Monthly Archives: June 2025

Many years ago I was reading a novel in which the main character purchases a ramshackle second home in the country with the intention of fixing it up and turning it into an escape from his first home in the … Continue reading →

In this two-part post, I’m going to address two of the most common organizational problems I’ve encountered over the course of my career. The first one is what I call “killing a fly with a sledgehammer.” The second will be … Continue reading →

Today is a national holiday in the US, so I’m away on a brief vacation. Enjoy, and see you next week!

I have a confession to make: I’ve always thought of myself as a fundamentally lazy person. I mean, not pathologically lazy; when our kids lived at home I always really tried to make sure I was carrying my weight in … Continue reading →

Earlier this year I offered three posts on the topic of library policy management: the first addressed both the importance of written policies and the tendency of libraries to create too many; the second described what I call a “healthy … Continue reading →

As a library leader, chances are good that you do at least some of your work outside of normal office hours. You’re probably checking email in the evening after dinner, or when you first get up in the morning, and … Continue reading →

Many years ago, I was invited to give an online presentation. These were the days before Zoom, when it was more common for webinars to be broadcast almost like TV shows. In fact, the organization that had organized this particular … Continue reading →

In last Tuesday’s post, titled “Two and a Half Cheers for Meetings,” I discussed the obvious fact that meetings are an essential feature of work in academic libraries, but also the possibly less-obvious fact that meetings come at a different … Continue reading →