News from the Field
Interview with Doug Lehman
Past President of FACRL
by Jamie Gill, Eckerd College
Doug Lehman is currently Head of Instruction and Information Services, Bailey/Howe Library at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. While living in Florida he was President of FACRL (1993/94); member of the FACRL Board (1989-95); Chair of the Florida Association of Community Colleges Learning Resources Commission (1993); member (1990-97) and Chair (1993-94) of the College Center for Library Automation Advisory Board; member (1987-97) and President (1995-96) of the Southeast Florida Library Network, Inc. (SEFLIN). During this time he was recipient of the FACC Learning Resources Commission Special Achievement Award (1994); Indiana University School of Library and Information Science Distinguished Alumni Award (1998); and SEFLIN Vista Award (1999). Doug served on the OCLC Users Council from 1992-1997 and is still active with ACRL at the national level.
JG: Doug, you moved from Miami, which is very populated, to Vermont, which is sparsely populated. You also changed from a position with a large community college to working in a university library. How do you view these changes?
DL: Jamie, you are right in that Vermont is sparsely populated compared with Miami. There are just over 600,000 people in the entire state. Of course, it is a smaller geographic area than Florida, but larger than South Florida. In many ways Vermont is quite a bit like the area of Ohio where I grew up, except it has mountains. Northwestern Ohio is as flat as South Florida. So, from that standpoint it has been a bit like going home. It is very rural and they are very concerned about development of the land here.
Certainly there have been changes for me in the work environment. The University of Vermont, more commonly called UVM, is a Carnegie Classification I intensive-research university. We have four library facilities on campus, of which the Bailey/Howe Library is the largest. In fact, it is the largest in the state. The UVM Libraries holdings are around 1.4 million books and 4, 000 current serial subscriptions. We have over 80 subscription databases as well as thousands of electronic journals, books and web sites that we provide access to. Our acquisitions budget is around $4,000,000.
But, one thing I have learned is that, in the end, everything is relative. I remember staff at Miami-Dade saying how great it would be to have that kind of budget, but the reality is that the pressures on that budget is as great here as it was on our budget at M-DCC. We have doctoral programs in the sciences and a college of engineering which we must support at the appropriate levels and there are resources that we would like to be able to provide for them, but we are not always able to do so.
JG: What adjustments did you have to make in transitioning to a university position, if any?
DL: I think it is just like going into any new position. You have to be sure to listen first and find out what the issues are that need to be dealt with. In certain respects the situation here was reminiscent to that at M-DCC. For example, our promotion process here is similar to that at M-DCC, but we also have to go through a reappointment process for library faculty. Library faculty do not have tenure here, unlike at M-DCC.
The biggest challenge, in many respects, has just been trying to deal with and get a handle on our reference collection. We estimate it to be around 40,000 volumes, which would be the third largest library collection at M-DCC. We are trying to make the shift from print to electronic, but it is a real challenge with a collection that size and with a budget that will not stretch.
JG: Florida has many library organizations (and you were active in most of them). What is the library organizational structure of Vermont?
DL: There is a state library, called the Department of Libraries, which is housed in Montpelier, the Vermont state capital. There are state colleges in Lyndonville, Johnson and Castleton; Vermont Technical College in Randolph; and, the Community College of Vermont in a number of locations around the state. Public libraries range from the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington to small one room libraries in some of the towns. Additionally there are several private universities and colleges around the state.
The state-wide organization is the Vermont Library Association. Like the state, it is small and laid back, yet it takes a leadership role in library matters on the state level. The annual Vermont Library Conference, held in cooperation with the Vermont Educational Media Association, is the high point of the year. The conference is like the FLA conference in that there are exhibitors and speakers and presentations.
JG: Does Vermont utilize consortiums the way Florida does?
DL: In the past year Vermont successfully negotiated a contract with Gale for access to many of its electronic resources. This is a state-wide contract which has provided everyone with greater access to information than any library was able to provide on their own. To my knowledge this was the first consortial-type purchase in the state.
On the whole though, consortia as we know them in Florida, do not exist in Vermont. One of the problems here is that UVM is so much larger than any other institution in the state. It would be as if UF existed in a vacuum without having the other state universities in the state. There also may be Vermont’s tradition of self-sufficiency at work here. I know that there is some sense that because of the disparity in sizes that there may not be anything at the other libraries that our students could use, but I know there have been discussions about possibly establishing reciprocal borrowing privileges with one of the local colleges in Burlington.
But, the concept of regional cooperatives such as SEFLIN, TBLC, PLAN, NEFLIN, CFLC and SWFLIN is on a scale which is beyond the scope of library activities in Vermont.
JG: Have you remained active in local and regional organizations?
DL: I have not become active in the Vermont Library Association or the New England Library Association. I have become active in the University Library Section of ACRL by serving on the Communications Committee and have been appointed to a College Libraries Section committee this year and hope to be appointed to an ACRL committee.
