The Next Library Leadership: Attributes of Academic and Public Library Directors

Citation

Calvert, P. (2004), "The Next Library Leadership: Attributes of Academic and Public Library Directors", The Electronic Library, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 191-192. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470410533515

There has possibly never been a time when leadership was considered so important in librarianship. It is leadership, or its absence, which could become one of the worst problems for libraries and other information agencies in the first half of the twenty‐first century. With the “greying” of the library profession occurring in many countries there are simply fewer people in the pool of talent, and that makes it harder to find the next leaders. The idea behind this book is that librarians, collectively, must find and agree on what makes a good leader, than go about identifying who fits the bill amongst the next generation.

Three groups were surveyed during this project. The first was Association of Research Libraries (ARL) directors representing the largest academic libraries in North America and therefore some of the largest academic libraries anywhere in the world. The second group consisted of directors of smaller academic libraries from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The third group, by way of contrast, was the directors of public libraries serving a community of at least 25,000 people. A preliminary literature search discovered an enormous variety of views on leadership, and from this the research team created a long list of the qualities expected of library directors under four key headings: leadership, managerial, personal, and knowledge areas. The authors then used a variety of methods including in‐person and telephone interviewing, content analysis, and the Delphi technique, to identify and refine the qualities that their sample groups considered important for library directors. They then supplemented the resulting lists with in‐depth interviews with selected library directors, and it is mostly the comments from those interviews that constitute the central three chapters of this book.

Possibly the part of this book that will be used the most is the chapter in which further analysis of the lists is done. As a result of a suggestion by one ARL director, the items were regrouped under four headings: external/policy/citizen of the university/campus; resource development; library culture; and strategic direction. Most directors considered “resource development” to be very important to their roles, and while librarians everywhere like to devote time to this aspect of the job, it is a question whether or not this requires “leadership” in the usual sense of the word. When the director seeks entrepreneurial solutions, and spends time fundraising, the element of leadership becomes much clearer. The book concludes with two practical and very useful chapters on leadership assessment, and how the needed skills might be taught or acquired.

It may not be too surprising that “people” skills come ahead of technological ones. Leaders are expected to follow technological trends and be aware of what can be done, and they must have the vision and energy to drive through new technological developments, but they do not need to be IT people themselves.