Academic Library Directors

Academic Library Directors

Can You Take Your Library Where You Want To Go?

In my brochure I intentionally emphasized the opportunity to use the creation of a shared vision as an effective way of jump-starting your tenure as a new director. I also recommend you give serious thought to several other matters.

Managing Transitions

The first issue is “managing transitions.” Research shows that bringing in a new leader creates disruptions in a system, typically lasting 9 to 15 months. These disruptions are directly linked to the time it takes a new leader to really get to know the organization and for the organization to learn and acclimate to the style and agenda of the new leader. The type of planning session I conduct is designed to accelerate the learning experiences and to reduce and smooth out the period of transition from one leader to another.

Discontinuous Change:

The second issue is the enormity of the change with which your library is grappling. Almost all libraries are engaged in continuous change, but these changes are usually incremental in nature. Now we hear a lot of talk about “transformational” change—and as libraries operate in the age of the Web, transformational change is what we can expect to experience. Another term gaining popularity is “discontinuous” change. A group of library administrators at the Frye Leadership Institute last summer developed a list of changes they envision in libraries. A few of the examples listed here will give you a flavor. (The entire list appears in the January 2001 issue of Library Issues). Remember these changes are from the mouths of librarians, not higher education futurists.

Proliferation of Web resources and growing reliance of library users on them to the exclusion of print resources;
Struggle to find totally new ways to define our “libraries,” “collections,” titles, volumes/items, and their “use”; groping for breakthroughs or paradigm shifts to accomplish this redefinition;
Cannibalizing funding to acquire new digital technologies at the expense of traditional collections and services;
Anxiety-producing feeling that librarians as professionals don’t “know our business” like we once did (or felt we did); it is extremely difficult to be “an expert” in the areas we once were;

Some additional signs of the changes and challenges that lie ahead are the rise of distant education and the proliferation of tools being or soon to be offered by the commercial sector, e.g., Xanedu, elibrary, and Questia.

Changing attitudes of campus officials also need to be considered. Recently officials of the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities, an accrediting body, who were working on a revision of existing standards, proposed to downgrade the importance of libraries in the accrediting process. It was most likely not an anti-library sentiment, but a reflection of what is taking place in the information world from the perspective of academic officials who are not librarians.

Magic of Whole-Scale Change:

It is this dynamic environment in which you are beginning this next phase of your professional career. There are a lot of people who are counting on you to solve problems that have been awaiting your arrival. You would be taking a giant step forward if you were able to find a way to release the ideas, creativity, and enthusiasm of your new associates. I believe this is possible.

You might be interested in consulting a book entitled Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations. It was written by Dannemiller Tyson Associates and was published in 2000 by Berrett-Koehler in San Francisco.

Kathie Dannemiller, a principal author and one of the architects of “whole-scale” change techniques doesn’t talk about a planning process, but rather she refers to the “magic” of whole-scale change which has the power to take an organization on a journey. To me this vision goes far beyond mere organizational change. I’ve had the privilege of working with Kathie on several occasions. She is quite an extraordinary person. The book not only describes the processes I use, but also explains the underlying research on which the techniques are based.

Again, if you have questions, please contact me.

Richard M. Dougherty

Dougherty & Associates PO Box 8330 - Ann Arbor, MI 48107