Library Web Chic

It is amazing to me in becoming a department head how little of my time I spend doing technical work anymore. Much of my time is spent managing projects, people, money and keeping things moving. Every once in a while though I find myself in a position where I have to solve a problem (like the server crash on Friday) or get a system tested, and I need to drag my technical skills out of the closet. The problem with this scenario is that as much as I LOVE doing the technical stuff, when I need those skills they are often rusty, because I’ve been spending my time doing administratia.

So I find myself needing the ability to find the balance between managerial work, leadership, and technical work. To keep this balance I definitely have to carve out time for myself to play with systems. Why? Well, although my department is growing, we are still small and we are not cross trained well enough so that I’m not in the mix working on something technical at least once a week. Additionally, as a manager I feel it is important for me to be able to mentor, advise, and assist with my staff’s professional growth. Sometimes this means helping them develop technical skills or work through a problem. To do this I need to maintain a certain level of technical aptitude. Technical knowledge is also important when setting goals and visions for the department. Because how can you talk about where the department is going if you don’t understand the broader technical landscape.

To this achieve this end, I keep some technical projects for myself. For example, I did an initial set of testing with Drupal as a possible tool for the library intranet and did our initial testing of WordpressMU. I’ve learned when I’m working on these projects that I need to document as much as possible because I’m more than likely going to be handing the project off to someone else after the initial investigation phase. I also have been writing a lot of the department’s documentation because it helps me understand the systems better and enables us to make sure the documentation is as clear as possible by having our talented but relatively new Web Services Coordinator review things.

Another way I try to keep my technical skills sharp is by attending conferences and workshops. I’m going to code4lib this month, and attending all three preconferences. I’m really excited about this because I will get a solid technical diet for 4 full days, which is something that doesn’t normally happen.

I’m looking forward to it as a slight respite from policies, procedures, personnel and project management issues which although intellectually challenging can create a certain level of burn out. I need variety to keep from completely burning on this type of work, which is why I enjoy the technical stuff. However, finding a balance managerial and technical is a daily chore since each type of work present its own challenges and I have to be both types of work simultaneously. Still part of me is terrified of losing the technical skills necessary to be effective at my job and becoming a manager who makes poor decisions because they don’t know enough about the realities of the work.

Which seems a somewhat ironic thought because in the middle of writing this post, I had to pull apart and put back together a server, and then troubleshoot a test WordpressMU installation. I guess I’m not going to lose my technical skills so long as I get pulled into that type of work. Still I yearn for the ability to decided to download VUFind or Blacklight check out, play and tinker with them for several successive afternoons without a mandate to implement them at UH. I guess that just shows that my idea of ideal “fun” job would be running the library “labs” operation or helping libraries try out and implement new open source applications.