The diversity of topics covered in this book attests to the broad scope of responsibilities that managing libraries requires. Managers must prepare their buildings and staffs for disasters, set standards and enforce rules, and trust their staff members to have the judgment necessary to get the work done on a daily basis. One major theme of this book is that managers of libraries do so much more than approve payroll and build collections, especially when personnel is limited.
All of these aspects and more must be considered in order to operate a library with unique local circumstances while continuing to build rapport with the community. As Lynn Hawkins, executive director of Mentor (Ohio) Public Library writes, libraries and library managers have “long arms” that must embrace an even longer list of responsibilities. Different management styles are required for overall success, which is why supervisors should also be enablers. They should enable their library’s patrons to be proactive with their own needs, and they should enable their staff to reach out with their own powerful “long arms” to provide innovative and entrepreneurial means of assisting patrons.
The experiences of this volume’s contributors are proven ways of achieving goals. Chapters discuss the all-important role of communication, how to work with boards, ways to capitalize on resources at hand such as volunteers, creating and fostering partnerships, and how to merge service points—which is more than a current trend; it is a new standard that libraries face because their budgets cannot support enough staff to maintain different service desks. Other chapters relate plans for engaging students and patrons, taking advantage of open-source information technology to assist with management goals, and coaxing still more work out of employees, along with even more best practices for handling public relations and marketing.
Although libraries are in the business of providing customers with information and services as a kind of product, business models do not speak to the intricacies involved with running a library. After reading this book, we see the nuances of models and segments of styles that library managers seem to adopt instinctively.
Among their many roles, libraries are community centers, gathering spaces, academic pivot points, harbors, workspaces, learning centers, computing centers, publicity firms, and technology hubs. That librarians become managers without the formal education of business majors speaks to the entrepreneurial, adaptive, motivated spirit of people who work in libraries. Librarians know that success is measured not by the value of stocks and bonds but by the quality of services provided and by the gratitude shown by patrons.
Management responsibilities often come to librarians in difficult times, as when budgets forbid new hires, when blended librarianship is the norm, when young librarians are thrust into leadership positions without the leisure of gaining experience by rising through the ranks, and when new generations of technology dictate a new paradigm for the administration and role of libraries. As long as anthologies such as this document how we accomplish our work in these changing times, people in management positions will be ready to meet the needs of communities.
—Melissa J. Clapp, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida