The Four Es of Experience and Leadership; or How to Plot a Future Course for RUSA

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

One doesn’t fit all isn’t only for clothing sizes anymore. The readers of RUSQ helped us see this in a number of ways, both with the answers to the readership survey and by participating in focus groups at the 2006 ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio. As a result, we know who RUSQ readers are and what RUSQ readers want:

• RUSQ recipients tend to be women forty-five years or older with advanced degrees;
• the median professional tenure of RUSQ readers is seventeen years, with only 16 percent being in the profession for five years or less;
• only 46 percent of readers say they read half or more of columns and feature articles in an issue;
• ninety-one percent of the respondents consider the information in the journal to be credible; and
• eighty percent of the respondents rated the practical and how-to information as the most useful type of information.⁹

As the membership of RUSA gets younger, the elements that are most important will change with the average age, but it seems fairly obvious that the journal must remain relevant for all readers.

Members Want Return for Their Dues

The 2005 RUSA member survey indicated that some of the most important tools provided to RUSA members include:/p>

• guidelines developed by RUSA to help members improve services such as the 2004 “Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services”;
• RUSQ, the quarterly journal that publishes research on reference and user services as well as practical how-to articles and book reviews;
• continuing education in a variety of formats, including Web-based and conference workshops;
• networking and other opportunities to interact with professional colleagues;
• awards that recognize and promote outstanding work and contributions to the profession; and
• sections, membership in sections that focus on specific areas of reference and user services.¹⁰

Information Is Important, But Knowledge Is More Important

Continuing education and professional development opportunities have become increasingly important to the membership. In addition, the opportunity to develop leadership skills through service on boards, committees, and other volunteer activities rated very high in the 2005 member survey. Networking opportunities were second in importance overall.

Virtual Members Want Personal Relationships with Their Association

ALA and RUSA are continuing to develop online communities, blogs, discussion lists, Web pages, and other online services that are important to members. According to the 2005 member survey, members depend on the access they have to these virtual services to perform their everyday work. All five of the issues most important to the respondents in the survey– RUSQ, networking, guidelines, a useful Web site, and continuing education–have an online presence via RUSA Web pages.

Differences in Location and Situation Are Diversifying Members Needs Even Further

Diversity–in terms of ethnic, gender, or age–is good for the entire membership. The new committee chairs have been oriented to the importance of being inclusive in their committees. The 2007 RUSA President’s Program will focus on the future of reference and user services and the librarians and staff that will be providing those services. It will also address how to develop future RUSA leaders, providing, we hope, insights into nurturing this new generation of members.

So What’s Next?

During my time as vice president, I attempted to get to know the leaders of the sections and to discover their issues. I began the process of building a foundation for the future by inviting new librarians to become active in RUSA. Each RUSA committee now has a new librarian as its intern for terms beginning in July 2006 and continuing through June 2007. I am confident that this will serve to give them an invitation and an opportunity to get involved in planning the future of RUSA. As the next generation of reference librarians begins their careers, I look forwar to the culmination of mine. As Albert Einstein said, “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”¹¹ If so, it truly is important for us to plan ahead and strategize for the future so libraries and RUSA will continue to be viewed as important components of that future. Please join me in summer 2007 for my program focusing on the next iteration of reference and user services, and the next generation of reference and user services librarians. I hope public services librarians accept the challenge for change and welcome this latest group of librarians. Watch for the results of my interviews with new entrants to the profession in a future president’s column. I look forward to meeting and hearing from many of you.

References and Notes

1. Virginia Massey- Bruzio, “Rethinking the Reference Desk,” in Rethinking Reference Academic Libraries, ed. Anne Grodzins Lipow (Berkeley, Calif.: Library Solutions Pr., 1993), 43-48.
2. The white papers presented at the 2002 RUSA Workshop, “The Future of Reference,” were published in 2003 in a thematic issue of Reference Services Review 31, no. 1, edited by James Rettig .
3. B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, “Welcome to the Experience Economy,” Harvard Business Review 76 (Jul./ Aug. 1998): 97-105; Ibid., 98.
4. Mick Yates, LeaderValues Web site, 2006 (accessed Apr. 24, 2006).
5. RUSA, “Strategic Plan for 2006-2009.” Approved by the RUSA Board of Directors, Jan. 22, 2006.
6. Ibid.
7. Tecker Consultants, presentation at American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership Symposium for Chief Elected and Chief Executive Officers, Chicago, Ill., Apr. 6-7, 2006.
8. Ibid.
9. RUSA Board of Directors, “Reference and User Services Quarterly 2006 Profile Study: Executive Summary,” Board Document #B0613, 2006.
10. 2005 RUSA Member Survey. Summary available (accessed Apr. 24, 2006).
11. Oxford Book of Quotations (New York: Bantam Bks., 1998), 198.

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