Leadership in libraries in times of change

Abstract

Academic as well as public libraries nowadays have to face constant change. This paper gives an overview about leadership competences needed to succeed with deliberate large-scale changes in libraries. Most of the needed competences can already be imparted during undergraduate studies toward a bachelor’s degree in library and information science, as can be seen in the example of the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg. The critical success factors of every change project are information, communication and participation. Two qualitative studies concerning leadership in academic libraries and leadership in academic and public libraries in times of change, as well as a quantitative study in an academic library concerning the influence of a transformational and a transactional leadership style of the top management on the middle management as well as on team members including the influence of the organizational culture, emphasize the importance of these success factors, especially the communication competence of leaders in times of change.