Ms Manager Considers Managing

What even is a manager? 

What does it mean to fill such a role, and what does it look like within a library?

 We're all kept up at night with the same questions (I hope). And these are some of the questions that churn in the mind of someone who aches to grow in their career, but only see their managers from behind the glass wall of their luxurious offices (those chairs, am I right?). 

So what's a manager? Sure, a manager is someone who keeps the organization running, and is the final say on the rules, and if you're like me, the person you turn to when you're not exactly sure how to tell a patron that that fee for a billed item is not going to go away even though they insist they've never seen that item before (you know the ones). But a manager does so much more behind the curtain, too. 

A manager, at least the good ones, motivate and inspire their subordinates (Haycock, 2010; Henricks & Henricks-Lepp, 2014), to fulfill the library's mission to its fullest extent, and to work to find new ways to engage the community. With that, managers must be in tune with the needs, wants, and attitudes of community members (Henricks & Henricks-Lepp, 2014) in order to build new programs (or "products" if you will) to serve the community. Then, the managers must sell these programs and services as answers to the community's needs like the marketing directors they never knew they were (Evans & Alire, 2013). Apparently, library managers are the individuals who thought they could run from corporate America, never realizing they were running on a track. Finally, managers are the people who create structures and plans for their workers to get everyone on the same page in order to work together to build a future for their institutions (Schraeder, 2002). Managers are the people who take individuals who may otherwise never share a drink, and get them to feel connected to each other in the most valuable of ways; in sharing visions and working together to make them realities. 

In short: Library Managers are the the mother ducklings of their libraries, knowing what patrons and workers need and where they need to go, and leading the way to communal success. They make and carry out plans to take the library further, all the while making sure no one following them gets lost along the way.