[I’ve been thinking about this post since Jeff announced his retirement, plugging away at this post for a few weeks since his replacement was named and his final day set. But with Jeff’s last day being tomorrow, I figured I better finish it off tonight!]
Long-time RPL Library Director & CEO, Jeff Barber, announced his retirement earlier this year after 21 years of challenges, culminations crises, and change in the top role (and a couple years before that spent in RPL’s Deputy Director role.)
This farewell interview with former Regina Police Chief Evan Bray on CJME. is worth listening to for a sense of Jeff as a person and as someone looking back at his long career. (It’s also worth it for the fact that Jeff tells the story of how he and Evan were at a Cops & Readers wrap-up party and one young person asked “Why do you look like Donald Trump?” of which I have photographic – and even video – evidence though I won’t post that here! Or mention that, almost unbelievingly, another kid at a different C&R wrap-up years later asked why he looked like Vladimir Putin! He was definitely not an autocratic dictator in my experience!) 😉
In terms of successes, I think Jeff’s pivotal role in the creation and culmination of the provincewide SILS library consortium – which has its roots in the province’s interlibrary loan system that began in 1969 but dates back to as early as 1912 in terms of traveling libraries and Open Shelf service – will be Jeff’s biggest legacy.
Jeff trying a “SILS Delivery” game we had during an event to show the importance of libraries during the proposed library cuts in 2017. (Of course, Jeff also caught I’d missed one SILS location in my “map”!)
Years ago, when I was in the writing world, I told a writer I admired that I’d always seen him as a mentor. He replied “I don’t mean to be rude but I never thought of it that way. I don’t remember helping you with your writing – did I forget that?”
My bio in a book about the history of RPL
I explained that I meant it more as a “mentor at a distance”. Some mentors are those you talk to regularly, who give you advice and guidance and I have a few of those too. But there’s also the mentors who are ones you carefully watch thinking they’d be good to learn from because of how they might similar to you in background, viewpoints or how they carried themselves or how they advocated for thigns they believed in or simply because of the positions they’ve obtained.
Without telling him, I looked at Jeff in a similar fashion, at least in part because we had and have a lot in common:
– grew up in small rural towns as part of farming families
– we are both tech nerds (when RPL changed to new brand colours a few years back, I posted a picture on our internal staff message board of my garage smart lights in RPL blue, green and purple and Jeff replied “I should do that with my smart lights!”)
– we both worked at Southeast Regional Library under the leadership of Allan Johnson (Jeff for about 10 years and me for a year and a half.)
(I was going to mention our career paths diverging at a later point in our shared timeline. But thinking back, I realise when I worked at SRL is where that happened for the first time.)
Allan was in a serious car accident when Jeff was at Southeast so Jeff ended up serving at Acting Library Director at SRL. Without that accident, who knows how things would’ve gone for Jeff in terms of his career trajectory.
Meanwhile, I didn’t have a chance to be CEO, Acting or otherwise during my brief time at SRL. Instead, when I was hired on an 18-month contract, Allan said they had two positions I could choose between formy 18-month term position – Branch Manager or Branch Supervisor.
They were *very* similar with the biggest distinction being whether you were in- or out-of-scope (useful information I would draw on when RPL moved to change in-scope branch heads to out-of-scope branch managers and I got the lucky pleasure of testifying before the Labour Relations Board on behalf of CUPE and my fellow branch heads. And I always joke that I didn’t do a great job because RPL now only has Branch Managers and I have the weird honour of being the last ever Branch Head at RPL ever before I chose to take a lower-level position instead of being moved to Branch Head position that would be more expensive (staff at our Central branch have to pay for downtown parking), more stressful (there was a lot of staff transition at the time and it was going to be a huge workload plus all the usual challenges of downtown public libraries) and more “constricting” for lack of a better term (Central is where the majority of managers work, there is a more complicated management structure in that branch, and there was some other uncertainty with the person who would be my direct manager – and this was unfortunately confirmed when that person ended up leaving RPL then passing due to a recurrence of cancer at a very young age.)
