Category Archives: Uncategorized

For those who might be coming to the party late, “Two and a Half Cheers” is the unifying theme for my occasional interventions on practices, characteristics, or approaches to librarianship and library leadership that I feel are unjustly maligned — … Continue reading →

Last week I grumped about the phrase “If you build it, they will come,” which I’ve heard countless times over the course of my career — usually referring to a new service or program that someone in the library feels … Continue reading →

OK, OK. Maybe the title for this post is a little overly dramatic. But stick with me. I’ve long been frustrated by how easily people seem to be hoodwinked into believing nonsense as long as the nonsense is couched in … Continue reading →

In my last post, I promised to share some important principles that should underly the creation of policy in the library. Please note that I don’t pretend this is an exhaustive list — and I welcome suggestions of additional ones. … Continue reading →

As I’ve discussed previously, policy creation is a bit of a two-edged sword: on the one hand, if you’re going to hold people accountable for certain practices and behaviors (or for refraining from certain practices or behaviors), it’s only fair … Continue reading →

Everyone knows that you can’t be an effective leader if you’re not willing to listen to the people you lead. But there are so many ways of doing that, some more useful and constructive than others — and some more … Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago I made a note to myself to write a post on this topic, and then the other day I heard that Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, had just died. So I … Continue reading →

Let me start out by acknowledging that “Science and Religion in the Library” is a provocative subtitle, and to some degree it’s meant to be. Let me explain what I mean by it. For my purposes here, I’m going to define … Continue reading →

(N.B. — My two posts this week were originally published as columns in Library Journal‘s “Peer to Peer Review” section back in 2013. Thanks very much to LJ for giving permission to republish them here.) I came up with the … Continue reading →

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I work at Brigham Young University (BYU), the flagship university of the Church’s system of higher education. For the first 32 years of my career as a … Continue reading →