the information organization and key influencers to forecasting future trends and issues that will require information professionals to remain forward thinking. They also address how libraries and information centers will remain valuable entities in their communities, but to thrive they will need to remain creative, innovative and technologically advanced. Additionally, they address new competencies, roles and opportunities for information professionals, and they address challenges and key issues of the field and for the sustainability and essentialness of information organizations. So, Kim and Kendra, what is your interpretation of these themes and how do they specifically relate to your chapter's content? Kim, let's begin with you. Sandy, I think that the important thing for us to be considering from a perspective of LIS careers in general all the way across the board is that the profession used to be essentially a rules based profession. We learned rules for how to catalog, for how to organize information for all of the kinds of activities that we used in our day to day functioning. That is changing for us now in that so many things are happening so quickly, the rules that applied yesterday or three years ago or when the most recent edition of the book came out really don't don't give us the basis that we need to be key decision makers for all of the challenges that are coming towards us, both for ourselves in our careers and for our organizations. So, what I would suggest is that we are moving from a rules based approach to our careers and to the profession and the work we do into a design based profession, which means that we are using design thinking to come up with new solutions to come up with new ideas to test and try and then ways to share that information out to each other, what's working and what isn't working. We don't have, excuse me, time to say this is how we do it. Now we're moving into this is how we want to be trying things out. Thank you very much, Kim. And so Kendra, what are your thoughts? I'm coming at it from a slightly different perspective when we're talking about the leadership role. And I think crosses all phases and steps within an information professional or librarians career. I think that my chapter really focuses on three primary things which you see listed here, management and leadership. It's important to realize the different functions of the two. There are differences between them that in combination can affect far more powerful change than either alone. And management generally focuses really on the organizational operations, whereas leadership focuses on the ability to lead an organization through change. So I think that's a really key concept here. The second one is the competencies of leadership, which I would say really focuses on people. The skills and behaviors that contribute to exceptional workplace performance are really what define the characteristics of a good leader. But these can also vary across different industries about what specific characteristics or attributes are needed to create competitive advantage. And so the way we interpret those in terms of our own leadership characteristics will vary a little bit in terms of our interpretation of it. For example, in our field, what are the benefits and challenges of leadership development as it's implemented in LIS education and settings practice settings. And two, what are the requirements for tomorrow's leaders that are overlooked within formal education, and I would also add practice to that. The Library Leadership Administration and Management Association of ALA, the American Library Associations put together a list of 14 competencies and their foundational competencies for library leaders and managers that are also described in the chapter. And while they're all very important, I think it's important to note a couple of key takeaways. One is the focus of leadership on that managing change, but that the focus of leadership is also on helping people move through that change. So the focus continues to be on people, which leads us to the third point. Leadership is forward looking and requires strategic planning in order to accomplish the change that is necessary and of value to continuously review and position the organization to reach its goals. So just in some effectively leading change initiatives can help organizations create and shape a positive future and increase the organization's chances of survival and success. Thank you Kendra. So you both raised some interesting points I wondered if you wanted to comment on anything or add anything to this discussion that we're having about some of the key themes. I think one of the things I would add in response to what Kendra was just saying, which, which makes so much sense is that it's important for our students to understand that they can be practicing some of these as they are going through their program. They can be practicing leadership by volunteering to lead a group project. They can be practicing leadership and management through working with the student organizations. It's, it's really vitally important that you don't assume or associate leadership with you in terms of your own career, only with those times when you are leading an organization. You will have many, many chances and opportunities to demonstrate leadership and it's important that you practice it while you can in a safe environment while you're in your MLIS or iSchool programs. Thank you. I think you can Kendra, did you want to add anything more. Yeah, I just want to add something back to what Kim said to I think that that she's very right about the move from a rule based approach to design thinking and I think that's also reflected in management techniques that we have in the field as well. So I think that this this motion or this movement from just a management approach to one that incorporates leadership as well is a reflection and a building block towards that design thinking and incorporates that design thinking, especially in terms of strategic planning. Thank you so much. So let's now direct our attention to today's information landscape. The first edition of this book came out three years ago. And as you know the field of library information sciences and constant flux. So what do you think are some of the key changes as they relate to your chapters topic that have occurred over the last three years. So Kim will start with you. I think we're looking at both internal changes