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These articles were originally part of May/June 2010's "Perspective's" column, but due to space restrictions could not be included in the print edition. Please take the time to gather some great leadership ideas with this web-only content!

PALS-PaLA (Pennsylvania Library Association) Academy of Leadership Studies

We are very fortunate in Pennsylvania to have a very strong library association and many, many leaders within the organization.  One of those leaders came to a realization one day.  Mary Garm (Administrator of the Lackawanna County Library System), as President of PaLA, looked around and realized that, although she was surrounded by many great leaders, all the faces looked very familiar.  She decided that the association needed to find ways to get more newer librarians involved.  She decided it was time for PaLA to have a leadership initiative that developed leaders from within.  Mary create a leadership development committee and in her wisdom, she ask me, a reluctant leader, to chair it.  I was a reluctant leader because I was one of those newer librarians.  I had only been a librarian for 6 years and my only experience had been in academic libraries.  How could I possibly help develop a program that created such wonderful leaders as Mary Garm and others who had served the organization so well?

Fortunately, we were able to develop a program and had the first ever, PaLA Academy of Leadership Studies (PALS) in June of 2009.  Although we certainly had some rough spots in our program, overall, PALS was a huge success.  Here is what we did, what worked well, and what didn't work quite as well.   The first area the committee tackled was to come up with specific objectives of PALS.  These are:

• Develop a new generation of library leaders who are prepared to meet present needs and to face the challenges of tomorrow in providing high quality library services for Pennsylvanians.


• Help newer librarians recognize their potential as leaders. 


• Provide training and mentoring support for new leaders in the library field. 


• Improve library staff retention by recognizing and developing new leadership skills in Pennsylvania's emerging leaders. 


• Develop leaders for PaLA and the library profession in Pennsylvania to ensure continuity and effective leadership.


• Encourage new library leaders to "payback" to their profession through service to PaLA and /or Pennsylvania libraries.

The next challenge was determining who should attend this academy.  PaLA itself is a very large organization, so there are eight regional chapters, as well as several divisions and round-tables for various interests and types of libraries.  The vision of PALS was to develop leadership within and that these newly developed leaders would in-turn, give back to the the organization with their time, talent and, of course, leadership.  We set a goal of 24 librarians for the first academy.  We requested that each chapter send two librarians, for a total of 16.  The other eight spots would then be open to any library organization that wanted to nominate someone.  The librarians who attended the academy did not have to pay to attend.  The cost for the academy was the responsibility of those who nominated the attendees.  We had 28 nominations and were able to accept 25 of those for the academy. 

The committee then put their energy into the program planning.  Again, we were very fortunate and we able to partner with David Bendekovic from Polaris Library Systems.  Not only is David Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Polaris, he also serves as Director of the Center for Professional Sales Leadership at Syracuse University and brings a wealth of leadership information and experience to the program.  The program was centered around the kind of workshops David and Polaris do all across the world in helping libraries grow and in helping librarians develop into leaders.  The final program included the following topics:  Discover the Leader Within, Achieving your Potential, Networking, Personal Branding, Understanding Libraries within Pennsylvania, Lessons Learned from Mentors and other new Library leaders, and Best Practices of Other Libraries. 

In total, we had 25 participants, 6 mentors, and 5 speakers take part in PALS.  It took place over 3 1/2 days at a nice hotel conference center near Harrisburg.  The speakers and the mentors seemed to take away just as much, if not more than the librarians we were shaping into leaders. 

Was our inaugural program a success?  I think so.  We see these the graduates of PALS in every aspect of the organization, helping plan workshops, serving as chapter officers, writing articles for the PaLA Bulletin, serving on various committees, as well as being leaders within their libraries and their communities.  Most importantly, the graduates found the program to be worthwhile:

"This is one of the best programs I have ever attended. Very informative, lots of relevant information, pretty good schedule (we fit a lot into a few days time and the time wasn't wasted)."
 
"Excellent program. I learned so much in such a short time. I have already told my director who we should send next year! The people that I met were wonderful and the experience I received while there was superb. I even ordered some of the books for my personal library."
 
"PALS was a different experience than I expected. I thought it would be like other business seminars that I have taken...kind of pie-in-the-sky, but not really very practical. Instead, I took away a lot of really good, useful information that would actually work in the real world."

"I gained a good deal of inspiration and motivation from PALS; I am sure that I haven't yet realized the full gains that I brought back from this innovative leadership academy."