Skip to main content

jlarue.com - Welcome

By
In November of 2018, I left my position at ALA in Chicago to return to my Colorado-based writing, speaking, and consulting career. Today, I brought up my new website, created in Google Sites/new. For folks landing here before the DNS entries propagate around (tricky stuff!), I've included below some of the business services I will highlight in the new website.

Speaking

Looking for an inspirational talk? Looking for a workshop? Recent topics include:
  • Intellectual freedom and social justice
  • Transformational by design: a paradigm shift
  • The first year: six strategies for being a successful library director
  • Key trends (emergent literacy, library as place, ebooks, community reference, advocacy)
  • Library building programs and processes: building for tomorrow
  • Library as publisher: from gatekeeper to gardener
  • Community reference: leaving Fort Ref, taking it to the streets
  • Advocacy: Telling the library story
  • Trustee and director training: making each other look good
  • Succession planning: who, why, when, how
  • Hiring and firing: how we keep getting it wrong and how to get it right
  • Change management
  • Other workshops as needed

Consulting

  • Executive coaching: one year of confidential support for new directors
  • Getting clear about roles: workshops for trustees, friends, foundations
  • Public engagement for building projects
  • Planning for the next election: 2 years before the vote
  • A 2 hour strategic planning process
  • Cataloging the Community: from embedded reference to community leader

Writing

I'm a longstanding co-editor for the Perspectives columns of the Public Libraries magazine, and have contributed to many professional journals. Need a piece on one of the topics above? Let me know.

Please feel free to contact me at jlarue [at] jlarue [dot] com.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Bobby's Wedding

By
Recently, a library patron challenged (urged a reconsideration of the ownership or placement of) a book called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding." Honestly, I hadn't even heard of it until that complaint. But I did read the book, and responded to the patron, who challenged the item through email and requested that I respond online (not via snail-mail) about her concerns. I suspect the book will get a lot of challenges in 2008-2009. So I offer my response, purging the patron's name, for other librarians. Uncle Bobby's wedding June 27, 2008 Dear Ms. Patron: Thank you for working with my assistant to allow me to fit your concerns about “Uncle Bobby's Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen, into our “reconsideration” process. I have been assured that you have received and viewed our relevant policies: the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, the Freedom to View, and our Reconsideration Policy. The intent of providing all tha...
455 comments
Read more

Installing Linux on a 2011 Macbook Pro

By
I had two MacBook Pros, both 13" models from late 2011. One had 4 gigs of RAM, and the other 8. Both of them were intolerably slow. In the first case, I wound up installing CleanMyMac , which did arcane things to various files, and put up alerts to warn me about disappearing memory. But it made the machine useable again, albeit not exactly speedy. I changed some habits: Safari as browser rather than Firefox or Chrome. I tried to keep tabs down to four or five. The second Mac had bigger problems. Its charger was shot, but even with that replaced, the battery tapped out at 75%. More importantly, the whole disk had been wiped, which meant that it wouldn't boot. Recently, I had downloaded a couple of Linux distributions ("distros") on USB drives. Elementary OS 5.1 (Hera) was reputed to be a lightweight, beautiful distro that shared some aesthetics with the Mac OS. So I thought I'd give it a try. Ahead of time, I tried to read up on how difficult it might be to...
6 comments
Read more

What Is Leadership?

By
My partner and I just finished co-teaching a leadership institute for librarians in the Western States. But I keep thinking about it. Some people, I know, think leadership is all about power. But I always wonder: power to do what? To make or to break? Over my 40-odd years of administrative experience — and some of them have been very odd indeed — I’ve boiled my idea of leadership down to three things. Know thyself . That is, have a relatively clear-eyed assessment of your strengths. Build on those strengths. But also learn how to recognize in other people the strengths that you do not have. Play well with others . Leadership begins with listening and paying attention. Then it moves into emotional intelligence — the ability to read and respond appropriately to human communication. The good news is that emotional intelligence is a skill set. It can be learned. The bad news is that a lot of people don’t bother. Make it better . There’s no point in leadership that makes things worse. Good ...
Post a Comment
Read more