Library Director

The Academic Library Director: Reflections on a Position in Transition addresses the changing nature of work and the new demands being placed on academic library directors. The authors’broad range of professional experience offers you unique insight on a management position that is truly in transition. Get inside seasoned professionals’heads to save time, effort, and money for yourself and your library. See what these experienced directors did right . . . and learn from their mistakes. The Academic Library Director is the resource that: Considers the challenges of leading an academic library through the transition period between permanent directors; lists the challenges met by interim directors and presents their advice for succeeding in this difficult role. Studies the career paths for academic library directors based on a survey of 21 library directors across the country, with a focus on factors such as gender, education, age, tenure, professional experience, and internal vs. external candidates. Identifies critical criteria for recruiting library leaders for the 21st century. Should your library hire a manager or a leader? Provides a unique, non-librarian perspective on the establishment of a newly configured position of Vice Provost for Information and Dean of University Libraries at a large university. Discusses the perceptions recently appointed academic library directors have about collegiate life vis à vis the realities they’ve encountered since assuming their positions. Shows how a library can thrive in a not-for-profit culture by embracing for-profit principles. The Academic Library Director: Reflections on a Position in Transition will help prepare you and your library for the only sure thing in the future--change. Successful library directors will be the ones who can recognize and thrive on the “management of change.” Unsuccessful directors will find themselves unable to adapt. Use this book to ensure your library comes out on the right side of the line.

New public library directors quickly learn what seasoned directors already know: running a library means you’ve always got your hands full—balancing the needs of staff, patrons, facilities, library boards, and other stakeholders with professional responsibilities like community interactions, legal and financial requirements, and whole lot else that wasn’t exactly in the job description. Whether you are considering becoming a public library director, are brand new to the role, or have settled in but find yourself thinking “there’s got to be a better way,” authors Hall and Parker are here to help. This book walks you through the core components of getting up to speed and then provides templates, sample documents, checklists, and other resources that will make your job easier. Gleaned from their own decades of experience in library leadership positions, in this toolkit they - cover such key topics as employees, trustees, finances, legal issues, library policies, emergency planning, and technology; - discuss strategic planning and share advice on keeping up with trends; - offer nearly two dozen ready-to-use resources, including a Director’s Report Template, a Social Media Policy, an Employee Exit Questionnaire, a Library Cleaning Checklist, a Vision Statement worksheet, and more; and - suggest additional learning opportunities in each chapter to help you continue your learning journey. Public library directors can steer clear of common pain points by relying on the expert guidance and organizational aids in this toolkit.

In this unconventional management book, author Susan Carol Curzon presents a different take on traditional library management tools. Through personal narrative and anecdotes from other working professionals, Curzon presents the many everyday challenges one meets as a library manager: - The unwritten rules, strategies, and bits of wisdom only learned on-the-job - Behavioral nuances - Political strategies - Mentor-like advice - Subtle communication codes Regardless of the professional setting, management is management and wisdom is wisdom. What Every Library Director Should Know is the insider's view of vital actions, behaviors, and strategies needed to succeed in every type of library. This second edition has been significantly revised to emphasize diversity, inclusion, remote work, and virtual services.

Academic libraries have continually looked for technological solutions to low circulation statistics, under-usage by students and faculty, and what is perceived as a crisis in relevance, seeing themselves in competition with Google and Wikipedia. Academic libraries, however, are as relevant as they have been historically, as their primary functions within their university missions have not changed, but merely evolved. Going beyond the Gate Count argues that the problem is not relevance, but marketing and articulation. This book offers theoretical reasoning and practical advice to directors on how to better market the function of the library within and beyond the home institution. The aim of this text is to help directors, and ultimately, their librarians and staff get students and faculty back into the library, as a result of better articulation of the library’s importance. The first chapter explores the promotion of academic libraries and their function as educational systems. The next two chapters focus on the importance of the role social media and virtual presence in the academic library, and engaging and encouraging students to use the library through a variety of methods, such as visually oriented special collections. Remaining chapters discuss collaboration and collegiality, formalized reporting and marketing. Offers clear, concise writing, with thoughtful discussions of the problems facing academic libraries Demonstrates comprehensive and thoughtful research that informs theoretical approaches to realistic outcomes that address these problems Provides helpful tables, illustrations, and photographs that evidence the collaborative nature of contemporary academic libraries Provides practical examples from actual experiences that can be adapted by readers

A reference source for public library directors, and help to new library directors.

"Included are insights from working library managers at different levels and in various types of libraries, addressing a wide range of management issues and situations. Not to be missed: comments from library staff about the qualities they appreciate - and the styles and attitudes they find counterproductive - in their own bosses."--Jacket.

In this unconventional management text, author Dr. Susan Carol Curzon presents a different take on traditional library management tools. Through personal narrative and anecdotes from other working professionals, Curzon presents the many everyday challenges one meets as a library manager: • The unwritten rules, strategies, and bits of wisdom only learned on-the-job • Behavioral nuances • Political strategies • Mentor-like advice • Subtle communication codes Regardless of the professional setting, management is management and wisdom is wisdom. What Every Library Director Should Know is the insider’s view of vital actions, behaviors, and strategies needed to succeed in every type of library.

Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction. Author Ben Montgomery was given unprecedented access to Gatewood's own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence, and interviewed surviving family members and those she met along her hike, all to answer the question so many asked: Why did she do it? The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination. Even those who know of Gatewood don't know the full story—a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The definitive full-scale portrait of J. Pierpont Morgan’s tumultuous life, both in and out of the public eye History has remembered him as a complex and contradictory figure, part robber baron and part patron saint. J. Pierpont Morgan earned his reputation as “the Napoleon of Wall Street” by reorganizing the nation’s railroads and creating industrial giants such as General Electric and U.S. Steel. At a time when the country had no Federal Reserve system, he appointed himself a one-man central bank. He had two wives, three yachts, four children, six houses, mistresses, and one of the finest art collections in America. In this extraordinary book, drawing extensively on new material, award-winning biographer Jean Strouse vividly portrays the financial colossus, the avid patron of the arts, and the entirely human character behind all the myths. Praise for Morgan “Magnificent . . . the fullest and most revealing look at this remarkable, complex man that we are likely to get.”—The Wall Street Journal “A masterpiece . . . No one else has told the tale of Pierpont Morgan in the detail, depth, and understanding of Jean Strouse.”—Robert Heilbroner, Los Angeles Times Book Review “It is hard to imagine a biographer coming any closer to perfection.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Strouse is in full command of Pierpont Morgan’s personal life, his financial operations, his collecting, and his benefactions, and presents a rich, vivid picture of the background against which they took place. . . . A magnificent biography.”—The New York Review of Books “With uncommon intelligence, maturity, and psychological insight, Morgan: American Financier is that rare masterpiece biography that enables us to penetrate the soul of a complex human being.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.

The story of the University of Colorado Library unfolds within the societal forces that shaped universities over a century, and within the special conditions in the University to which it had to respond.