ELib's IMPEL2 Project: Organisational structures and responses to change in academic libraries

Abstract

eLib's IMPEL2 Supporting Study carried out extensive fieldwork in Higher Education Library and Information Services between 1996 and 1998 in order to monitor the organisational and cultural changes associated with a rapidly changing and increasingly electronic environment. This paper uses outcomes of IMPEL2 participative workshops to suggest a range of organisational scenarios for Higher Education Institutions: Business Model, User‐Centred Model, Information and Communications Technology Model and Integrated Model. The role of Library and Information Services within these models is considered with implications for information users and service staff illustrated by findings from the study. Issues of structure and strategy are discussed, as are skills, training, role changes, impacts of resource based learning, convergence, team‐working and the management of change. IMPEL2's human‐centred approach is carried forward into the HyLiFe Project, an eLib Phase 3 hybrid library project.