Anyhow, back to SRL…
There were pros & cons to each position I was offered, just as there are for Branch Heads/Branch Managers at RPL. But at SRL, I chose the in-scope position for a few reasons:
- I’d never been in a union before so it was a good chance to see what it was like
- She was never a Woody Guthrie-listening, Birkenstock wearing, “Solidarity Forever” singing trade unionist. But my mom was very involved with SUN, serving on the provincial board for a number of years and teaching me how important it was to stand up for workers, no matter your personal politics, since that was ultimately standing up for patients in her view. (To put it in a library context, our patrons are our customers but our staff are our first customer and how they are treated is how they treat customers.)
- Not be intimidated by those in power (my first union action ever was accompanying my mom to protests when the NDP – boo! – legislated nurses back to work in the early 90s) and that might give a hint as to why a union executive member was rarely to never an NDP voter.
- …and just because I’m someone who’s always interested in new/different/unique experiences.
– when I finished my Master of Library Science degree in 2006 and was looking for work, I called up RPL and asked Jeff’s assistant if I could have a short “informational interview” with him (a job hunting strategy I learned during a work training program I was in after undergrad.).
I showed up having been told Jeff could give me maybe 15-20 minutes but he very generously gave me nearly an hour of his time. I wasn’t working at SRL yet but when I mentioned I was from Indian Head, he said something I’ve thought of every single time I’ve been under a library computer desk hooking something up or troubleshooting since – “Oh, I’ve been under the desk at the Indian Head library many times!” he said laughing.)
That small comment stuck with me. Something about the juxtaposition of the suit & tie wearing CEO in front of me and the image of him looking through a rat’s nest of wires and dust bunnies under a small town library desk was also a good reminder that we all have unique career paths and experiences but at the end of the day, we try to do what needs done.
I did get hired by SRL and I’m not sure if Allan and Jeff had talked about me as a possible option for the 18-month vacancy Allan was trying to fill (to be honest, people aren’t clamouring to work in rural Saskatchewan for low wages, an extremely complicated governance system and a very large amount of work relative to city librarians – and doubly so on a term contract – so that probably helped my chances as much as anything!)
But I knew Allan and Jeff talked regularly and I might even occasionally be a topic of conversation.
In fact, one day Allan came in and said “I have a proposal for you and knowing where you want to go in your career, I think it’s an offer you won’t be able to say ‘no’ to.”
He went on to tell me Jeff was chairing a joint Sask-Manitoba library conference that was coming up the following year and my name came up as a potential Social Covenor co-chair.
(I had started arranging monthly social events called”Books to Beers” at different pubs and restaurants around Regina – overtly because I truly enjoyed the socialization and networking and meeting new people but covertly, because I thought it could also help me find connections that would lead to work – assuming I didn’t just get a reputation as a lush!)
I talked it over with my wife and contrary to what Allan said, I did end up telling Jeff “no” as we were living in Weyburn during the week with a new baby at home. Plus, being a joint conference with Manitoba, I knew I’d likely be doing the majority of the legwork with my co-convenor being one province over.
I was worried this might affect my chances of getting on at RPL like Allan said. But as my contract was coming to an end, RPL posted a postion called “Organization Development Specialist.”
I didn’t know what the heck that was.
But I did know I needed a job and RPL was my preference (I still joke that my parents never understood why I took an 18-month contract in a rural library system over another offer at a government library that had great pay, benefits, a set M-F schedule and every second Friday off. What can I say – I love public libraries.)
Once I started looking into the RPL position, I realised it was actually a lot of the type of work I’d done for 10 years before library school in the non-profit sector – arranging training sessions and planning conferences and working on policy and planning documents plus a lot of things I was interested in – change management, organizational culture, etc. (My highest mark in Library School was in management believe it or not!)
I just didn’t know the work I’d been doing in non-profits had a fancy HR title.
