Academic libraries are undergoing change at a remarkable rate; all of our libraries have been through transitions that were unthinkable before disruptive technology changed everything. For academic libraries, changes in higher education, scholarly communication, and user expectations are driving a continuous need to adjust, transform, and re-create ourselves.

I have been reading books and supporting libraries for as long as I can remember. My path in the profession of librarianship, though, has been far from traditional, and yet it has embraced me and encouraged me and continues to intrigue and challenge me in ways that make me want to do more and give more.

The origin of American academic librarianship is a fascinating account with less than auspicious beginnings. Orvin Lee Shiflett begins his book Origins of American Academic Librarianship with a story from Daniel Coit Gilman, librarian at Yale in 1865 who complained about the meager pay, injury to his health from cold and dampness of the library, and the “lack of any substantial...

How are we responding to change in our roles and responsibilities? Are we creating library jobs that address new, emerging, and future-focused users and their needs? What is the impact on the changing workforce? How has the transition from collection-centered to service-centered organizations transformed the way we work? The literature provides good documentation of role changes that have taken...

Leadership in general has been defined differently at different times in our history. There has been great debate surrounding the difference between management and leadership, including what characteristics make a good leader and whether leaders are born or can be made. Both topics today appear to have been settled by mainstream leadership theorists—today’s leadership training is based...

Organization has been defined by Louis Allen as the “process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives” (Allen 1958). And organizational design determines what the structure and processes of an...

That quote is from a Library Leadership and Management article by Jennifer A. Bartlett in February 2012, and it highlights the potential for disaster if we don’t carefully consider change from every perspective. Contrasted with the 1993 change effort outlined by Susan Lee and shared in chapter 4, this 2009–2012 effort appears to be less focused on the human side of change. The...

The debate regarding whether/how academic libraries have changed over the past four decades expands to include conversations about innovation as well. Some authors and leaders enthusiastically defend innovations that have taken place or were even designed by libraries, particularly in terms of technology—others are not convinced. Most would agree that academic libraries have become good at...

Academic libraries have heard the “transformation” message for nearly three decades now. This chapter will explore what transformation and regeneration look like—or should look like—in academic libraries. Transformation in the dictionary is defined as “a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.” Some synonyms include change, alteration, conversion,...

The articles, papers, and books listed in this annotated bibliography range in date from 1989 to 2015 and are intended to highlight those materials that are, in my opinion, fundamental to the study of change in academic libraries. There are two sections: the first includes material specific to change in libraries and organizational development; the second refers to publications that are more broad...

academic librarians

Marcy Simons is the organizational development librarian at the University of Notre Dame. Her path in the profession has allowed her to learn from the ground up in staff roles—a leadership role as head of access services and now a library faculty role, where she has the privilege of working with the senior leadership team to build leaders, create learning opportunities for faculty and...

Founded in 1948, Beta Phi Mu is the international library and information studies honor society. Its mission is to recognize and encourage scholastic achievement among library and information studies students.