MEET THE CONSULTANT

Meet the Consultant

Since his retirement from the University of Michigan, Dick has worked with clients to create visions, plan strategically, and implement action plans successfully. His objective is to help organizations meet the challenge of managing continuous change. He currently works with public and academic libraries, and other types of organizations to create visions that can be transformed into strategic action plans.

Because many organizations are recognizing the need to reengineer traditional operating procedures, Dougherty provides instruction in the use of simple, yet effective tools for analyzing and streamlining work procedures. He also helps organizations to increase staff communication and participation and staff morale.

With wide experience as both administrator and teacher, Dick is able to create a serious yet relaxed environment in which participants feel comfortable enough to rethink old ideas and “try on” new ones. They also have a chance to explore, with a renewed sense of commitment, their own roles within the organization as well as the organization's role in the larger community.

Biographical data:

Dick is an experienced librarian and Organizational Design consultant. He has served in a variety of professional roles: Director of the University of California Berkeley for 6 years and the University of Michigan Library for 10 years. He served as a professor at the Michigan School of Information between 1988 and 1998. For 7 years he was a trustee of the Ann Arbor District Library.

He served as editor of C&RL for 5 years. He founded Mountainside Publishing Co. in 1974. For 20 years he was founder/publisher/or editor of the Journal of Academic Librarianship, Research Strategies, and Library Issues.

Dougherty has served on numerous organizational boards and was an American Library Association president. He now specializes in introducing organizational change. He has served as consultant to libraries around the world in such areas as management, systems planning, and managing organizational change and has recently conducted workshops on reference services in web environments, redesign of library operations, document delivery, and assessing user needs.

Dick holds a doctorate from Rutgers. He also completed a nine-month program offered by Lippitt and Associates on planned change for organizations. He received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater Purdue University in 1991 for his work in academic libraries and on behalf of ALA. He also received an honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 1995, citing specifically his fight on behalf of libraries worldwide against rising costs of library periodical subscriptions. He has also received numerous honors from library associations, including the Hugh Atkinson and Joseph Lippincott awards.

Dougherty & Associates - 321 S. Main St., #213 / PO Box 8330 - Ann Arbor, MI 48107 - (734)-662-3925