I applied, got an an interview and…Jeff was in the interview?!? (I don’t think Jeff’s in a lot of interviews at RPL so I’m not sure if this position was seen as that level of importance or just that somebody was sick that day?) 😉
My slides from that interview are even still online…
I have no idea if all the connections over the years – that initial information interview to the connection to the Indian Head library to the (hopefully?) good word from our mutual boss at Southeast, Allan, put me over the top or helped. Or maybe they only had one applicant since nobody else knew what the job was about either?
But I got offered the job.
I started at RPL in September 2008 and have been there – in a fairly wide variety of roles (some I chose, some that were imposed) – in the 18 years since.
In another “full circle” moment, my latest move was a weird chose/imposed one that has me back in the office I occupied for three years as the RPL OD Specialist. That’s not me in the chair – it’s a mannequin prank they did for every new employee at Central at the time.
I mentioned earlier that Jeff’s and my career paths diverged at some point and I’d originally thought of it being when I “fell off the tightrope” of the OD Specialist position (OD specialist is something completely different in public libraries these days I can’t help but note darkly) which was a unique, weird position where I was in-scope in the HR unit which was otherwise completely out-of-scope and where I was also the only librarian reporting to a non-librarian so trying to straddle two very different worlds – going to a union meeting on a Monday to hear about proposed changes to the pension plan from the union’s perspective then going to the HR staff huddle the following morning and hearing the management take on the changes. (This was also an incredible privilege and would have been been/could be very useful if I ever decide to go into management just as it was for Jeff’s Deputy Director, a former Union Vice President who is now a Director and a former Secretary-Treasurer who is now a Branch Manager.)
Because up until then, I think I’d probably been on a management track (Allan at my first interview: “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Me: “I’d like to be a Director someday.” Did I mean that or was I just saying what I thought he wanted to hear?)
Allan also advised that if I had a “rocket strapped to my ass” (uhm, maybe that was someone else?) not to rise too far too fast as those are the people who usually end up flaming out and he named a few examples during his many many years closely observing the Saskatchewan library community – almost in a senior statesman role for many of the regions which often attracted young and/or inexperienced librarians.)
At the time, I thought that was just what you did – get a job, move up and eventually become the Director so my answer was a bit of both. But Allan also later told me that because even though I chose to go in-scope, because I’d expressed a desire to go into management eventually he was going to be a lot more frank with me about decisions and issues than he would with someone who was simply an in-scope branch supervisor and happy to stay at that level. He also said I shouldn’t have said that because it sent a message I was gunning for his job. Oops!)
Jeff was in my interview. I had a monthly breakfast meeting with the Deputy Director who also gave me my initial tour of branches after I was hired. I worked closely with various managers on various initiatives including being one of only two in-scope staff on the planning committee for RPL’s integration into the SILS system since I was overseeing the training and change management aspects of the project.
But in the back of my head, I also kept thinking about what someone (ironically that mentor-at-a-distance writer) had told me when I was just thinking of librarianship as a future career. His partner happened to be a librarian but had stayed at a Branch Head level. “The higher you move up, the less you’re a librarian and the more you’re an Administrator. You’re more likely to be stuck in an office all day instead of interacting with the people who actually *use* the library and the people who work on the frontlines as well.”
That has been the tension in my own career path ever since – do I (try to) follow the traditional career path (I started at the librarian level at SRL after doing my MLIS. But many in management literally go from page to clerk to programmer to library school to in-scope librarian to management of some kind) or stay closer to what drew me to libraries in the first place?
Being warmly greeted by both staff and a couple regulars who I popped into a previous branch I worked at recently reinforced how much I enjoy that aspect of librarianship.
In this day and age, I think I’m also legally required to acknowledge all of the privilege that allowed me to work in the low-paying non-profit sector for a decade then go to school later in life then bounce around in various jobs where my career “path” looks more like a roller coaster and at least one person has joked my next job might be stoking the boilers underneath Lorne St. at Central Library! But supportive parents (and grandparents), a wife with a very good paying career, the fortune of receiving oil money from my grandfather’s wartime era farm, my mom having a great job, my dad having a family farm that we’ve owned since being original homesteaders in 1883 which he recently sold, a very frugal lifestyle that I was brought up with, parents who taught me about savings early (Shea and I recently realised that both of us have saved money every single month since we were 18!), a grandfather who did well in the stock market, etc. etc. etc.
