In early May the Singer Group provided me with a great opportunity to serve as a table facilitator at the American Library Association's Future of Libraries Summit held at the Library of Congress.  Last month we provided the first of the top 10 reflections on the Summit.  Here are the remaining 5!

5. How to electrify a room after lunch.  Wow!  Dr. Renu Khator, Chancellor of the University of Houston (UH) System and President of UH, incoming Chair of American Council on Education, brought the crowd to the edge of their seats.  After lunch no less! She painted a very vivid picture of the future of higher education with library a key cornerstone.  She reminded me, however, that high expectations are their own reward, don't give up just because it is hard, and connecting your passion to your work really matters.  
4. De-coupling. Dr. Khator introduced this concept as a means of meeting the education needs globally in the face of limited resources.  Ms. Joan Frye Williams admirably framed this concept in light of libraries as follows:
   
   "We need to talk about what might happen in libraries if we were to rethink the following processes as separable: knowledge creation, management, curation, and distribution; service design and delivery; and library support and use." (Summit of Libraries Report link)
   
   Kind of like the hotdog (click here to read the hotdog-eating reference from last month) but at a macro systems level, I think we will all need to challenge ourselves to think through who is doing what and why. This will be hard but so worth it.

To read Katy's top 3, click here.

Katy O'Neill Berube
Future of Libraries Summit Table Facilitator
Singer Group Consultant
Interim Associate Library Director
Loyola ▪ Notre Dame Library
Baltimore, MD

Please welcome Senior Strategist
Tedd Smith to The Singer Group. 

Tedd brings 20 years of strategic human resources and organization development experience in banking, health care, private, social and public sector experience.  Please welcome Tedd and click here to learn more about him.

And, speaking of trust, we all know people whose approach to the world is to give (of themselves, their time, or their corporation) only to get, hopefully as quickly as possible.  A short game, so to speak.  Others play the long game: carefully building and crafting their offering (a program or service, for example) while building and earning trust.  The long game players understand that dues must be paid and are willing to do so before "winning" the game.  Seth Godin talks about a third game: the infinite game, in which the object is to keep playing.  An excellent teacher, attentive nurse or great mom all play this game.  Can employers play too?  Think about your game - are you in it to win, or are you in it for the continuous journey of giving, building trust and helping others improve their game?  The infinite game is worth playing.