JO'D: Well, I was really privileged to get to this for a second year. It's an interesting opportunity for librarians to get to see provosts out of their native habitat, but also for provosts to get out of their native habitat a little bit too and talk to some other folks. I'm going to tell you I learned three things this morning. One of them came from Beth, Paul, provost at Stetson University, who was. describing the value she sees in librarians being neutral within the institution. Well, we had a little dis- cussion of that to see exactly what that means, but what I really resonated with is that when you are sitting at the center of the institution you are very much aware that there are a lot of stakeholders who have parochial interests. A business school dean may be interested in the business school and doesn't care all that much about the botany department. Librarians are not inert or neutered, but they are neutral in the sense that they do take an institution-wide perspective and when the librarian says to me "Jim, here is something I think we should be doing," I'm going to take that seriously, and I think the lesson for the librarians who are here is to know they've got that power,they've got that credibility, if they will use it to advance what they see as really a strategic interest of the institution.
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