Anyhow, this is a post about Jeff. And about me. And about libraries. And about life.
I could go on and on listing all of the various interactions I’ve had with Jeff over the years that probably don’t even register with him – the good (him bringing his annual Christmas chocolates to the branch I was working at just as the power went out!), the bad (we ended up calling Jeff to the stand during one arbitration I was involved with on the union side) and the funny (another thing I think Jeff and I have in common is a good sense of humour – his is a lot drier and “professional” for lack of a better term while mine is not so much that. I especially love how he always brought up a story I’d told at Books & Beers about my son as a toddler, being in our living room and *peeing on our VCR* because he had to go to the bathroom!)
Another memory – we did the “True Colors” personality test during one “Librarian Forum” which was a thing I had started with one of the best managers RPL ever had and which happened regularly years ago where all librarians came together as equal librarians – not in- or out-of-scope, not branch vs. Central, not experienced vs. new – for learning, collegiality and fun.
Unlike Myers-Briggs which puts you in one of sixteen categories, True Colors only has four.
Yet, I still remember that Jeff was one of only three who got the personality type he did out of our group of about 30 librarians. Only a handful got another rare (for libraries) personality type and the rest of us were 100% equally split between the “rule-following, detail-oriented type” that is probably more the old stereotype of librarians and the “people-pleasing, how we can help you, bend-the-rules” type who are also drawn to libraries for its focus on service and helping (as I said, my mother was a huge influence on how I see that part of work.)
Because of that unique category he got – analytic, data-centered, logic-minded – I often thought that Jeff wasn’t a “hugger” like the people in that “helping” category (including myself unsurprisingly. In fact, at Jeff’s retirement party, I spent as much time hugging former employees as I did joking about HR watching to see if hugged any current employees – though our HR Manager did clarify I could hug current employees…if I had their consent!) 😉
Jeff was not aloof by any means but he was someone who wore a suit & tie for pretty much every day of his career (if he wore a blue dress shirt instead of white, you knew it was “Casual Friday”!) and was always very professional, composed, prepared and knowledgeable.
But I think the most amazing thing is seeing Jeff become a “hugger” over the past few months since announcing his retirement – wearing more casual clothes, showing more emotion – whether in city council meetings or during his speeches at our annual staff day and especially his doting focus on his first grandbaby (I have a picture of him with the baby but won’t post as his son’s a lawyer and I don’t want to end up on getting sued for not having the proper photo release!)
It’s also made me realise Jeff was maybe more of a “hugger” than I realised all along and that the True Colors faciliator said we all have elements of each personality and its more about when and how those elements emerge.
I think of Jeff’s tradition of going to each branch in costume at Halloween to hand out candy, making hilarious jokes when he spoke to staff each Staff Development Day, and obviously the love of his family and grandbaby.
(I should’ve recognized his “hugger” side way back in 2020 when we got sent home because of Covid and I kept thinking “Wow – Jeff is being kinder to staff than I would be if I was CEO” and I’m basically the biggest hugger at the library!)
Then, thinking back further, I remember when I was doing some work on the Southeast Regional web site (likely designed by Jeff – another connection we have in our love of tech) and found a semi-hidden folder that ended up having a web page with schedules and stats for his son’s hockey team.
As much as Jeff loved public libraries, knew so much about them (probably unmatched in his knowledge of the history of Saskatchewan public libraries of anyone in the entire province) and spoke so well about them and their core values, that folder reminded me that he was a father (and now a grandfather) first and whatever he achieved or didn’t at the library, that will actually be his greatest legacy.
To put it another way, whether you’re a clerk or a CEO, work is a certain number of hours a day for a certain number of days per week for ~30 years if you’re lucky. Family is forever 24/7/365. And now Jeff will get to enjoy that fully.
Happy Retirement Jeff!
