Managing Change: A How‐To‐Do‐It Manual for Librarians

Citation

James, S. (2006), "Managing Change: A How‐To‐Do‐It Manual for Librarians", Library Review, Vol. 55 No. 8, pp. 534-536. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530610689392

Change can come in many different forms and manners. Basically, though, there are two options: we do it ourselves or we have it done to us, perhaps from a great height. The former is the more satisfying and satisfactory option, although it requires much constant planning and effort and a lot of forethought. The second option is fraught with obvious discomfort and danger. Change is so constant and universal, both in our profession and throughout our working and recreational lives, that examples of good and bad – and all stages between – are legion. The point need not be laboured: continual change, be it administrative, technical, financial, or whatever, is our one constant.

At the most basic level, we want to keep ahead of the game and in control of our own destinies, so we have to be the ones who introduce and manage change. Easier said than done, and we need all the help and advice we can get. Add that necessity to the often at best sketchy management education many librarians have (or as Michael Gorman in his introduction refers to “experience, intelligence and a firm grasp of reality. These qualities are not always found in library administrators …”), and the value of this very practical manual is made manifest.

“The book concentrates on the process of change.” In practical terms, that process may be broken down into sequences from conceptualization through managing to evaluation. Part 1 deals with these in nine stages, in turn divided into logical steps and questions. This part concludes with a check list of fifteen key points. Part 2 is new to this edition (the original edition was published by Neal‐Schuman in 2005): “Practising change management” presents 15 hypothetical (allegedly) situations involving change management in many of its wider manifestations, including forced closure of branch libraries for financial reasons, misuse of ICT and personnel problems. Each case is outlined, an assignment to deal with it set and a few questions arising from it are listed. That the case studies are based on the US library scene is of no particular consequence: the issues will be recognized frequently enough, and are more or less identical, on this side of the Atlantic as well.

By no means all change management is crisis management, of course, even if it has a tendency to feel like it. The ideal change is strategically focussed, planned over a suitable timescale and with clear paths, milestones and goals. If that sounds utopian, by following the precepts and practical advice set out here even crisis management can be made to seem – if not comfortable – at least more manageable than it might otherwise have been.

This manual has already achieved classic status in its previous edition. An easy epithet for publicists to apply, “classic” is in fact a justified description of the book. It combines theory with practice and common sense. This is the real world referred to by Michael Gorman, the one in which we have to live and work but which can be perceived so differently at different levels: a service which can be safely cut as seen by senior local government officials can also be an unjustifiable closure by an elected representative in whose area the cut is proposed, a cynical betrayal by the library staff affected directly, and a heartbreaking dilemma for the poor library manager caught in the middle of them all.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give this book is that it will help that hard‐pressed manager deal realistically with all the affected (and disaffected) groups. Above all it will help the library manager to take a clear view of the issues involved and of how to deal with them: “if you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you have not grasped the gravity of the situation” can be turned on its head. Kipling before the parody was right, after all (although in our profession more than most the result is that you will be a woman rather than a man), and here you have a manual to help you keep your head (and your job) through clear thinking and carefully defined practical action in a range of circumstances.

This book has various uses, including as a manual to study as a textbook, a guide to turn to for practical advice, and a resource to use in management courses for discussion or role‐play. Change affects us all at every level in the organisation and at every stage of our careers, and in every type of library. But it is the library manager, however defined in different library systems, who bears the brunt of dealing with the implementation of change in its myriad forms. Help is at hand in this clear, articulate, intelligent and very practical manual. My only concern is that £39.95 is a high price for a quarto paperback of fewer than 150 pages. Still, it is the quality of the content that gives the book its value and, really, it belongs not in every library, nor even on every library manager's bookshelf, but on every librarian's desk ready to consult either when planning the next change or to help deal with the latest crisis, which might not have been a crisis if adequate planning and forethought had been applied. How to do that is all here as well.