Many years ago (nod here to my first mentor at St. Olaf), I was urged to read a book that taught me the importance of “learning how to learn.” Since then I have used Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner’s 1969 book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, to illustrate how we, libraries and librarians, are very subversive in our ways.  We provide for our communities, an environment nurtured by collaborative and continuous learning and yet rarely are we *formally* recognized as teachers. You likely mentor your patrons, colleagues or friends, but rarely do you acknowledge yourself as their mentor. And I’m intrigued by the subversive interrelationship of mentoring and leadership and how so often leadership is developed unbeknownst to the leader. Take it from me, you may or may not accept it, but you are likely a leader in the work you do!

When crises emerge, when gaps are found, and when opportunities arise, members of the library community are called on to lead the conversation, to facilitate the information sharing and to model the learning. Whether library director or patron, student page or new board member, we are all agents of what I call “leadership as a subversive activity.”

So as you move through your work, I encourage you to reflect regularly on how you subversively “move & shake” your communities, and recognize how you teach, lead and mentor those around you. And begin now nominate those in the library community who should *overtly* be recognized as a 2012 Mover & Shaker!

I want to extend a special thanks to those who nominated me for this award and also to those who urged, “You should go to library school!” Their mentorship ultimately led me to this amazing job. Thank you *everyone* for the work you do and for the role you play as stewards of this WebJunction community!

Michael and David are hoping that you will help build the project by adding your comments to the essays, to answer the question, What do you think librarians need to know to succeed?

Take a look at the lineup for this free July 15 event on the Talentpalooza website, and register if you are interested in attending any presentations.

You can read about what the guest speakers will be presenting on the site’s blog. Here is what Kathryn wrote:

Leveraging Customer Communities to Meet Top Talent Challenges

Are you fully engaging the social learning aspect of your customer communities as a critical talent management resource to build high-potential staff, improve productivity, and enhance recruiting and learning efforts more efficiently and at a lower cost?

At WebJunction, we provide online learning community services to a wide variety of library organizations. Our customers (whom we call our partners) range from state libraries that develop custom learning communities, to library organizations that use our competency index and online courses for staff training. As a central hub of the community’s activity, we see talent and learning trends in our industry and the important role communities play in communication, networking, referrals and skill development.

With a number of states’ legislature budgets delayed or sharply decreased, along with record numbers of people flocking to the libraries, library staff are reaching out to their colleagues across the library field to assist in mentoring and collaborating on talent management initiatives. Online social networks are fostering connections, helping staff share information quickly and effectively across geographically diverse libraries and helping to establish broad recruiting circles.

Why are recruiting circles so important at a time of diminishing budgets and staff reductions? Libraries have faced significant retirements this year and expect this to continue into 2014. Filling these roles with experienced staff has become difficult, especially in states that have been hit particularly hard by the decrease in housing values. The lack of mobility within these states has pushed libraries to recruit from outside of their traditional geographic regions. The use of customer communities provides a cost-effective means of reaching out as well as serving as a positive asset to attract young prospective recruits.

Libraries are also reporting training positions being reduced or training staff taking on additional organizational responsibilities. In response, communities are helping by aggregating content and resources so that individual libraries can make the best use of limited time and not “reinvent the wheel.” Another promising activity that we see developing is cohort learning on rapid elearning development tools. Guru groups are forming around building expertise with the tools by sharing members’ best practices and enlightened failures.

I would like to hear if you are seeing some of the same talent and training trends. How is your organization leveraging your customer communities?

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And with UAE in the group spotlight, what better time to share some exciting news about WebJunction staffer, Zola Maddison. She has accepted an offer to serve as the Coordinator of the Learning Enhancement Center at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. While all in the WebJunction family, members, partners and staff, will miss her greatly, we’re excited for this new chapter in Zola’s career and we know that she’ll remain an active member on the site! Zola has this to share:

As many of you know, I’ve been interested in global libraries for a long time. While I can’t remember a time I didn’t have the travel bug, I think this cross-section of interests really grew from my experiences as a foreign exchange student in Indonesia during Suharto’s regime. That was where I first saw information access as a means of political power (and if you’re ever having a hard time falling asleep, you can read my article on the topic). While I was in “library school,” I concurrently completed a certificate in International Development, Policy and Management. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work with libraries across the US, Canada, South Africa and Guatemala.

I am incredibly excited about this opportunity, but am equally sad to leave my WebJunction family. I hope you’ll keep me connected through WebJunction (zmaddison).

Zola joined WebJunction about two years ago as a Special Projects Coordinator and quickly moved into her current role as a Partner Services Consultant. She has been working with our State Library partners since November 2007 has led efforts to showcase our partners as thought leaders in the e-learning and online community space.

Throughout her time here, Zola’s interest in working with international libraries has also been apparent as she presented at the IFLA conference in South Africa, received sponsorship for the ALA Emerging Leaders program from the International Relations Round Table, and onboarded WebJunction’s first international partner, BC Libraries.

If you’re attending ALA, be sure to stop and congratulate her, and know that we won’t let her stray far from the WebJunction fold! I’ve already got her on my list of prospective webinar presenters…I see a session on international librarianship coming soon!

Over the last two years, to build the latest expanded and improved iteration of WebJunction, we have made a series of rapid expansions in staff.  During this process we have always staffed our organization appropriately for the tasks at hand and the projects currently being undertaken.  Up until now this has meant a continual expansion of staff and departments.

However, now that our new platform is launched, and after reviewing our future plans, along with consideration of the downturn of the economy here in the US, we have concluded that we must make some difficult staffing adjustments.

Sadly, internally for WebJunction, this means that several people on staff that have helped us grow have roles that must be redirected and refocused into other areas.  In real terms that means both the elimination of some positions and the adjustment of others.

Partners and members can count on the same level of service and responsiveness.  However, internally at WebJunction this means we will have fewer staff and will have to say goodbye to some employees that we both highly value and deeply appreciate.

We sincerely want our members, partners and Libraryland at large to know that WebJunction is still running full steam ahead. In fact, these changes will help us to continue to roll out new products and services, as well as pursue new partnerships in the library community in the coming years.

While this is a very difficult process to go through organizationally we know that it is necessary and will ultimately help ensure WebJunction’s sustainability and relevance as a learning community for everyone.  All the folks at WebJunction would also like to add that there are now a few WebJunction “alumni” that could make powerful additions to your organization.   If they worked at WebJunction you can bet that they are intelligent, hard working and highly valuable assets to the library field and we hope you’ll join us in wishing them well.

If you have any questions please feel free to email us individually, leave a comment on this post or drop us a line at info@webjunction.org.