The head librarian role
Governance authority and audit transparency.
The head librarian is the governance seat at the Library. The role is held today by Dave Sullivan. This page explains what the head librarian can do, how those decisions are made openly, and how the role will open through application later.
What the head librarian does
The head librarian holds the authority that ordinary librarians do not. Specifically:
- Grants roles. Approves librarian applications. Grants the discussion-moderator role to existing patrons.
- Grants badges. Awards the state expert, OASTL board, ASTL board, friend of the Library, editorial contributor, and citizen historian badges.
- Decides applications. Reads the librarian-application queue (LA-YYYY-NNNNN tickets) and decides each one.
- Changes ticket types. Reclassifies a ticket when the patron filed it in the wrong channel — for example, a piece of feedback that is really a correction, or a correction that is really a citizen-historian source.
- Takes things down when warranted. Removes material that should not be on the Library — a doxxing post, a piece of source material that turns out to have no provenance, a published review that should not have cleared the queue.
- Resolves disputes. When two librarians disagree on a correction, or a patron and a librarian disagree on a moderation call, the head librarian has the last word.
The role is not editorial in the sense of writing the books. The book authorship is named on every book’s title page. The head-librarian role is about who keeps the institution running well.
How decisions get made openly
For each governance action, the head librarian writes a brief note explaining the decision — why this librarian application was accepted, why this badge was granted, why this ticket was reclassified, why this piece of material was taken down. These notes accumulate in an audit log that every librarian can read.
The audit log exists because governance that nobody can review tends to drift. The Library is small today; the head librarian’s decisions are easy to keep track of. As the Library grows, the audit log is the record that keeps the role honest. A future head librarian — and there will be one — will inherit the log and be expected to add to it the same way.
How to become head librarian
Today, you cannot apply. The role is held by Dave Sullivan, and the Library is small enough that the role does not need a queue.
When the Library grows past the point where one person can hold the role comfortably, the role will open through application. The open-application call will appear on this page when it does, with the same kind of form the librarian application uses. If you want to be notified when that happens, sign up for a Library Card and submit feedback saying so — the head librarian keeps a list.
Until then, if you have something to say that the role needs to hear, the Submit feedback on this page link at the bottom of any page reaches the head librarian along with the librarian queue.
More on tiers and advancement: /pro/roles/ — the institutional ladder, with the full list of recognition and stewardship paths.
