In a week of thought-provoking ideas, I wish to touch on one in particular: should management in libraries necessarily be librarians?

We are seeing this issue come up again and again, and is an early theme in library education. “There will be a shortage of management in libraries, we need to be sure that new librarians have the appropriate skills.” Of course, the reality is that even with the new emphasis on management courses in the curriculum, librarians have little formal training in management. Furthermore, the vagaries of business and budget are often at odds with the principles that many librarians espouse. (Not only that, many are just uninterested..)

I recall a particular moment in during the degree program where we had a guest speaker from the local public library system. This individual was the director of the library system but was not a librarian, but rather a management professional. The class discussion afterward was very critical of the business-like changes that were being made.

So, then, should that give license to libraries to hire trained management personnel to perform management duties instead of librarians? The fundamental problem is clear: individuals trained in management do not have library training and MLIS grads have little management training. Where is the middle ground?

There is also another issue here. As professionals, there is some expectation that our peers and supervisors will also be professionals. Imagine a hospital that was managed by a non-doctor.  Is this an apt comparison?