and external changes. In terms of internal changes. We have been told by a number of library organizations and library leaders, there are no longer any back office roles and and that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is on the front lines with patrons and students and faculty and the the constituencies of an organization that you're working with. It doesn't mean you're on the front lines with them necessarily. It means that the focus of your work is thinking about the needs and meeting the needs of that constituency. So you, you no longer can find jobs to do that aren't focused on customer service. Everything is about how does what I do help the organization advance its mission to serve the needs of our constituencies. So no longer any back office roles. There's a much stronger focus on soft skills, people skills, social intelligence, certainly customer service underlying everything greater emphasis on cross departmental collaboration. That means that that the catalogers are working with the reference people and the bibliographic instruction people. Everyone is working together towards meeting those same goals. There's a greater expectation. As we were discussing that you will have management and perhaps even leadership capabilities. You may not have led an organization. You may not have managed a team or department yet. But the assumption is that you have the skills and knowledge to be able to step into that role and you have the people skills. So something again to be practicing whenever you can. External changes are an increased need as we see everywhere for communities to be able to have a trust based or relationship with key information providers and public advocacy champions and we are those guys. So we are stepping into roles that we may not be used to but they're important and they're critically needed. And then a last external change would be a greater societal factor, excuse me a greater societal realization of that trust factor for information and information sources. We are quickly becoming the go to trusted resource for our communities and that's an important role and a critical role. Thank you so much, Kim. And so Kendra, what do you think? Well, I think Kim's comments are a perfect segue into what I want to add to that building on that. Again, I'm coming at it from a leadership perspective. And so I think that there's changes in the field that lead to a need for strong leadership. I think historically in LIS education, we haven't always done a great job in terms of leadership because historically we were really focused on the latest and management research and now we understand better about the role of leadership and in playing to build a more positive and effective organization. So I think there's an increasing need for leadership education and training. I can tell you in my own state of Ohio that there are so many new library organizations or library organizations offering new courses in leadership training and education. So we constantly are building that up ourselves in providing the kinds of education that's necessary for our graduates to go into the field to be prepared to walk into those leadership roles. And so when I put this all together with leadership education, there's really several important steps I think we need to lead in our field that help us prepare our future graduates. These are also described in more detail in the book chapter, but the key takeaways here are the need to create that vision. I'm struck over and over again about how important it is for a leader to be able to identify and create a vision of what the organization can and should be and then share that vision with their team. We also need to plan strategies to reach the goals that we set from the vision. So it's important for the leader to be able to plan strategies to reach the goals and help guide their team to achieve that overall vision. So it really in other words what we're saying here is that strategic planning is absolutely key to successful leadership. I think the third thing is to put the right team together and a good leader knows how to do that once the plans are in place matching the right people to the right responsibilities and activities help the process move more quickly and smoother. And that's also where it's helpful to have championship champions move that process forward so champions being people who who buy into the ideas who really are passionate about the goals and the directions that the organization is taking. And finally, I think it's important to continually motivate the team toward that shared vision. This is so important. We overlook this all the time. It's helpful to tell your team when they're doing a great job, we need to have these small wins, recognitions and rewards that help keep people motivated to move forward even when those challenges get pretty pretty tough. Thank you so much Kendra. So you both have raised some important changes that are happening in the field. I wondered if you had any further thoughts that you'd like to add at this time. I think the the only thing that I would add and it sort of is reflected in what Kendra was saying as well is that most of the students that I have worked with have not seen themselves in leadership roles until they actually find themselves in a leadership role. And as a profession, that's no longer an option for us. I think as a profession, we are all in leadership roles in one way or another. And it's important that we feel comfortable with self leadership, as well as leadership in our organizations and in our communities. So that's that's sort of a different approach than stepping back. We are certainly information neutral. We are certainly for freedom of information and those sorts of things, but we can be strong in our roles as leaders championing those concepts within our communities. Thank you so much, Kim. Okay, why don't we move on to the next question. So now let's direct our attention to the future. What trends or emerging issues will impact the field of library and information science as it relates to your chapters topic. So, Kim, we'll start with you. So, one of the things that I am most concerned about is in terms of emerging issues, what impact automation and the automated workplace and advanced robotics, AI, all of those kinds of things are going to have on the type of work that library professionals, LIS professionals are doing. Depending on the type of work that you do in the organization