Ola’s 1st Reflection: Leadership, Consortia and Assessment

My journey in Illinois started by meeting Professor Clara Chu, Director and Mortenson Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the person who is behind my participation in this program. Her smile and nice words made me feel at home from the first few minutes.

On the first day of the program, Wednesday May 24, all the associates met with Dr Clara and walked to the Mortenson Center which is in the Main Library of UIUC. We had a very welcoming breakfast where we were introduced to Dr Peggy Nzomo (Specialist for International Library Initiatives at the Mortenson Center), Mrs Barbara Ford (Professor Emerita and Associates Program Advisor) and Mrs Amani Ayad (Associates Program Advisor). This was followed by a session where each of the 9 associates introduces themselves to the group and a program overview of the next 4 weeks. The day was particularly special for touring the campus and taking memorable pictures at the Minerva Statue and then touring the main library and getting acquainted with the place where we will spend the next month. We saw the archives, orange room, food pantry station, family station, and others. We also had a great session about “Leadership and Innovation in Libraries” with a take home message: “We cannot predict the future, but we can shape it”.

This was also complemented by another session on the second day of the program where we learnt some tips and techniques on how a good leader should foster a culture of innovation and creativity in his library. This day was highlighted by meeting Dean Claire Stewart who has just started her appointment at the libraries at UIUC. It was an eye-opening and rich discussion about the future of libraries, open access, consortia, copyright, and technology in libraries. The importance of engaging with library users and understanding their needs by conducting quantitative (surveys, …) and/or qualitative (focus groups, …) assessment was also a great session. “Evaluating our services and anticipating new demands and expectations must be a continuous process” [Paula Kaufman, 2011 State-of-the-Library]. Continuous assessment is essential and necessary not only for accountability but also for the improvement of our services and strategic plans to meet the needs and expectations of our users. We also had lunch with our “library buddies” who were also very welcoming and shared a lot of their advice and experiences. The day ended with a session about the importance of sustainability for our libraries and how libraries can contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The last day of the week was equally informative and eye-opening. We talked about “emerging trends of reference and outreach”, “teaching and learning engagement”, “Big 10 consortia”, and visited the “Oak Street Facility” and “Champaign Public Library” which was a great example of how they serve their diverse community”: children, adults, seniors … . The day ended with a lovely dinner at the beautiful “Barbara Ford’s” residence. Visiting one’s home when traveling is a great experience for me which gets me to see how they live and introduces me to their culture. It was a heartening enjoyable gathering where we shared everlasting memories which I will never forget.

All this happened only in the first 3 days of the program, which leaves me excited and enthusiastic of what’s coming next.

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