Librarianship has undergone a radical change in recent years, which will be continued in the future. Whereas previously the administration of media was most important, nowadays an ever increasing willingness to provide a service is required. In addition to the essential restructuring of libraries, a generational change is taking place within the core workforce. On the one hand this offers opportunities, but is also fraught with problems. This paper focuses on human resource management and shows ways towards the further development of libraries, which cause the least friction. First considered is the influence of the age structure of the library staff on the handling of innovations in librarianship, as well as changes in the daily work. Following this, various options available to the company management are presented, to enable them to disengage the further development of the library from the influence of the age structure. Finally the issue of the framework for a dynamic and conflict-free generational change in librarianship is addressed. (AEF)