Ten Things About Katina

Katina Strauch, founder of the Charleston Conference, is someone I’ve grown to admire over the years. Last month, she had a conversation with Richard Charkin, moderated by Richard Gallagher of Annual Reviews, as the conference’s opening keynote. While I looked forward to hearing her speak for the first time, I had no idea that I would learn so much, that we would have so much in common, or that she would be an inspiration to people like me.

By “like me,” I’m specifically referring to the perception that a Black man from Louisiana is the antithesis of a white lady from South Carolina. But her story as an entrepreneur resonated with me in ways I didn’t anticipate. Here are ten things I learned about Katina that unexpectedly made me feel seen.

1. Skills can be self-taught.

Katina worked in the library before getting her degree in librarianship. And despite her studying to be a librarian, her first job required her to perform duties outside of the scope of her expertise. Learning on the job set her up to get the Charleston Conference started from scratch without any experience and manage it successfully over the years to become a global community. This reminded me of my journey, turning a philosophy and English degree into a career in marketing, sales, and eventually business and entrepreneurship. Each skill I needed to perform my duties in each of my successive roles was self-taught. And with the rewiring of modern work, developing our own skills by way of lifelong learning will no longer be the exception to the rule.

2. Always be learning.

It’s one thing to develop a practice of teaching yourself skills as an early career professional. It’s totally different to continue doing so well into retirement. Katina touched on her perspectives on artificial intelligence, particularly how it’s worth keeping a pulse on but not developing premature (over)reactions to. She acknowledged the use cases where generative AI could be applied today, not framing it as a threat to librarianship, but rather a complement. Her nuanced understanding of AI stood out to me, especially considering how many library leaders wrestle with understanding this technology and its implications.

But beyond her understanding of AI, she displayed an appetite for lifelong learning with her love of conferences. During one segment of her fireside chat, she discussed whether she had considered other locations for the conference besides Charleston. Katina recalled the various cities that she considered, places where competitive events began to crop up over the years, and how it all influenced what the conference has become today.

Competitive intelligence, or the process of collecting and analyzing information about competitors, market trends, and other external factors in order to make strategic business decisions, is not common in the library events industry. But Katina’s drive to become the best in the market resonated with me in many ways as a self-taught CEO. I often describe my role as “chief everything officer,” because as soon as you think you have a handle on the job, a new challenge presents itself that you have to master.

3. Quit jobs you hate. Do jobs you love.

When recounting her experience in her first job as a librarian, Katina said, “I hated that job. Life is too short to work jobs we hate. So just quit and find something you enjoy doing.”

While I was surprised to hear Katina suggest this, I couldn’t agree more. No organization or work culture is perfect. But with so many employers, and so much work to be done, it is hard to justify showing up where we are consistently uncomfortable. A large part of what pushed me toward entrepreneurship was that the expectations and culture of my employer no longer met my needs. Responding to this did require a great deal of sacrifice, including relocation, learning new skills, and taking a short-term reduction in pay to put myself on a long-term trajectory that more closely aligned with my personal goals.

4. All it takes is an idea.

Katina never planned to start a conference. But a conversation about an antiquarian book fair at the College of Charleston made her wonder where interesting conversations among librarians and their suppliers were taking place. After she invited a small group of publishers and acquisitions folks to Charleston one year, word began to spread. And soon after people began asking whether it would happen again, the rest became history.

Coincidentally, the conversation inspiring my company, Skilltype (note: Annual Reviews, the publisher of Katina, is an investor in Skilltype), also took place in Charleston. I was having lunch with a group of library directors from across the Southeast US when I asked, “What keeps you up at night professionally?” Sylverna Ford, once dean of libraries at the University of Memphis, answered, “My people. Are they earning enough? Are they fulfilled in their work? Is our team diverse enough to meet the needs of our patrons?” Other deans began chiming in, sparking a 20-minute conversation about the complexities of managing and developing staff in the twenty-first century. I left that meeting inspired and curious, not about any solution, but about the problem of people development in libraries.

5. Build what people want.

During the keynote, Richard Gallagher asked about the Charleston Conference’s history and how it arrived at its current iteration. Katina’s response was that she simply built what people wanted. Having a small gathering that prioritized intimate conversations and the exchange of ideas made it easy to keep a pulse on her audience.

This reminded me of the early days of developing Skilltype. For the first two years, we met monthly with a group of nine libraries to understand the challenges organizations face developing effective teams. These conversations were instrumental in helping us find a unique identity as a business.

6. Develop a point of view.

Anyone who has the opportunity to hear Katina speak knows that she has a clear point of view. From keeping the conference in Charleston amidst backlash toward the South, to intentionally designing a meeting that recognizes vendors and library leaders as allies instead of adversaries, Katina demonstrates that our industry is better off when people develop a perspective they have conviction about rather than toeing the party line.

