Shaping Opportunity for Individuals Charles B. Lowry, Guest Editor (bio) In the spring of 1974, Dean Ed Holley encouraged those of us taking his seminar in academic libraries at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to read a recently published volume about the Columbia University Libraries study.1 He thought it was a pretty important milestone for the management of academic research libraries. Ed was seldom wrong, and I read it closely. A year later, Joe Boykin, then director of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Library (UNCC), where I had taken my first job as a librarian, informed the staff and library faculty that we were being considered for the development of a new ARL program. The Academic Library Development Program (ALDP) would provide a self-study process for smaller academic libraries that scaled and shaped the methods used in the Management Review Analysis Program (MRAP), which was designed for large academic libraries. MRAP was developed by the Association of Research Libraries' Office of Management Studies (OMS) and grew out of Duane's work with Booz, Allen & Hamilton in the Columbia study. I knew the connection and excitedly entered into a year's work, which brought a rich opportunity and growth experience for a beginner. In the course of that time, I met Duane Webster for the first time, and the experience of working with him and Grady Morein, the on-site OMS consultant for the Academic Library Development Program, deepened my understanding of organization and management of academic libraries in a way that no other single experience could.2 Indeed, all the staff at UNCC were enriched and, admittedly, challenged by the experience. A few short years later in 1978, I had my second opportunity to experience directly the expansive impact that ARL's establishment of OMS had on the profession and to learn from Duane and his colleagues Deanna Marcum and Jeff Gardner. This was in the Consultant Training Program, which OMS created and managed. The program was well designed to give grounding in an array of skills for the participants, but it was focused principally on facilitation strategies in which the consultant is a catalyst to problem solving by library staff and management.3 [End Page 305] These early experiences with the innovative and critical offerings of ARL were simply the first of many for me that have continued to this day. What I learned gave me a toolkit of skills and knowledge that I have used and built on through over 30 years and six administrative jobs, five as a library dean or director. The point is that I was one of many such individuals who benefitted from OMS' work and Duane's leadership and skills. The pages of this issue give a complete sense of the astonishing scope of what was accomplished at ARL/OMS in the creation of programs, their variety, impact, and richness. The benefits to our profession grew as Duane became executive director of ARL in 1988. In that role, he was able to build larger strategies of collaboration that involved institutional allies for ARL members (indeed for all academic libraries). He created a synergy with other higher education institutions that is lasting and profoundly important. Programs like the Coalition for Networked Information and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition offered new venues for collaboration and individual development and learning. Similarly, the Research Library Leadership Fellows Program was designed to offer grounding for mid-level library managers in the skills and experiences needed for senior level leadership in research libraries.4 The point I would make is that Duane's career seeded academic librarianship with a large number of individuals who were grounded in the principles of organizational development and the management and leadership skills needed to run these complex organizations called academic and research libraries. There is probably a game we could play like the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" that would illustrate the pervasive impact that Duane's career has had, but there would be, at most, "Two Degrees of Duane Webster" separation.5 I am—we all are—indebted. [End Page 306] Charles B. Lowry Charles B. Lowry is executive director of the Association of...
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