Founder's Syndrome

My Library group (including me) is suffering from Founder's Syndrome. Those of us who have been there since the beginning of our grassroots effort to make a library happen in our community are having to hand it off to others. And it's hard.

It's hard to see that a whole new group is taking over and depending less and less on our knowledge and experience - even though we know it's time to expand our vision. The new people don't know anything about how we got here and they seem adverse to learning from our mistakes, making them over and over.

However, I'm ready to step back. The new phase of the library is going to involve getting people who know people who can give lots of money to build the new facility - not just us worker bees who sort and shelve the books and hold book sales. We're talking about people who can raise millions of dollars. It won't be perfect, but I have faith that they can get the job done.

There are some of us, however, who can't accept the transition from day to day leadership to a more auxiliary role and are complaining to everyone within earshot that the "letter was too long" "the membership categories were not complete" "the mailing was late" etc, etc. But you know, someone else did it, and we didn't have to.

Our whole effort has been made up as we go along - we could step in and do an event, mailing, program, grant request at the last minute and so far, we're still reacting, rather than acting. But I think this will change as the new group goes forward.

Will they do everything perfectly? Probably not. Would they be smart to listen to the old folks? Probably. Will the Library survive and prosper? I have every hope.