highlights provide a starting point or an update, depending on one’s familiarity with the topic. Overarching themes across the profession continue to emphasize the significant amount of change our institutions are driving, managing, and navigating.
Change management: New skills for new leadership
A recent Association of Research Libraries report focuses on managing change in libraries and states that there are “. . . three categories of urgent changes: changes in the research library relationship with institutional partners, changes in the research library organization, and changes in skills.”1 The urgency described in this report indicates a need for preparing a workforce for uncertainty and ambiguity. A 2017 Library Journal article encourages new skills for library leaders to manage change in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) world and a need to “get it right.”2
Managing change on this scale requires academic library leadership to be steeped in best practices for systematically adjusting the work of an entire organization. If our libraries are going to be successful in a VUCA world, current and future leaders will need to develop their change management skills. There are a number of leadership courses, workshops, and residential programs, and those which focus on these needed skills will be of greatest use to leaders looking to move their libraries into the future quickly and confidently.
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/24478/32315
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