JG: You were president of FACRL in 1993/94. Is there anything special that you remember about your presidency or your years on the FACRL Board of Directors? Did you presidency of FACRL help you in any way (leadership skills…)?
DL: I remember that I used to have a beard and moustache then. I was on the Board for several years before I became president and I served as secretary for a couple of years before becoming vice-president. I think that helped prepare me for leading the organization for a year. Grady Morein was responsible for my becoming involved and I always remember being thrilled when he asked me to stand for election to the Board. He had a very good way of running meetings and getting work done. I guess in some ways I hoped I emulated him a bit when it came my turn. I tried to do what needed to be done to ensure that we had our fall meeting and then our spring meeting in conjunction with FLA. I guess my lasting legacy is that I didn’t take the organization into debt.
FACRL was one of my first forays into library associations outside of Dade County. I got involved in the Community and Junior College Libraries Section of ACRL at the same time, but I moved into a leadership role in FACRL first. I think that it was helpful in learning how to run meetings, how to plan programs, how to work with a diverse group on the Board and how to interact with the national organization.
At the time I was president of FACRL I was also the chair of the CCLA Advisory Board and Chair of the FACC Learning Resources Commission. I think there were times when my staff wondered exactly who I was working for. I was Director of Library Technical Services for M-DCC at that time and I know I was on the road a lot leading those organizations. I don’t recommend that anyone try to lead that many organizations and if I had to do it again, I am sure I would not have done so either.
JG: You worked at Miami-Dade Community College for a number of years. Do you have any thoughts on the move in Florida for many community colleges to become 4-year institutions?
DL: Florida is such an interesting state in many ways. Unlike other states with large populations it really has a limited provision for people who want to get a bachelor’s degree, but not get hung up in the bureaucracy of a large research institution. California is the best example, of course, but other states have worked out solutions as well. Indiana and Ohio have regional campuses of the flagship universities which are designed to provide bachelor-level education for citizens and several state universities.
I am happy to see Florida move in this direction. It is a tough thing, because the SUS has carved out its territory and now some of the community colleges will be moving in, but there is plenty for everyone in Florida. There can be real problems when institutions get too large too fast and the infrastructure is not there. Of course, what I’d really have liked to see was Florida establish four-year colleges to allow citizens to matriculate there, but I don’t think that is going to happen.
What the administrations of the community colleges, and the state leadership, must realize is that they cannot offer bachelor-level programs in any discipline with the current library resources. There must be an infusion of funding to provide resources, be they print or electronic, to support those programs. They have a chance here to make a dynamic statement about how they are going to provide access to information. It will be interesting to see if they step up to the plate and hit it out of the ballpark or strike out.
JG: What do you see as the implications for community college librarians with this trend? (i.e. tenure, professional productivity)
DL: It was my understanding when I left the state that most of the community college librarians are now represented by collective bargaining agreements. Because of this it all gets tied up in a union contract regarding issues like you mentioned above. There isn’t much that can be done in an existing contract. However, contracts are renegotiated every three years and it is possible that a community college administration may wish to change those tenure and promotion requirements for teaching and non-teaching faculty.
JG: Do you like living in Vermont?
On the whole I enjoy it here a great deal. The past winter was a bit tough as we had several days where our high temperature did not reach, or barely exceeded, 0 degrees. At the same time, last summer we had several days over 90 degrees and I have yet to succumb to purchasing an air conditioner. Most of the time the weather is very pleasant. Burlington is really a very livable city. It is the largest city in the state with a population of 39,000. I have really enjoyed the opportunity to do some hiking in the Green Mountains and just driving around the state and taking in the beauty of Vermont. I’ve also been fortunate to hear a number of my favorite performers in Burlington since I’ve been here, such as Doc Watson and Jackson Browne.
JG: What do you miss about Florida?
I miss my daughter and my friends. My daughter will be graduating from FIU this spring and from there who knows where she’ll go. After nineteen years I had some really good friends who I now see twice a year or, in some cases, not at all as they too have moved from Miami. I also miss Tex-Mex Restaurant and Shorty’s Bar-B-Que in Kendall. It’s impossible to find good Mexican and barbeque here.
Jimmy Buffett! The closest he gets here is south of Boston and I’ve missed him the last two years and will not see him again this year (he is very popular in New England). I have discovered that I do miss the beaches (I don’t know why; I rarely went there when I lived in Miami). I also miss the Everglades. It was nice to be able to go out there. And I miss the Florida Keys.
Like Joni Mitchell sang a long time ago: “you don’t know
what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” But, the other
part of her song is “pave paradise and put up a parking lot”
which, unfortunately, is a lot of what is going on in South Florida. I
am always amazed when I go back at how much more development has taken
place. I worried when I lived there how much development South Florida
can take and I still worry about it.
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Chapter of ACRL.
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Last modified: March 19, 2004