Vancouver, British Columbia
May 15-17, 1996

Leading the Agile Organization

Opening and Welcome

Convened by Nancy Cline, Presiding President
ARL

MS. CLINE (Pennsylvania State University): Good morning. I'd like to welcome you to the 128th Meeting of the Association of Research Libraries.

First, I would like to bring to your attention several new directors who are attending their first ARL meeting. They are Patricia Breivik (Wayne State University); Bill Walker (New York Public Library); Ann Wolpert (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); and Joan Giesecke (University of Nebraska). As is our tradition, we have asked some our veteran directors to introduce these newcomers. Carole Armstrong will introduce Pat Breivik, Sul Lee will introduce Bill Walker, Dick DeGennaro for Ann Wolpert, and Bill Crowe for Joan Giesecke.

But before I turn to that, I would also like to welcome the many acting and interim directors, as well as representatives who are here from other libraries. I would like to especially acknowledge the fact that we are meeting here with members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), many of whom were present for some of the committee meetings yesterday and who will be with us throughout this meeting, including Carolynne Presser, President of CARL. We feel extremely fortunate to have this unusual opportunity to share our membership meeting with you. I welcome you all.

And now Carole Armstrong.

MS. ARMSTRONG (Michigan State University): It is a pleasure to introduce Patricia Breivik to you this morning. Patricia came to Wayne State University about a year ago as Dean of Library Services at the University Library and the Library Science Program. Prior to that, she was the Associate Vice-President for Information Services at Townsend State and served as an ACE Fellow. She is currently serving as the ACRL President, a position from which I'm sure most of you know her. We welcome Patricia to the ARL community.

MS. CLINE: Sul Lee.

MR. LEE (University of Oklahoma): Thank you. Last fall I had the occasion to visit New York Public Library and meet Bill Walker for the first time. It's a great pleasure to introduce him to you this morning. Bill received his B.A. from Lakehaven University, did graduate work at Penn State, and received his Library Science degree from the University of Michigan. He was appointed to the position of Senior Vice-President and the Andrew W. Mellon Director of The Research Libraries of New York Public Library in November 1995. In this capacity he was responsible for the operation and overall management of the research library, including public service, cataloguing, conservation, automation, and collection development.

Bill joined the library in 1989 as Associate Director for External Services, a newly-created position to which he brought 17 years of prior experience in health science libraries. In this capacity, he oversaw a move to the newly-completed Bryant Park extension and the development of a corporate service division, the library's first fee-based service division. In 1990, Bill assumed additional responsibility as Associate Director for Science, Industry, and Business. In 1991, he was awarded the library's Esther Fellowship.

Commenting on his appointment, President LeClerc noted, "Of all the appointments I've made in my career, selecting the next Andrew W. Mellon Director of Research Library is easily the most important. Bill Walker's appointment pleases me enormously. He has repeatedly shown that he has the vision and drive to help us transform this great twentieth century library into a brilliant twenty-first century [resource]." Please join me in welcoming Bill Walker.

MS. CLINE: Thank you. Dick DeGennaro.

MR. DeGENNARO (Harvard University): Good morning. It's my pleasure to introduce my friend and colleague, Ann Wolpert, to the membership here.

Ann is a real Bostonian; she has been around Boston practically all her life. She first graduated from B.U., and then from Simmons' Library School. She came to head up the Baker Library at the Harvard Business School about four years ago, not only focusing on the library, but also to develop information services for the entire Business School. She came to that job from a 16-year career as a consultant at Arthur D. Little, and more recently she was a director of the Arthur D. Little Cambridge Information Center, their special library.

Ann has a wide variety of other experiences as well. She is a member of the MIT Press Board, the Boston Library Consortium Board, OCLC Users Council, and the OCLC Board and she was recently President of the Simmons Alumni Association. I'm personally delighted that Ann is assuming directorship at MIT, and I am confident that she will continue the close cooperative working relationship that her predecessor Jay Lucker and I developed between MIT and Harvard before he left.

I think you'll find that Ann will be a good friend and colleague to you all. Please join me in welcoming Ann to ARL.

MS. CLINE: And last, Bill Crowe.

MR. CROWE (University of Kansas): Good morning. There are a number of us who could introduce Joan Giesecke from Nebraska, and I'm very pleased to have been asked to do so.

Joan is someone who I think many of us know of as an author. Her list of publications is extensive, and she is currently editor of the ALA publication Library Administration and Management. She teaches aggressively in library science across the plains and gets rave reviews from students. A number of my own staff have had her as an instructor and can't say enough about her. And she is someone we can always call on in our larger group in the mid-continent area.

We know she has a commitment to collaboration, to partnership, and an openness to ideas, and that bespeaks nine good years at Nebraska with many more to come. Joan came from George Mason before that, where she had a decade of exceptional service.

In thinking of how to describe Joan as a person, the two things that came out were, first of all, that she's a doer; she is always somebody you can count on. Some of us in the Big 12 region will remember late-evening phone calls to Joan asking, "Do you think you could write that grant proposal by tomorrow?" And, the second thing, Joan would always deliver and deliver with high quality.

The thing that I did not know about Joan until I looked at her background in more detail, which gives me a great deal of pleasure contemplating the next few years in this association, is her own research background in public administration. We can contemplate what we may expect from Joan as a contributor to ARL by looking at her dissertation, entitled, "Making Decisions under Chaotic Conditions."

Joan, we know that you will make a great contribution to ARL. We are very pleased to have you join us.

MS. CLINE: Welcome all. I have two other individuals I would like to introduce. First is Dr. Cornelius (Neil) Pings, President of the AAU. The other is Sandria Freitag, Executive Director of the American Historical Association. We are pleased to have you join our meetings this week.

On Friday, when we have our business meeting, we'll be saluting those directors who are retiring or departing from our company, so we will have some additional commendations then.

Now, to the program that lies ahead of us today. In terms of what we are each witnessing in our individual institutions, I think we would agree that we are experiencing change at a faster pace and to a greater extent than we have ever experienced it before. In some cases, there is the concern that the rate and level of change is outpacing the ability of our institutions to absorb and adapt to the change. This meeting's program, "Leading the Agile Organization," is designed around the notion of examining these changes and becoming agile enough to adapt, to manage change, and to learn how to lead our libraries--these large and complex institutions--through these turbulent periods so that we can emerge in the forefront.

We have for you today a talented, energetic, and informative group of presenters who will share their perspectives on these and other topics. I think you will find the entire day both entertaining and educational.

At this point I would like to introduce Ruth Patrick, University of British Columbia, and, at the same time, I would like to again express for the entirety of the Association our thanks for the exceptional hospitality that we are enjoying here in Vancouver. Ruth, her staff, and her colleagues have worked very hard to put together many of the local events and activities. It was at their recommendation that many of these extracurricular activities have been put together: including the tours and extraordinary reception at the Museum of Anthropology last evening. Ruth, we thank you.