Endorsed by REFORMA & CALA
Julie Todaro • A Leader for All
21st-century Libraries Lead
Qualified to Lead
Academic Libraries
I have spent the last 30 years in academic settings and have had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of higher education environments including large and small six year public, and large and small four year public and private environments through partnerships, association committee, and graduate school teaching, board work and consulting. My ACRL association leadership has included service on numerous committees, the ACRL Presidency, as well as service on a number of presidential planning initiatives where I designed content (both by myself and with expert teams) for academic library advocacy as well as content to assist academic librarians in communicating value and accountability.
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Public Libraries
My public library experience includes children’s, youth and
reference librarian work at two branch libraries at Houston Public Library as
well as years of firsthand experience with joint use facilities, the design of
customer service and marketing materials for public library employees, leading
strategic planning initiatives for public library employees, stakeholders and
supporters, LSTA Board membership and leadership, Advisory Board membership,
Foundation Board membership, teaching Public Libraries in graduate programs,
and teaching small public library management in a ten + year education and
training program for management and leadership of the smallest public
libraries. In addition, my experience includes the design and delivery of
curriculum for public library stakeholders and supporters for local, statewide
and federal advocacy leadership, an assessment of public library support from
state agency levels, dozens of workshops (including a LLAMA series) and
consulting with individual public libraries, systems and consortia as well as
national membership on LIRT and ASLC committees including the Newbery Caldecott
Committee.
School Libraries
As a certified school librarian I had the opportunity to complete an internship with a noted school librarian - Elizabeth Polk. Her frontline experience of reference, collection management and instruction AND her managerial skills stand out for me as an incredibly valuable practical and theoretical experience for not only school librarianship but for all types of libraries. Since then - in both my public library and academic library work - I have worked with school librarians for joint use initiatives, information literacy teaching and training, in designing collaborative environments and services and as a leader in the design of school library standards and guidelines for Texas. In addition, in my academic environment we are committed to early college initiatives which bring high school students into our libraries for information literacy and reference assistance.
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Special Libraries
My experience of teaching, training and writing for special libraries (state agencies, health sciences environments, legal librarians) has been enriching as special environments exemplify one of the highest levels of constituent engagement and service design and delivery. My LLAMA workshops for all types of librarians, as well as my frontline advocacy work include a focus for special libraries and a wide variety of special library librarians attended including fine arts, religious, government documents, museum, health sciences, and corporate librarians. I was especially honored to have my emergency management workshop in D.C. attended by a number of special librarians (including Library of Congress staff) and I am also greatly honored that the Special Libraries Association chose several of my articles for their expert emergency management content recommendations published after 9/11.
read moreWhat Julie Says ...
"Although we have a rich heritage of our profession being the consummate supporting profession, I see our profession as one that leads. Libraries lead, library workers lead, and library supporters lead. We lead from front lines, from the middle, and the top, and we lead in our field as well as in related fields."
"Our professional infrastructures (our associations) not only support us in leadership initiatives, but they are also out in front, identifying issues and expertise, building networks, designing and delivering content, and creating opportunities for us to step up, reach out, and speak up on behalf of ourselves and our constituents."
"We can design and build the best library environment, assemble the perfect resources, make the resources accessible and create services for the breadth of clientele, but the most important element is the expertise within these structures and processes ... the expertise that connects the constituents to what they want and need. "