June musings

It has been an interesting week to say the least—starting with the announcement about Jim Smith’s resignation on Monday morning. Quite frankly, I am still in some stage of grief. Meeting Jim and talking with him about his management style and how we would work together was certainly one of the deciding factors for my coming to ECU. Jim is and always has been a friend to the Library and supportive and helpful throughout my first eight months. It has been nothing but a delight reporting to Dr Smith since I arrived; I surely hope that his successor will maintain his “transparent, collaborative management.”

We have had two opportunities to discuss the administrative changes that I think are necessary to continue moving forward and dealing with the complexity of issues we face vis a vis the delivery of information services to the ECU campus—the Revisioning Task Force (RTF) and then an all Library meeting. In both of them, I hope that I have made it clear that the appointments do not and will not negate or nullify the work of the RTF; as someone has said “change is organic.” We have a lot of issue to deal with and questions to answer. All this summer we will be hearing from experts on the changing role of libraries—beginning with this week’s dynamic speaker, David “Giz” Womack from Wake Forest’s R.Z. Reynolds Library, who shared with us the fun that hosting a “gaming night” has generated in their library. I was excited—I know that I will never be able to compete at Halo, but I have some hope that I would not embarrass myself at DDR.

I was asked to share the outline of the organization chart with the Library. That is one of my goals this week—so look for the email.

Finally, I can not tell you how much fun I have had cheering on the Joyner Knights! We may not be the winniest team competing, but I love watching them play and along with a large number of our Joyner colleagues, cheering them on. In fact, I think it is fair to say that we have the most supportive and boisterous “cheering section.”