Libraries as User-Centered Organizations: Imperatives for Organizational Change

How do we begin to assess the impact of economic, technological, demographic, and management trends in our environment and understand the long term implications? How can administrators, managers and information professionals take advantage of these trends? How can librarians empower staff and change organizational hierarchies to create more responsive and rewarding environments? How do we restructure organizations to make them more learning- and student-centered and more responsive to the needs of new clienteles? These are just a few of the questions addressed in Libraries as User-Centered Organizations, which examines organizational change from the point of view that academic institutions are experiencing a paradigm shift in the definition of their mission, their focus, and their activities. As librarians move into a new paradigm of library as gateway and connector, they must also shift their focus from the information product to the user of information. This profound change in vision is explored in this book through the concept of user-centeredness, a focus on the habits, needs, desires, dislikes, abilities, and preferences of the user. Libraries as User-Centered Organizations explores a variety of important aspects of organizational change including: leadership styles sustaining and expanding staff empowerment and creativity collaboration between libraries and computer centers creating multicultural organizations remolding the library science educational structure organizational change in professional associationsLibraries as User-Centered Organizations looks at current trends affecting higher education, research libraries, professional education for librarians, professional associations, and publishing from the point of view of some of the leaders in these fields and offers readers a context for viewing organizational change. The book is of particular assistance to library administrators and educators engaged in planning for change and rethinking operations and services.

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction Higher Education, the Production Function, and the Library The Changing Business of Scholarly Publishing Technological Innovation and Organizational Change Organizational Change and Leadership Styles Empowerment, Organization and Structure: The Experience of the Indiana University Libraries Leadership for User Services in the Academic Library Creating a Virtual Information Organization: Collaborative Relationships Between Libraries and Computing Centers The New York State Library: A Vision for Networked Services Library Information at the Rockefeller University: A First Look Creating the Multicultural Organization: A Call to Action Recruiting New Populations to the Library Profession The Research University and Education for Librarianship: Considerations for User-Centered Professionals in Libraries Achieving the Vision: Rethinking Librarianship The Role of Professional Associations in Organization Change: Toward User-Centeredness Change and the Referent Organization: The Coalition for Networked Information Reference Notes Included