Daily Archives: January 13, 2015

2 posts

Office Hours: It’s About Time

And my last column of 2014 – for got to post! http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/11/opinion/michael-stephens/its-about-time-office-hours/ Have you said this in a meeting or a discussion with a colleague? Has this rolled off the tongue when confronted with an unexpected change, a new technology, or another initiative? Many of us are stretched to our limits. I applaud the folks I meet who have absorbed more and more duties as staffing patterns have changed. Just recently, at a meeting of the Council of State Library Agencies in the Northeast in Cape May, NJ, I dined with librarians who were wearing many hats in their evolving […]

Office Hours: Actions and Answers

My new column is up at Library Journal: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/01/opinion/michael-stephens/actions-and-answers-office-hours/ The attitudes or reflective action, highlighted in an article by Grant and Zeichner (2001), includes open-­mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness. All are important and resonate deeply with me and my philosophy of what librarianship should be about. Approaching something with a sense of wholeheartedness means we are all in all the time, not just when it’s convenient. It means bucking the status quo to do the right thing at the right moment. It means owning our actions as ­professionals. I am most excited about this evolution of who we are and what we do […]