oct06b.indd


from the inside 
Torre Meringolo 

Supporting
the
institutional
mission


Libraries
lead
the
way



Iwas delighted when ACRL President Pam Snelson contacted me and asked if I would 
share my thoughts on life after librarianship 
and my opinion as to how librarians can 
serve their academic communities beyond 
the library. Are there particular traits in 
the academic preparation and professional 
development of librarians that sometimes 
beckon us to step out of our prepared­for 
roles to serve in other ways? 

In my own case, after completing my 
graduate study at the State University of New 
York­Albany’s School of Library and Infor­
mation Science, I had the very good fortune 
to have practiced as a librarian for nearly 25 
years before being provided the opportunity 
to serve my institution, St. Mary’s College of 
Maryland, the state’s Honors College, as vice 
president for development. 

In this capacity, I have been responsible 
for directing the external relations programs 
of the college, including fundraising and the 
management of an affiliated foundation. Ten 
years later, and with St. Mary’s largest com­
prehensive campaign recently completed, 
the value of librarianship as preparatory 
training for higher education administration 
is something that I am pleased to discuss. 

Navigating the terrain 
A colleague of mine once described the 
role of the liberal arts in the undergraduate 
experience as the provision of knowledge 
that is a mile wide and two inches deep. 
Much like the liberal arts, the essence of a 
librarian’s preparation is the development of 
a facile understanding of the diverse world 
of knowledge. While librarians may not be­

come expert in the substance of the myriad 
disciplines to which we are acquainted, we 
must somehow be proficient at navigating 
their terrain, regardless of our own subject 
knowledge obtained prior, during, or after 
our entry into librarianship. Certainly our 
work in collection development, techni­
cal processing, reference and instructional 
services draws us on a daily basis into such 
close proximity with the world of ideas that 
elements of them become part of our own 
vernacular. In this world then, the librarian 
becomes the global citizen who can feel at 
home in many different contexts. 

If pinned down to a single word that de­
scribes the essence of a librarian’s develop­
ment, it would be integrative. The education 
and work­life experience of the academic 
librarian makes one at ease with the totality 
of an institution’s disciplinary components. 
They are all like our children—united as 
members of the academic family, but each 
with its own distinct identity. We must rec­
ognize and celebrate this characteristic of 
librarianship as a unique strength of our 
academic training and our professional de­
velopment that is essential to our roles in 
our academic communities. 

Successful librarians and library admin­
istrators keep their fingers on the pulse 
of the academy in its fullest and broadest 
sense. As we cast an eye across our institu­
tions, we fine tune our sense of competing 

Torre Meringolo is vice president for development 
a t  S t .  M a r y  ’s  C o l l e g e  o f  M a r y l a n d ,  e - m a i l :  
smmeringolo@smcm.edu 
© 2006 Torre  Meringolo 

C&RL News October 2006  544 

mailto:smmeringolo@smcm.edu


interests’ importance to mission based upon 
our understanding of factors such as the 
core knowledge base of the disciplines and 
the differential structure of knowledge, the 
strength of the myriad subject matter in our 
immediate institutional context, the differing 
degrees of demand for information based 
upon the curricular and research scope, and 
the methods and means to which different 
constituent groups seek and consume infor­
mation. Taken together, these factors help us 
develop an informed sense of the library’s 
role as a key academic partner in the mission 
of teaching, scholarship, and service within 
our institution. 

The journey 
My own formative experience in the pro­
fession was in the public service arena, 
specifically in the areas of reference and 
collection development. What new librarian 
can ever forget the humbling experience of 
being called upon to satisfy every request for 
information no matter how foreign to one’s 
own personal frame of reference? Would it 
ever be possible to master the many thou­
sands of access points to the vast universe 
of information that our users would seek 
out? Learning the seemingly endless array 
of tertiary tools that would open up much 
of this world is an intimidating task both in 
graduate school training and in one’s con­
tinuing development in the profession. 

As for me, it became apparent very early 
in my graduate school experience that I 
faced two great hurdles: learning the core 
precepts of the profession—thus a deep­
ening experience, while at the same time 
understanding enough about the structure 
of knowledge to be effective as a provider 
of information—a broadening experience to 
say the least. It is this expansive quest for an 
ever broader appreciation of the knowledge 
landscape that I argue is unique to our pro­
fession. And I believe that it is precisely this 
orientation that serves us well when we take 
on institutional roles beyond the library. 