that you work for, this can have a number of different impacts. But I really believe that it's critical for us as a profession to maybe looking at some scenario planning and sort of brainstorming where this might hit, what impacts it might have, and then what opportunities it might open up that aren't open to us currently. In terms of your career, I would suggest that you start reading books about the automated workplace. There are many of them out there now. And think about in what ways you would position your own skills relative to what automation is doing in the workplace in the LIS field. Another emerging issue that I think is incredibly wonderful and challenging at the same time is that public libraries are emerging as community development hubs, facilitators, catalysts, connectors, and so that behooves then us in terms of our careers to start focusing on how do we build knowledge relationships because collaboration is going to be key to what we do. And then the third thing would be a stronger emphasis on data driven decision making. When I was going through my graduate program, if you said information, you were talking about text. You were talking about written words. If you say information today, you are very likely in talking about data. So data is your new content. Great, thank you. And Kendra, what do you think? I think once again, this is working out very well. Kim has made a nice segue opportunity here to expand on that from the leadership perspective. You know, in emerging trends in leadership, I don't think are what's really relevant to this particular discussion. What's really important is how leadership can be used as a tool to help us face those emerging issues that Kim identified as the future of the field. What might be really helpful in leadership is to consider the things that we see listed here, know what those trends are, pay attention, read, read, read. As Kim said, find out what's going on, what's going on in the world. I used to sit down and read Forbes magazine when I was a business librarian, just turning page after page after page every time it came in, not reading, skimming, just seeing what the trends were. Get to know the trends in what you're doing. Second of all, once you've got the trends in mind, then you're in a better position to make strategic planning decisions. So make those decisions and put your vision together. Also, think not just locally, not just regionally, not just globally. There are pieces of all of those that come into our careers every day, and we have to keep that in mind. What's happening in the world elsewhere does affect us now. We're a globalized society and it's important to know how those trends are affecting us locally, regionally and globally. Also, increasing community engagement, the more we deal with our stakeholders, the better off we're going to be in a position to move the organization forward in those positive ways that meet the needs of our own community. And that means we need to engage with our community in order to get the answers that we need to be able to provide the services that we need. Also, sharing ideas and resources, it takes a village, you know, it takes a lot of people to work together to come up with solutions to problems, but also in the identification of what those problems might be. If you don't, again, know your trends, talk to people, get their ideas, get their thoughts about what those resources are and move that forward. Shared ideas, I said, but also build the future to a collective vision that ties in with that stakeholder buy-in. And also, those technologies come and go, but remember, people stay the same and it's really important to be very people focused in order to accomplish the goals that you set, whatever the technological future may bring. Thank you, Kendra. So you both have raised a lot of important trends and things to think about. I wonder if you had anything more that you'd like to add to this discussion about the emerging trends and issues that our field is facing. I think the only thing I would say is that everything that Kendra just said is not only spot-on, but it is spot-on for self-leadership as well in taking charge of your career. So I would say what she said, because I think it's so important for both organizations and individuals. Thank you. All right, then we will move on to, you know, we've now addressed the changes of the past few years and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. At the core of the information landscape, as you guys have both talked about, are the people who work in the organizations, those who provide the services to the communities that they serve. So that leaves us now to focus on today's information professional. So the question now is, what advice do you have for the new information professional to meet the needs of tomorrow's information landscape? And based on your area of expertise, what are some of the key competencies that information professionals will need to succeed in meeting the needs of the communities and the organizations that they serve? So, Kim? Well, I would say getting back to what we were speaking about initially in that there are no rules anymore. We're sort of looking at that same thing in terms of how do you plan for the future of your career and how do you plan to remain viable throughout the length of your career. And what I would suggest is that we what we need to move into is a sort of skill set that I would describe as adaptive competencies. They would be, as you see there, one embracing a self-employed mindset because no one is going to be able to manage your career as well as you are. And you are going to be looking for the changes that are coming towards you in a way that will allow you to prepare for them. Two is to become a learning ninja. No one should ever go into this profession without realizing that they have taken a vow of lifelong learning because what you are doing today is unlikely to be the same thing you will be doing two or three years from now. Diversify your career engagements and expertise. The more you know and the more you can do with that knowledge, the more opportunities you will be able to pivot into when these changes start rolling toward you. Expect and position for change. Assume it's coming. The duck and cover response is not functional for you. So you want to really be ready to rock and roll when that change hits you. You want to anticipate. You want to, as Kendra was saying, be