The importance of community for the profession as a whole was not a concept that I had given much thought before attending the institute. A comment by a public librarian that she had not realized how much she and I, an academic librarian, have in common gave me pause. We are interdependent. Academic librarians help students who come from school libraries. Our students use public libraries for information in areas we do not support.
Public libraries send people to academic libraries for esoteric information.
We share similar problems of shrinking resources with increased demands for service. And all of us are looking for better and cheaper ways to cope with ever changing technology. As more people from different types of libraries participate in the leadership institute, there should be a better understanding of what each of us does and how alike we really are. A variety of topics was covered at the workshop, including understanding leadership styles with the ubiquitous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. Most interesting to me were the sessions on risk taking and conflict resolution.