Monthly Archives: October 2025

The other day we discussed the vital importance of communicating too much. Next in the eight-part series of Things Every Library Leader Has to Do is another essential one: document, document, document. When we talk about the importance of documentation, … Continue reading →

As some readers may have noticed, the basic sales pitch for this newsletter has always been “this is your chance to learn the easy way a bunch of things I learned the hard way.” In that spirit, over the next … Continue reading →

Vision & Balance is taking a fall break this week (October 21 & 23). See you next Tuesday!

As regular readers know, a recurring feature of Vision & Balance is an occasional post on the theme “Two and a Half Cheers for…”. In these posts I discuss leadership and organizational practices and principles that are often denigrated but … Continue reading →

This topic is a bit uncomfortable to write about — partly because it can sound like privileged whining (“Being a leader is so hard! People are so mean!”), and partly because it can be embarrassing to confess that, as a … Continue reading →

So far we’ve talked about why dependability itself is a crucial element of library leadership, and about three specific manifestations of dependability: institutional alignment (being consistently and conspicuously dedicated to supporting the mission and goals of the library’s sponsoring institution), … Continue reading →

In my last post I addressed the essential quality of consistency for academic library leaders. Someone looking at the title of today’s post might reasonably ask: “Isn’t reliability just a synonym for consistency (and, for that matter, dependability)?” And the … Continue reading →

In the second installment in this series, I talked about the need for academic leadership to have confidence in the library leader’s full alignment with the institutional mission, pointing out the paradox that the more confidence the institution has in … Continue reading →