As the amount of online information continues to grow along with the changing landscape in higher education, academic libraries are facing changes where academic library leaders are navigating new challenges. Academic libraries provide different services depending on the institution. Institutions with fewer than 10,000 students were the target…

Reaching the "leadership zone" happens when librarians tap into the extraordinary skills lying within to overcome obstacles and transform sometimes-difficult situations into meaningful outcomes. Maturing into an experienced leader who stays in the leadership zone requires knowledge, training, and practice. This article provides tactical…

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the political and strategic skills needed by library leaders in today's library environment. The discussion is based on a small scale research project focused on opinions of skills needed by library leaders. The survey involved a questionnaire of librarianship students and library practitioners as well…

Seven articles address topics related to leadership and library administration: (1) the nature of leadership; (2) the role of mentorship in developing library leaders; (3) the relationship between leadership and personnel development; (4) leadership roles for librarians; (5) library directors as middle managers; (6) raising librarians' salaries;…

Outlines the development of public library policies and relationships with local government. Discussed are the prototype library, the imbalance of funding between large and small libraries, lack of theory in library education, and implications of the collectivist theory. The need for strong leadership and evaluation of library programs is…

Focuses on the intellectual character of academic librarianship and defines the concept of librarians' programmatic responsibilities. These responsibilities are by definition undelegatable and constitute an exclusive locus of power within the profession. The role of librarians should be determined by these exclusive responsibilities, not by…

Arguing that traditional models are no longer effective in the information, age in which change will be a constant, this paper advocates the use of team-management to ensure two-way communication in an academic library. The need for both creative approaches to problem-solving and managing the library organization and a new organizational structure…

Libraries must identify and foster the inherent personal characteristics and skills considered most relevant for leadership in the field of information management. Professional library associations play an important role in teaching and developing skills by providing experiential opportunities for their membership. Career models for academic or…

Analyzes the methodology and findings of the "Management Review of the Library of Congress" completed in 1996. Highlights include mission statements; organizational structure; lack of strategic planning; performance measurement for support staff; the need for distributed leadership roles; the future of the Library of Congress; and…

Discusses the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and the role of school library media specialists. Focuses on principals' perceptions of media specialists in five categories: information literacy; collaboration, leadership, and technology; learning and teaching; information access and delivery; and program administration; and suggests that…

Describes the New York State Library's planning process and visions for its future in networked services. Topics discussed include roles for the library in a networked environment; leadership in networked services and training; network navigation; organizational response; services to state agencies and local government; and public kiosk services.…

Focusing on the point of contrast between the library, whose primary role is the preservation of knowledge, and other dimensions of an information society where knowledge has become increasingly fragmented and exteriorized, this paper begins by defining leadership and reviewing various meanings assigned to the term "discourse." Several…

This discussion of effective communication for leaders in the field of librarianship begins by providing a historical overview which highlights the librarian's influential role from the earliest days of recorded language; the evolution and modification of words in individual languages from crude forms to their electronic storage and transmission;…

This paper discusses changes in information services at university libraries in Israel, focusing on the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Highlights include: combining the 20 departmental libraries at the Technion into one library system; efforts to build the status of the central library as the libraries' leader; the integrated library…