Book Review: The Challenge of Library Management: Leading With Emotional Engagement

Abstract

The Challenge of Library Management: Leading With Emotional Engagement. By Wyoma vanDuinkerken and Pixey Anne Mosley. Chicago: ALA, 2011.169 p. $52 softcover (ISBN 978-0-8389-1102-0). Library leaders and managers face constant in workplace, whether it involves technology, personnel, policies, or procedures. While word change does not appear in title, The Challenge of Library Management: Leading with Emotional Engagement is about how library leaders and managers can effectively manage in all its forms. Authors Wyoma vanDuinkerken and Pixey Anne Mosley are both widely published in field of library leadership and management and are highly qualified to write on this topic. The book is well researched with sources from management, human resources, psychology, and library sciences disciplines. Beginning with an overview of in libraries, authors describe how ubiquitous is in field of librarianship and surprising dearth of research published on this topic. They go on to describe other challenges that exist in libraries, such as library managers who are called on to lead in areas other than their own and lack of extensive leadership training received by most library managers. Following this introduction to in libraries, authors address what they term the human factor with an insightful discussion of causes of resistance among employees (11). They caution managers against stereotyping or making assumptions about their employees' resistance to change. To this point, authors encourage managers to maintain a level of detachment in face of employee resistance to change. The impact of organizational culture is addressed in chapter 3 with discussions on its importance, how culture effects change, and how to organizational culture over time. The authors encourage managers to understand organizational culture before they try to make changes. The next two chapters address initiating and implementing effectively. These are thoughtful discussions that consider important issues such as trust, communication, empowerment, and motivation. One of first steps in initiating is for managers to communicate need for to employees and, to do that effectively, managers must have a vision that they can share. Without that vision, employees are often skeptical of need for and will demonstrate resistance to any suggested change. When implementing change, authors encourage empowerment through delegation of implementation details and emphasize need for flexibility, engagement with all levels of organization, and constant two-way communication. Of course, managers cannot control all details of an organizational that may affect success of initiative. …