Consider the various paths that lead most 
individuals to senior positions in higher 

education. Generally that journey has its 
roots in one of the principle disciplines of 
the professoriate to which administrative 
skills are honed as a department chair. Un­
like the dual focus of the library profession, 
which is both deepening and broadening, 
the process that leads to the terminal degree 
in virtually every other discipline is focused 
on the development of a specialization in a 
subdiscipline of the fi eld. 

As an individual moves through this pro­
cess, the result is mastery of an increasingly 
fractured part of the knowledge universe 
and a strong personal identifi cation with 
that discipline. Academic administration is 
generally appended later in a career to the 
responsibilities of a successful researcher 
and teacher. Rarely is administration taught 
as part of the requirements to enter the 
professoriate. 

Indeed a great challenge of academic 
administration is to harness the institutional 
commitment of a faculty whose primary al­
legiance is directed to their disciplines rather 
than the local concerns of the host college 
or university. Except perhaps for the disci­
pline of higher education administration, 
most faculty in their graduate school train­
ing and early development as academicians 
simply do not ponder issues of disciplinary 
breadth and the complexity of integrating 
and managing them. 

Service beyond the library 
Because of the advantages provided by 
training and experience, librarians really 
do need to be cognizant of their unique 
institutional vantage point and how it may 
help position them to provide service to the 
academy beyond the library. 

During the years that I was most happy 
with my role as a practicing librarian, I 
frankly never gave much thought to other 
ways that I might contribute in higher 
education. My career world view had been 
fairly well defined by the endless scope of 
opportunities within our profession, which 
I found both satisfying and challenging. It 
took me nearly a quarter of a century within 

October 2006  545 C&RL News 



Because of the advantages provided 
by training and experience, librarians 
really do need to be cognizant of their 
unique institutional vantage point 
and how it may help position them to 
provide service to the academy beyond 
the library. 

the profession to discover the strength of 
librarianship’s connection to other possibili­
ties in higher education administration. 

Consider the activities that consume 
much of the time and attention of most 
college and university administrators. Much 
attention is given to planning and resource 
allocation. The need to both preserve and 
develop new revenue sources is ever pres­
ent. This responsibility is multipronged and 
involves bringing the case for support into 
the political arena, as well as to all of the 
external constituencies, including alumni, 
parents, prospective parents and their chil­
dren, the media, friends, and funders near 
and far. 

Meanwhile, effective leadership requires 
strong two­way communications with the 
internal community of faculty, students, and 
staff. All the while the administrator must 
have a firm grasp of institutional mission 
and the ability to effectively articulate the 
unique strengths of the institution as well 
as an awareness of its limitations. 

All of these day­to­day responsibilities 
are served exceedingly well by a profes­
sion that is accustomed to thinking and 
acting on behalf of the needs of the entire 
academic enterprise. No single area can be 
ignored, but likewise, all areas are not cre­
ated equal. These rigors are familiar turf to 
librarians. They largely define the demands 
placed on library administrators to effectively 
articulate mission, effectively plan, allocate 
resources, develop new funding streams, 
and provide excellent service to a diverse 
user population. 

Considerable time and effort is put into 
understanding and assessing the compet­

ing needs of the various constituent groups 
within the institution so that resources can 
be allocated accordingly. The orientation 
is always at an institutional level, and in 
the final analysis, a library’s effectiveness 
is measured against the degree to which it 
effectively supports the institution’s mission, 
rather than the degree to which it serves a 
particular college or university program. 

I certainly find this to be the case in 
my current role over the past decade as I 
continually draw upon my background in 
librarianship and library administration for 
guidance. 

As more librarians assume administra­
tive roles in their institutions outside of the 
library, the understanding of the library’s 
essential role in the academy also will be 
enhanced. With today’s great challenges 
of affordability, accountability, and assess­
ment looming large on the landscape, I do 
believe that librarians can and should play 
an even greater role in shaping the future 
of American higher education. 

C&RL News October 2006  546