Reflections: Does it Take a Librarian to Lead a Library

Harvard Law School recently hired John Palfrey as the new Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources (LLB post).  Over at Madisonian.net, Mike Madison considers Palfrey's creds and their potential implications for the future:

Does it take a librarian to lead a library?

Harvard thinks not. I’m guessing that John Palfrey persuaded Elena Kagan, the HLS Dean, that the substantive and methodological challenges that librarians confront these days are not significantly different than the substantive and methodological challenges that any manager of a complex information environment confronts.  Not anyone can manage the Harvard Law Library, but there may no longer be anything distinctively “library-ish” about the position.

Is Harvard right?  And if it is, will other schools and universities agree?

Weighty questions providing much food for thought.  At first glance, it seems simplistic to so easily dismiss the "library-ish"-ness of a position charged with managing the largest law library in the US. [JJ]