Staff reorganizations and department mergers are common strategies libraries use to respond to changing needs and economic pressures. To make organizational changes work well, however, librarians need to consider how best to bring people on board and enable them to thrive in the new environment. This article argues that the creation of a core…

This paper presents the results of thirty-seven interviews of senior library leaders at American Association of University (AAU) institutions conducted in Spring 2023. The author replicated a 2016 study from "portal," revealing an increased focus on strategic plan-based decision-making along with new priorities of open scholarship and…

During COVID-19, academic library employees pivoted to predominantly remote work. Associate deans, associate university librarians, and equivalent managers at the top 50 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions were interviewed about benefits, challenges, pre-pandemic norms, necessary conditions, and the future of flexible work…

Leading organizational change can be an enticing and exciting venture for library professionals. However, unforeseen difficulties can challenge even the most enthusiastic leader. This article explores one librarian's experience with organizational change and offers practical strategies for weathering obstacles to the success of new initiatives in…

Library employees face countless changes, big and small, in their workplaces every day: not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also such commonplace events as open positions, renovations, budget cuts, and new library systems. No single handbook can anticipate all the changing needs. This case study discusses how one particular library responded, in a…

Arizona State University (ASU) is known for both enormous size and scale, as well as excellence in research and innovation. These attributes are embodied in the ideal of the "New American University." ASU Library, as a partner in the New American University, has reorganized itself, completed a large-scale renovation of its main library…

Library public services staff have primarily focused on providing services through interactions with their users. Although service quality and customer satisfaction are important in the delivery of these services, the emphasis and nature of the work have often been influenced by a library-centric philosophy rather than a user-centric philosophy.…

Bent on improving the teaching and learning experience, enhancing the productivity of researchers, and increasing the visibility of research outputs, libraries are redistributing staff, reallocating resources, and reorganizing internal structures, all to better partner campus-wide. Nowhere is the impact of this push for service innovation and user…

Two academic libraries undergoing significant organizational changes were the location for a project that researched how staff members and subunits of the libraries made collective judgments, negotiated what is sometimes called the "landscape of practice"--the collective body of knowledge of their profession--and thus came to collective…

To determine how academic library leaders make decisions about their organization's future and how they effect changes, the author interviewed 44 university librarians and deans from institutions belonging to the Association of American Universities (AAU). The author analyzed the interviews using content analysis to identify the most frequent…

This article takes a broad view of the evolution of collecting behaviors in a network environment and suggests some future directions based on various simple models. The authors look at the changing dynamics of print collections, at the greater engagement with research and learning behaviors, and at trends in scholarly communication. The goal is…

This article provides a historiographical analysis of major leadership and organizational development theories that have shaped our thinking about how we lead and administrate academic libraries. Drawing from behavioral, cognitive, systems, and complexity theories, this article discusses major theorists and research studies appearing over the past…

This paper is an extension of the author's earlier work on developing management information services and creating a culture of assessment in libraries. The author will focus observations on the use of data in decision-making in libraries, specifically on the role of leadership in making evidence-based decision a reality, and will review new…

In recent years academic librarians have sought to partner with other organizations of higher education to establish areas of mutual interest and to work together to further these areas. Richard Ekman, as president of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), has involved librarians in various CIC programs. This past year, under Richard's…

In the rapidly changing information environment, libraries have to demonstrate that their services have relevance, value, and impact for stakeholders and customers. To deliver effective and high quality services, libraries have to assess their performance from the customer point of view. Moving to an assessment framework will be more successful if…