reading, skimming, scanning, looking for what's coming toward the profession, toward your constituencies and toward your own career. So you can position yourself in the path of opportunity by anticipating those changes. And then last of all, which is sometimes really challenging for this profession. Don't bother being perfect. Be fearless because perfect keeps you stuck where you are fearless, let you rock and roll and really contribute to our forward progress as a profession and in your career. Thank you so much, Kim. Kendra, what about you? I love everything that Kim just said and I think it's important just to add on to the bottom there that, you know, that be, don't be perfect. Don't be afraid to fail. I mean, because it's going to happen. And the thing is we learn from our failures that help us become better at what we do across the board on all of our skills, especially when it comes to leadership, because we are going to fail. But one of the things that we can do to keep moving forward are the things that you see here with these leadership competencies. These are the llama competencies I mentioned earlier. I just want to highlight a couple of these. In particular, I want to talk about emotional intelligence. This is a fairly newer concept. It's not something that I was taught when I went to library school many years ago. We didn't talk about emotional intelligence, but that's really important. Leaders are really effective in understanding the ways in which they perceive and manage their own and other people's emotions, applying concepts like self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy. We hear a lot about empathy now and social skills to inform those interpersonal interactions. That's a really important aspect of leadership that's highly valuable. And it's not something that you don't just get born with it. You have to practice it and get to know your own sense. You have to be very self-aware to know how well you can work at that. The other one is critical thinking. And I know we talk a lot about critical thinking as well, but leaders in particular know how to apply critical thinking skills, which implies a high level of understanding and the ability to break a problem down into its smaller parts. And then the skills to effectively analyze and assess the issues so that there are challenges that they face they can identify and implement solutions. I think what's critical about that is that you have to be able to break that problem down. And that's the really important thing that's going to help with making those kinds of decisions if you can break it down into smaller tasks. We've also been talking more about project management. And that's where leaders can really take deliberate steps to execute, monitor, analyze and report on the progress of a work group that's charged with the creation of a particular product or a service in order to deliver that on-time and on-budget result that helps build learning and integration of the project and its stakeholders really require. So those are just some of the highlights from this particular set of competencies that's really important. And I would add to that, not just the skimming and the scanning of literature and news ideas and trends, but also talk to people. Because those people that are in your personal network are the ones you're going to be calling to share your ideas with and learn. Managers and leaders talk to each other to learn how to solve problems. Thank you Kendra. So I think it's interesting and it correlates a lot with what I hear when I talk to employers in the field as well. We are hearing a lot more about emotional intelligence and empathy in particular as important skills that people need to have. So I wonder, Kendra and maybe Kim, you can comment on this as well. How should information professionals cultivate some of those skills if it doesn't come in neatly to them? How should they be developing that sense of empathy or emotional intelligence? That's a really good question, Sandy. And you know, even if we teach it in LIS programs, the problem is that by the time somebody gets into a leadership role, it may be later in their career and they may not remember everything that we said, you know, five years ago. And so it's not something that they should just, you know, walk out and forget about. Empathy is something that we should be working with. You know, we do more and more group work. I know students don't always like that. But group work is really important to helping to build and practice the skills that we've talked about in leadership, those competencies. Working with other people, learning how to be empathetic, learning how to talk with them in ways that are constructive rather than destructive. Learning how to build the teams to be high functioning teams and not just to break down into a morass of individual problems. It's really about learning how to congeal and work together to solve problems. So a lot of that is just practice. It takes practice to learn that kind of empathy, especially if you haven't already developed that. You can develop that by practicing in group work, I think is especially helpful, whether you're in an LIS program or whether you're actually in the workplace. Thank you so much, Kendra. Kim, I didn't know if you wanted to jump in with any comments. I think I essentially agree with everything that Kendra just said. But again, that sort of gets back to the comment that there are no back office jobs anymore. Everything in our profession these days and going forward is going to be about relationships with people. And that makes empathy critically important. And I agree with Kendra that it is emphasizing it. It is modeling it. It is providing environments that support empathetic responses. I think we just need to weave it throughout all of our interactions. Thank you so much. So I would like to thank Kim Doherty and Kendra Albright for joining us in this webinar on career and leadership strategies for information professionals. I'm grateful for the insights and advice that they shared in this webinar and for their contribution to information services today and introduction to the listener. Thank you for joining us. And I hope that you've gained a deeper understanding of the changes, challenges and opportunities within the field of library and information science. And for more information, please check out the additional materials that are available to you in the online supplements. And thank you again.