Introducing the Michaels is a column by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens in the current issue of Library Journal. Read it. Print it out. Leave copies in your break area for co-workers to read.
Michael and Michael’s “tenets of the transparent library” are are golden nuggets of wisdom, and their application can greatly improve library environments throughout the world. Most of all, their application within the workplace can transform the internal environment of our own libraries.
Don’t think that this is a top-down project, however. Recognize that the best way to change your environment is to change what you are doing, and encourage the same changes for those around you. Network. Discuss. Share what you do, so that others better understand not only your role in the greater organization, but their own as well.
To those who think in terms of “knowledge is power” and respond by portioning out information in a controlled manner, these tenets are revolutionary (and perhaps even subordinate) ideas. Recognize that greater openness is the stronger weapon, and that the most effective way to wield it is to apply it in your own work.
The opportunity is here for libraries to become the standard-bearers of the information age, or the greatest irony.
