Making a Difference: Leadership and Academic Libraries

Leadership is separate from, but integral to, management; and library directors today and for the foreseeable future can be expected to play an institutional role as they lead the library to contribute towards the mission of their college and university. Similarly, new courses in library leadership now accompany more traditional ones on managing organizations and information resources. However, much of the literature on LIS leadership represents a distilled application of principles and practices borrowed from other disciplines, with few reports of research from the library field. Conceived as a companion to The Next Library Leadership (Libraries Unlimited, 2003), Making a Difference includes not only a discussion of effective attributes, but of issues central to the development of leadership qualities, strategies, and dispositions. Essential reading for anyone interested in advancing the quality of leadership within LIS, particularly academic librarians in or aspiring to positions of managerial leadership.

Peter Hernon is professor of library and information science at Simmons College, Boston, MA. He is the author of 50 books, including Library Unlimited's Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives and Making a Difference: Leadership and Academic Libraries; and Praeger's Federal Information Policies in the 1990s: Views and Perspectives.