Our Head retires this summer, or sooner really.

So we had an interesting meeting this afternoon with his boss. Picking all our collective brains on what we'd like to see in the way of job spec for his successor.

Some feared the worst - the possibility of being converged with IT, or perhaps losing a Head altogether as some other reorganization happened, or perhaps getting a 'manager' replacement rather than a librarian.

But actually the meeting was strangely reassuring in that it sounded (no promises of course) as though they were looking for a professional librarian, thinking about whether he/she should gain small related areas such as study skills, or learning & teaching departments etc, and not planning on any major structural changes.

Of course, you could also interpret it as being a desire for 'more of the same' rather than looking for any radical or dynamic visionary thinking. I think that's one difference with TheOldPlace which was more willing to take a chance and be more innovative it seemed.