Short observations, practical methods, and developing questions from the practitioner's notebook.
Fifty states and DC: which open meetings law is yours, and which section of it governs notice. Checked one row at a time, with the misses written down.
GovernancePublic records
Everything you need to start keeping track of a school board, library board, or city council, on this page. Three people, one printed sheet, no software.
GovernancePublic recordsSchool libraries
The minutes describe a buyout program treated as operational and a full-board briefing after the offer. The president had been informed. What does this record establish about delegated authority, and what does it leave open?
GovernancePublic records
Twelve management FTE came out of the FY2026 staffing table and twelve went back in under different titles. Net change in full-time equivalents: zero. The table did not reveal that change, though. Board minutes had been carrying the new titles for eight months already.
GovernanceStaffing
Library values and financial fluency belong in the same room. Here is what leaders and boards can examine before business language starts driving public decisions.
ManagementPublic service
What changes when a public library adopts business measures, management language, and staffing logic—and what boards can examine before services shrink.
ManagementGovernance
An exploratory title-level forum analysis, followed by a historical interpretation. The sample does not measure profession-wide departures.
LaborResearch methods
The thing that makes librarians irreplaceable is not what they know. It's what they decide you should encounter.
CurationProfessional judgment