Libraries as User-centered Organizations

Libraries as User-centered Organizations PDF

Author: Meredith A. Butler

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9781560246169

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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 associations Libraries 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.

Integration in the Library Organization

Integration in the Library Organization PDF

Author: Christine E Thompson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-02-27

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1317957172

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Bring technical and public services together to create a more user-friendly library! Written for public and technical services librarians, this vital book examines the changes in the profession that have contributed to the integration of the two services. It explores the responsibilities of public and technical services, the effect of dualism on libraries and the profession, and management concerns in this overlapping environment. With case studies and insightful predictions for the future, Integration in the Library Organization discusses the changes in the profession that have contributed to the integration of the two services. This book fills a gap in the available information about team management and the blurring of public/technical services lines in libraries. Integration in the Library Organization shows you how to create an environment of full staff cooperation within your library and provides examples of ways that other libraries have accomplished this. Here you'll discover management techniques to use in such an overlapping environment. Integration in the Library Organization discusses: the false dualism of technical services vs. public services working as partners in a team-based environment tailoring library positions to match individual skills outsourcing in Hawaii satellite cataloging operations and nonprint backlogs . . . and much more! Integration in the Library Organization will provide you with the insight you need to help your library balance and integrate technical and public services and improve the capability of your library to offer patrons quality services and large amounts of information.

Information Tasks

Information Tasks PDF

Author: Bryce Allen

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780120510405

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Information Tasks summarizes user research, then presents design sketches of systems that illustrate how design is linked to research. This comprehensive user-centered approach provides an agenda for information research, design and education that challenges many accepted beliefs and suggests new directions for information work.

Digital library usability studies

Digital library usability studies PDF

Author: Bradford Lee Eden

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13: 184544857X

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Each summer, circulation staff in my library inventories a section of the stacks andbrings collection issues to the attention of appropriate bibliographers. Since I amresponsible for the economics collection, I see an array of government documents thathave managed to elude the cataloging process. Many of these titles are decades old, having squatted in the library undisturbed and uncirculated since our online catalogwas implemented in 1990.

Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries

Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries PDF

Author: Callan Bignoli

Publisher: American Library Association

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 20

ISBN-13: 0838949789

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In the face of rapid change and an ever-widening constellation of challenges, it’s crucial for library leaders to pull back to the question of “why?” Plotting a sustainable way forward depends upon recommitting ourselves to our underlying values, such as customer service and community-building, while fostering the improvements that change makes possible. With passion, patience, and fortitude, libraries can stride confidently into the future. In this book, noted speakers and consultants Bignoli and Stara speak directly to library directors, managers, administrators, and technology staff, offering concrete guidance on setting or resetting strategic priorities. Taking an interconnected and specific approach to planning for and strengthening the library environment as a whole, their book discusses why libraries should embrace change as a fundamental part of library life; explores how to harness rapid change to provide more responsive, user-centered library service; addresses the ways in which libraries straddle the physical and the digital, in areas such as service provision and collections, illuminating how they overlap and can be improved using similar philosophies; presents both a comprehensive overview of library technologies as well as related team and change management advice, all grounded in user experience principles; shows how the concepts of sustainability and flexibility apply to physical space planning and design, from furniture selection and arrangement to infrastructure; and provides sound guidance on project management, problem solving, preparing for future challenges, personal reflection and self-care, and other leadership topics.

Saving the Time of the Library User Through Subject Access Innovation

Saving the Time of the Library User Through Subject Access Innovation PDF

Author: William J. Wheeler

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

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This book contains the following papers in honor of Pauline Atherton Cochrane on subject access issues in library and information science: (1) "Obstacles in Progress in Mechanized Subject Access and the Necessity of a Paradigm Change" (Robert Fugmann); (2) "On MARC and the Nature of Text Searching: A Review of Pauline Cochrane's Inspirational Thinking Grafted onto a Swedish Spy on Library Matters" (Bjorn Tell); (3) "Blazing New Trails: In Celebration of an Audacious Career" (Donald King); (4) "The User Centered Approach: How We Got Here" (Raya Fidel); (5) "Subject Access in Interdisciplinary Research" (Linda Smith); (6) "Web Search Strategies" (Karen Drabenstott); (7) "Enhancing Subject Access to Monographs in Online Public Access Catalogs: Table of Contents Added to Bibliographic Records" (Vinh-The Lam); (8) "Objects for Distributed Heterogeneous Information Retrieval" (Eric H. Johnson); and (9) "Curriculum Vitae for Pauline Atherton Cochrane" (William J. Wheeler). Includes an index. (MES)

Advances in Library Administration and Organization

Advances in Library Administration and Organization PDF

Author: Delmus E. Williams

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2010-11-08

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0857242873

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Provides a body of research literature that contributes to the base of organizational theory upon which library administrators rely. This title covers a variety of topics relating to the management of academic, and public and school libraries.

Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions

Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions PDF

Author: Mark Winston

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-19

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1135024014

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Safely guide your library into the new millennium! Like so much else in the information professions, leadership styles are being forced to change to meet the demands of technological innovation. Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions is among the first books to focus on this increasingly important job qualification. It offers practical advice for developing strong, flexible, and creative leadership skills in yourself and your staff. This fascinating volume stresses the leadership needed to manage change. The essential skills taught here will help you update library services at a reasonable pace while preserving valuable low-tech alternatives. As one chapter recommends, “Every librarian at every level should have ready an answer-multiple answers-to the ubiquitous questions: Why do we still need libraries when everything is on the Web? How can you justify an expanding budget in the Internet Age?” Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions offers fresh ideas for developing and using leadership skills, including: recruiting tips for identifying potential leaders staff training and development restructuring the organization to encourage full staff participation budget strategies for successful leaders issues of gender and ethnic diversity evaluating and assessing leadership Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions is an essential resource for library administrators and staff. By developing your leadership skills and those of your staff, you can confidently face the hectic pace of change in the information sciences.

Libraries Act on Their LibQUAL+ Findings

Libraries Act on Their LibQUAL+ Findings PDF

Author: Fred M. Heath

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9780789026026

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This book focuses on participating libraries that used the 2002 LibQUAL+ survey to collect qualitative and quantitative data for assessing and evaluating their service quality, resource allocations, staffing, technology, and policies. The book provides a wealth of information on this Web-based marketing instrument that measures users' perceptions of library service quality. Library professionals dealing withor interested inlibrary service quality assessment will benefit from the practical examples and graphical representations found in this essential work.

Convergence of Libraries and Technology Organizations

Convergence of Libraries and Technology Organizations PDF

Author: Christopher Barth

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-06-15

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1780632622

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This book describes and discusses the convergence of library and technology support in higher education. Over the past 15 years, a number of institutions have pursued merging library and technology services into a single information support organization. These mergers have taken different forms, but all seek to redefine information support in a 21st century model that promotes the interdisciplinary use of information. The coming years will see significant change affect libraries with the continuing disruption of the Internet and digitally-based services. Coupled with economic pressures, libraries and technology organizations will increasingly be forced to look closely at long-held assumptions of how their teams are organized and how work is divided and shared. Convergence of Libraries and Technology Organizations provides useful and practical guidance on converged information organizations as an effective response to change in the information profession. One of the most complete assessments of converged support models available Designed to both allow assessment of the application of a converged model, and discussion of successful implementations Includes experiences, perspectives, and examples from many leaders in converged information support organizations