The Association of College and Research Libraries published my book: Developing the Next Generation of Library Leaders in 2020. It’s a wonderful experience to hold a book in your hands that has your name on the cover. I was inspired to write this book as I was finishing my dissertation for my Educational Leadership program at the University of Rochester. That research led me to wonder how library administrators- namely associate and assistant deans, or those in similar positions- are working to prepare the next generation of leaders. I interviewed 22 associate deans in fall 2017 and below are the key take-aways I drew from their experiences.
- Developing a career ladder
- Mitigating identity crisis
- Learning theory, applying to practice
- Support
- Find your people
- Leadership pause points
- Alternative leadership and management models
- Demystifying leadership and management
- Succession planning
- Battling gender-based doubts
The book is told through the experiences of 4 composite characters. The themes above are woven through the narrative. It’s my hope that after ready this book, practitioners will consider how they can foster leadership skill development in themselves and with others in their libraries. I firmly believe that it does not and should not solely rest on library administrators to do this work. It takes all of us to ensure our organizations are led by inspiring, competent, and intentional leaders.
The experience of writing that book led me to better understand how to write a book and work with a publisher. For many in our field, especially for those who are on the tenure track, getting published can appear mysterious at times and downright unattainable at others. I developed a few strategies during this book project that I hope can help as others consider how to share their research and interests with others in our profession.
- Time to Pitch
- Set and Keep Deadlines
- It’s ok to Poke
- Toot Your Own Horn
Time to pitch: Once you’ve got an idea of what you’d like to research and write (this applies to case studies too), take a look around and see what journals or publishers might be interested in that topic. After you’ve identified a few options, reach out to the contact there and pitch your idea. The pitch (unless they have guidelines on their websites) should be brief. It’s important to provide enough detail for the reader to understand the focus and impact of the piece, but not so much detail that they have to scroll endlessly to the bottom of your email. My approach has been to include a general thesis statement, or what I’m interesting in learning more about/sharing with others, how I’m going to collect that data, and what the potential outcomes and impact will be on our field. It might take a few emails to find the right home for the project- and that’s ok!
Set and keep deadlines: This is especially important when writing a book. There’s likely a contract involved, and it’s important to stay on good terms with your publisher throughout the process. My strategy is to work backwards. My contract with ACRL required that I submit a completed manuscript by December 31, 2018. I asked for a long lead time to work on the book, because I was starting a new job at the same time and wasn’t sure how those demands would impact my writing schedule. With that 2018 deadline in mind, I created a Word doc that had that date at the top. I knew I needed to incorporate a lot of time for editing and sharing drafts with others, so those deadlines went on there. I also added deadlines for writing drafts, doing data collection, and applying for IRB approval. I know myself to know that I do my best work in the mornings, often on the weekends. That gives me a finite amount of time to complete these various deadlines. Having each benchmark identified at the beginning of the project helped me to stay focused and motivated to see this book through to the end.
It’s ok to poke: After I turned in my book manuscript, I received copy edits in winter 2019. I turned in those changes in April. Because of my personal and work travel schedules throughout the rest of 2019, I emailed my contact at ACRL every few months to learn where my book was in the publishing queue. These emails helped me to understand what steps remained, and what work I’d be responsible for. The last phase of work was in November 2019, when I went through the page proofs of my book. This work was extremely time consuming and arduous. At that point, I hadn’t been working on this project in a number of months and getting back into the text was challenging. However, the end result is something I can be proud of and so all of this time was well spent.
Toot Your Own Horn: Getting published- book, article, blog post- is a big deal. It takes courage to put ideas out there. It’s perfectly acceptable to promote your work on social media, to work with your publisher to do an interview or be featured on their website, and to talk with your communications staff at your library or university.
What are your strategies for sharing your work with others?