This reminded me of an experience I had in January 2020, halfway through year one of my Boston University Libraries residency. I shared on Twitter an excerpt from a Harvard Business Review article regarding the role digital labor platforms are beginning to play in shaping standard employment agreements. It included the prompt for library leaders to take note of this trend. Not to adopt it at their institutions, or to even agree with it. But merely to take note.

What started as a discussion quickly turned into a months-long onslaught of quote tweets, ad hominem attacks, and outright defamation, with people referring to me as an enemy of the library and someone advocating for the precarity of library workers.

It was enough to make the average person quit their job and reconsider their career decisions. Fortunately, I had garnered enough personal experience with library professionals of all types and ranks to know that the opinions of others, no matter how fervent, shouldn’t affect my hard-won convictions. Fast forward to today: it is clear that Skilltype has not contributed to the precarity of library professionals (nor has any of my work). In fact, by ensuring equal access to quality skill development opportunities, it’s had the opposite effect. In my case, having a clear point of view and wrestling with complex ideas turned out to be a net positive for the industry, however it felt two months before COVID-19 shut down the world.

7. More dialogue, not less.

That experience made me a stronger proponent of quality conversations, not a weaker one—a perspective Katina shared during her keynote. Establishing a culture of conversation offered benefits beyond improving the Charleston Conference itself. Katina explained how it also helped to improve the broader library industry by paving the way for better services and products to be brought to market.

Another benefit of increased dialogue is that it helps strengthen our capacity for disagreement. It was refreshing to see Katina disagree with fellow panelist Richard Charkin, and he with her, primarily because the art of disagreement can be lost in today’s discourse. In the course of their hour-long conversation, they found several points of shared understanding to buttress the handful of areas where they didn’t see eye to eye. This set the tone for the conference attendees’ own discussion of controversial topics, including open access versus traditional publishing, artificial versus human intelligence, remote/hybrid work versus return to office (RTO), and more.

8. Vendors are partners.

With the exception of two years at Boston University Libraries, I have spent my fifteen-year library career as a vendor. Many conferences contribute to the unbalanced view of library vendors as either adversaries or friends, when the truth is that we are neither. While I have made personal friends in libraries through my work as a vendor, along with a handful of adversaries, the vast majority of my interactions and relationships are professional. The best relationships are consultative in nature with a high level of customer service. This involves working hard to understand what problems need to be solved and identifying which solutions will save the library time or money or increase their level of service to their constituents.

Katina is one of the first conference organizers I’ve met who champions this view, compared to the traditional view of vendors being nothing more than potential sponsors. Not only does her view strengthen the quality of the convening, it results in libraries receiving products and services that meet their evolving needs.

During my tenure at Ex Libris and EBSCO, I considered several partnerships to be the most mutually beneficial. Reflecting on these experiences surfaced several lessons I’ve applied throughout my career. This has resulted in our customers coming to us for conversations and projects that go beyond our software platform, extending into the type of work in which you rely on strategic partners.

9. Profit can be a good thing.

As a capitalist, I was most surprised to hear Katina’s defense of profit, especially in an industry that decries it in the public discourse (and despite the Charleston Conference now being nonprofit). Her opinion that the publishing industry has used its profit to positively transform the library industry is a controversial take in our community.

Early conversations with library leadership teams made us give serious consideration to forming Skilltype as a nonprofit. Nonprofits resonate with the library community due to their mission-driven focus. This allows libraries to justify partnerships with third parties that align with the profession’s code of ethics. However, providing critical infrastructure for libraries to serve patrons requires substantial investment. Relying on donations and fundraising from foundations makes it difficult for most projects to get off the ground, let alone reach a mature stage where they are able to consistently deliver services libraries can make future plans based upon. The for-profit structure allows a business to reinvest profits back into the organization, which allows the service to continue growing to meet the evolving needs of patrons and end users.

10. Think globally, not locally.

When asked about the future of the conference, Katina (who no longer has an active role in managing the conference, but who continues to serve in an advisory capacity) reiterated that she never anticipated things to grow as much as they have. The conference regularly attracts libraries and publishers from around the world to its South Carolina base but has a global footprint as well. The Charleston Hub recently announced plans for a new event in Southeast Asia.

When working for EBSCO, I learned the value of differing perspectives on the same problem. My first assignment supported libraries in over thirty countries. Over time, I began to notice patterns and trends that would not have been obvious only speaking with people from a single geography or culture. In an age where the library’s identity is being reshaped before our eyes, global perspectives are more important than ever. Collaboration is now more possible than in generations past due to technology being based in the cloud and physical proximity no longer being a requirement for work.

In conclusion, I encourage you to watch the keynote and develop your own takeaways about your career and our profession. And to all of the entrepreneurs out there both current and aspiring, keep going. You’ll get the inspiration you need right at the moment you need it most.