Leading Change In Academic Libraries

"Institutions of higher education and academic libraries are not the traditional organizations they once were. They are subject to a variety of forces, including shifting and changing populations, technological changes, public demands for affordability and accountability, and changing approaches to research and learning. Academic libraries can no longer establish their excellence and ground their missions, visions, and strategic directions using the old means and methods. Leading Change in Academic Libraries is a collection of 20 change stories authored by academic librarians from different types of four-year institutions. Librarians tell the story firsthand of how they managed major change in processes, functions, services, programs, or overall organizations using John Kotter's Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change as a framework for examining change at their institutions, measuring their successes and areas for improvement, and determining progress. In five sections--strategic planning, reorganization, culture change, new roles, and technological change--chapters discuss tackling common challenges such as fear, anxiety, change fatigue, complacency, unexpected changes of leadership, vacancies, and resistance; look at the results of their tactics; and provide effective practices they found. Each section ends with a thorough analysis of the stories within and the most effective tips for leading that kind of change. Leading Change in Academic Libraries can help you establish flexible, nimble, and collaborative decision-making processes, and facilitate the transition from legacy collections-based libraries to forward-looking service-based libraries"--from the ALA website.

Managing Change in Academic Libraries helps academic librarians plan, implement, and manage changes to the fundamental structure of their organizations. It shows readers that in academic libraries the two driving forces behind most change are economics and technology. Declines in funding for education and in the purchasing power of libraries have made it impossible to maintain the status quo, let alone realize growth, in traditional information services and collection development. Add to this downward trend in library economics, the explosion of new information technology and its potential for radically altering communications and knowledge management, and one has the ingredients for some amazing changes in libraries. To help manage these many changes, chapters in Managing Change in Academic Libraries approach change with a mixture of radical and rational ideas. Readers learn academic librarians’views on dealing with change as they read about: an environmental scan which identifies both internal and external forces that are increasing the amount and scope of change in academic libraries technological change and its impact in academic libraries the academic library director’s role as an agent of change how two large library systems managed to change in some very fundamental ways when faced with serious economic and political challenges difficult personnel issues faced by academic libraries as they move into new organizational structures and adopt new management styles the future of traditional reference services in light of rapid developments in computing and networking how to change bibliographic control to better serve the changing expectations and needs of user communities conducting a restructuring study and recommendations for organizational change in a large research library system Each chapter shows academic librarians how they can respond imaginatively and nimbly to economic, political, and technological change that envelopes their professional work life. Academic librarians will refer to Managing Change in Academic Libraries again and again as a survival tool as they meet with challenging and unpredictable changes.

In three parts--Library Organizations and Academic Culture, The Seven Stages of Leadership Development, and Cultural Intelligence and Global Leadership--Becoming a Library Leader offers a wealth of resources to help you progress through the seven stages of leadership development: Understanding Yourself and Your Leadership Potential ; Emotional Intelligence and Leadership ; Vision and Strategy ; Leading with Intention ; What Leaders Really Do: Communicate and Change ; Correcting through Reflecting ; Mind-Set, Grit, and Resilience.

This open access collection examines how higher education responds to the demands of the automation economy and the fourth industrial revolution. Considering significant trends in how people are learning, coupled with the ways in which different higher education institutions and education stakeholders are implementing adaptations, it looks at new programs and technological advances that are changing how and why we teach and learn. The book addresses trends in liberal arts integration of STEM innovations, the changing role of libraries in the digital age, global trends in youth mobility, and the development of lifelong learning programs. This is coupled with case study assessments of the various ways China, Singapore, South Africa and Costa Rica are preparing their populations for significant shifts in labour market demands – shifts that are already underway. Offering examples of new frameworks in which collaboration between government, industry, and higher education institutions can prevent lagging behind in this fast changing environment, this book is a key read for anyone wanting to understand how the world should respond to the radical technological shifts underway on the frontline of higher education.

Libraries of all types have undergone significant developments in the last few decades. The rate of change in the academic library, a presence for decades now, has been increasing in the first decade of this century. It is no exaggeration to claim that it is undergoing a top to bottom redefinition. Cataloging and reference remain central to its new role, and the circulation of books is still high though declining. Among the changes is the architecture of the library: when new libraries replace old or where renovation is occurring; the role of technology at every stage and in every library application; the management of serials – selection, shelving and budgeting; and in a gradual but irrevocable move to digital forms, altered allocation of resources including larger portions of the budget diverted to preservation, not only of aging books, a theme in the latter part of the last century, but of digital files – cultural, historical, personal. In brief, the academic library is dramatically different today than it was only ten years ago. And with it, the profession of the academic librarian is also undergoing significant changes. Managing digital resources in all its forms, from telecommunications to storage and access devices, is central to its new roles. Creating, curating and preserving digital information is also key to the new librarianship. And what about services to its clients? Here also we see dramatic change, particularly but not exclusively with guiding library users in the effective use of networked knowledge. Information literacy is a key term and skill in using the new tools of digital literacy: reading and writing, searching and extracting; and the new technologies that drive social networking – the Iphone, Ipad, and Ipod and its many imitators. We can’t expect the redefined academic library to assume its final shape any time soon, if ever, but the transformation is well underway. This series: Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library, will explore this topic from a number of different perspectives. Volume 1, Visionary Leadership and Futures, will begin the discussion by examining some of the new roles and directions academic libraries are taking.

Academic libraries undergo episodes of strategic change. Transformational change may be seen as fundamentally different from other kinds of change. A part of this process is often deep level cultural change. At the individual level this may be traumatic, but at the strategic level, such change can prove essential. Achieving Transformational Change in Academic Libraries explores the purpose and nature of ‘Transformational Change’ and its exponents, and discusses the benefits and limitations of its place in an academic library setting. The title is divided into five chapters, covering: a definition of transformational change; drivers of transformational change and its place in a strategic change agenda; selling the vision of cultural change; human resource issues and cultural change; and the nature of change as a constant. Provides innovative interdisciplinary research Offers context-free, practical examples of the role of transformational leadership in achieving cultural change and strategic organisational development Explores the sometimes ambiguous relationship between transformational and transactional leadership

In a time when libraries have to face constant change, this book provides examples and advises on how to lead when change is needed (for example, when quality management is implemented or when libraries have to merge or to relocate). Engaging with how constant change affects leadership in libraries and how leaders in libraries act in times of change, this book is aimed at practitioners and students of Library and Information Science (LIS) alike, and is based on both theory and expert interviews from leaders in academic and public libraries that are in the midst, or are now coming out of a process of change. Provides practical solutions for real change situations and problems in libraries Includes expert interviews Written by a professor with nine years experience as a member the management team for the German National Library of Science and Technology