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Rhonda Gordon
Manager, Brightwood Branch; Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library
 

I always give credit where credit is due. I make it a point to remind my peers that any successes that we have at our branch are a TEAM effort.

How do you describe what you do as a librarian to your family or to people at a party?
I currently manage a small, inner city library with a staff of 4-5. The neighborhood is in a designated high crime area and most of patrons served or at or below the poverty level.

What special projects, initiatives or committees have you been or are involved in? How did you first got involved? What experiences in ALA have been the most rewarding?
I have been involved in establishing a Reader’s Advisory program at IMCPL’s newly renovated Central Library. I have also been involved in committee that designs instructional brochures for patrons using the library’s databases and also on the African American History Committee. At this time I am on the Circulation committee. This committee has been charged with setting policy recommendations, clarifying and regulating standard operating procedures, and creating a training curriculum for employees who do circulation functions.

What advice would you give to up and coming librarians?
1. Be well grounded in the mission of libraries, reference, and technology skills.

2. Be an extrovert; if you are not an extrovert (like me) then develop skills that will enable you to take risks and be ok with that.

3. It’s rough out there – not everyone is like you and all of their life experiences are not similar to yours. Know and understand that you will interact with people from various cultures, races, and socioeconomic levels.

What do you think are the top three issues facing librarianship (positive or negative) that could change the course of things? If we should try to change that course, how should we go about it?
1. Some library administrators do not value their staff librarians. Their dismal view of librarianship filters down to employees and therefore to the public.

2. Professional librarians are being replaced by less formally, educated paraprofessional staff in some metropolitan systems. This means cheaper labor for these systems, but can often result in poor reference service to patrons and high staff turnover due to poorly prepared and trained library staff. The library profession should support state certification and licensure for professional librarians and require continuing education credits to professionalize the license.

3. Public library usage has changed from a place for those who want to continue their education, find better employment, or just to find a good book to read. Now, it is a place for many people to check out DVD’s for free, to hang out on My Space and Face Book, or to drop off your kids while you go shopping or get some free time alone. Traditional and non-traditional library users are competing for limited resources (i.e. the computers).

Tell us from your own experience one leadership lesson you have learned.
I have learned that in hiring, that past behavior usually predicts future behavior. And, I also learned never hire simply to fill an empty position. It pays off greatly if you examine the prior work history of applicants and take your time in selecting a candidate to fill a particular job position. In the past I have made poor hiring decisions and it has resulted in low employee morale, lack of progress in programming, and does a major disservice to our library patrons in that they are not receiving the best service possible.

What values (personal traits or characteristics) do you look for and admire in a leader?
I admire leaders with integrity. I admire those who can withstand criticism and then use that criticism to become better leaders. Innovators are very special to me. It really says something when you can identify a problem and come up with an original solution to that problem.

How do you recognize contributions of others in your library and in your community?
I always give credit where credit is due. I make it a point to remind my peers that any successes that we have at our branch are a TEAM effort. I hate to sound cliché, but there is no “I” in team. When one of us fails, we all fail. Yet each of us has a special talent that we bring to the table. As a manager, I try to capitalize on those individual talents so that our branch is successful in our endeavors.

What or who influenced you to become a librarian?
I think my Mom and her love of reading influenced me to become a librarian. Early on in the lives of her children, she modeled reading and researching behaviors in front of us. If she needed to know more about something that she had seen or read, she consulted with the librarian at our local library.

If you could do anything in your career differently, what would that be and why?
If I could do anything differently, it would be to have majored in a science during my undergraduate years and then to have focused on the information science curriculum in my MLS. If I had done this, I would be more marketable and command higher pay in librarianship.