library directors as subculture in academic libraries?

I am desperately trying to understand the growing polarization of academic librarians and library management. One could claim both are subcultures in academic libraries except that the librarians are too disparate a group to be considered a subculture. A subculture has "a distinct set of values, norms, and practices within a larger culture" [the culture of academic libraries]. Academic librarians are only now organizing themselves into a group in response to a specific threat, one to their professionalism. I don't know if anyone has elucidated what the common values, norms and practices are for this group.

Even as an outsider, I do get the impression though that library directors are a subculture though. I don't know about yours, but ours meet regularly to discuss issues facing academic libraries within our region and act in concert (as much as possible) regarding specific issues and I believe have their own listserv. You commonly hear them asking "well what are the other libraries doing" when discussing various issues and based on my experience, they prefer to act in concert with other libraries (which may be considered reasonable in these budgetary times to reduce expenses).

The danger in any subculture is that they start to reinforce their own perceptions of reality. And in uncertain times this gets scarey as decisions may be based less upon externally available evidence than upon constantly circulating opinions. For me the tipping point which led to my consideration of the existence of a subculture, was the release of reports on the future of academic libraries that didn't reference their own librarians. Apparently we're part of the furniture of libraries with no role in the future of "their" respective libraries, that our knowledge, experience and dedication to a positive user experience is irrelevant to the future. Are we heading towards plug-and-play librarians with no emotional component, tools to be employed at their will?

But I digress. The more interesting query is "how have we arrived at this place?" assuming such a subculture exists. I suspect the process that brought us here is based on a number of factors including the commodification of education and the growth of university bureaucracy, the quicksand known as LIS under the influence of technology, changing roles in LIS, the growing cornucopia of digital and electronic resources and the parallel and increasing dearth of funds, the lack of organizations representing the interests of library professionals, along with uncertainty and fear on everyone's part. None of this helps us resolve the issues but one hopes it will bring a better understanding to both sides with respect to how these issues still drive us when we would all rather be in the driver's seat.