In January 2012, a group of four school library professors attending the ALA Midwinter Meeting were having lunch and discussing various issues related to the school library field. These school library professors agreed that one challenge facing the profession is preparing future leaders. As current school library leaders retire, it is difficult to…

This user's guide was developed to advance local planning at ARL member libraries. It is written for library leaders writ large and for anyone leading or contributing to research library planning processes. Users do not need advanced facilitation skills to benefit from this guide, but facilitators charged with supporting scenario planning will…

Purpose: The paper aims to provide an overall methodology and case study for the innovation and extension of a digital library, especially the service system. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the three-dimensional structure theory of the information service industry, this paper combines a comprehensive analysis with the practical experiences…

Change is inevitable and essential to any functioning institution. But change can be stressful, especially when it upsets established routines and patterns. Library managers need to be able to lead staff through episodes of change while remaining empathetic, and this book shows them how to: (1) Engage library staff in the process and encourage…

The Southeast Florida Library and Information Network (SEFLIN) has presented the Sun Seeker Leadership Institute biennially since 1997. SEFLIN, a multitype library consortium headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, was one of the first groups to sponsor a library leadership institute held as a monthly series of events over the period of a year. One…

Fewer employees, shorter hours, diminished collection budgets, reduced programs and services--all at a time of record library usage. In this book, library expert Carol Smallwood demonstrates that despite the obvious downsides, the necessity of doing business differently can be positive, leading to partnering, sharing, and innovating. This…

This article describes a qualitative upward evaluation of the leadership performance of library managers. Follow-up studies were conducted, focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of the qualitative approach to upward appraisal. The authors discuss pros and cons to guide others who might use this methodology for upward appraisals in the…

Like most academic libraries, Purdue University Calumet depends heavily on student workers for its daily operations. After the investment of time and effort involved in training student workers, it is important to retain them from one year to the next. This case study examines training procedures that are designed to cultivate a sense of mutual…

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…

This document serves as a source of friendly, practical, and proven advice about running the elementary school library. The looseleaf notebook format allows for removal of forms for copying and for additional pages. Section 1, "Roles & Responsibilities: You Want Me To Do What? When?" considers the mission of the school librarian, and includes a…

Written to guide librarians and staff in all types of libraries, this manual describes steps in the processes of writing collection development statements and assessing library collections. The first section focuses on the collection development policy--the benefits of a written policy, who should write the statement, and elements to be included.…

This book, written by a number of library professionals, familiarizes the reader with the motives for and purposes of evaluation and the major contexts and models for evaluation and provides explicit examples how evaluation projects have been and can be carried out in a variety of library contexts. The strategies in this book grew from the S:OLE…

Discusses principles of law library management and presents three problem solving exercises for law librarianship training. American Bar Association standards for law school libraries are presented, with interpretations, and appendices provide a job description for an assistant law librarian and bylaws of the American Law Schools concerning…

This manual provides librarians and library managers with a performance appraisal system that measures staff fairly and objectively and links performance to the goals of the library. The following topics are addressed: (1) identifying expectations for quality service or standards of performance; (2) the importance of a library's code of service,…

A personnel appraisal tool was developed at the Iowa State University Library for professionals supervised by the Assistant Director for Technical Services and the Head of the Monographs Department, to evaluate both their supervisors' performance and the appraisal review as an educational tool to improve administrator performance. A Technical…