James LaRue - myliblog

Back in 2008 I presented with my good friend and fellow library director Eloise May, as well as one of her board members (Howard Rotham) and one of mine (Mark Weston) at a Public Library Association conference. Our session was about how to evaluate a library director. (For evaluating the library board, see here .) It was based, like all good sessions, on all the things we had done wrong. We eventually figured things out, and wanted to save other people the bother of making all of our mistakes. I had this posted on my old website as a file, and recently had a request for it. So here's my attempt to embed this from a Google Slides. Let's give it a shot. (If some of the slides are too small, click the icon to go full screen.)

I've just returned from the Public Library Association's conference in Indianapolis. It was a rich experience, even though (as too often happens), I never made a single program other than the preconference Sharon Morris and I did on Wednesday. (And that session, " Managing the Talent ," was a blast. We presented a wholistic look at institutional Human Resources, with lots of relevant exercises. The attendees were engaged, contributed a lot, and seemed to enjoy themselves.) So what else did I do? Mostly, I talked with people: colleagues, vendors, industry luminaries, other consultants, and some of the most interesting taxicab drivers I've ever met. (But that's a story for another time. A children's book.) I also hopped back to my wired hotel room to participate in an American Libraries Live  session with Sue Polanka, Troy Juliar (of Recorded Books), and Jeff Metz (of OnceClickdigital). Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevented the very in...