Practical and Effective Management of Libraries

Book excerpt: Aimed at library science students and librarians with newly assigned administrative duties the book is about improving one's thinking and decision making in a role as a library manager. Most librarians get very little exposure to management issues prior to finding themselves in a management role. Furthermore, most library science students do not expect that they will need to understand management yet they quickly find that there is a need to understand this perspective to be effective at almost any library job. Effective library management is about having some tools to make decisions (such as a basic understanding of management theory and how it applies in the library environment, understanding common traps we all fall into, etc.), knowing yourself, being able to motivate others, fostering a diversity (especially within workgroups), being able to communicate effectively, and having an understanding of one's organizational culture. The book touches on all of these aspects of library management. - Provides a concise understanding of theories from management, psychology, etc. and applies them to practical every day library issues - Contains real world cases for considering how theoretical concepts might apply in real library-related situations - Cuts out much of the extraneous material often found in books of this kind and focuses more on what you actually need