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This article aims to dispel the perception that academic libraries do not need to market their services and resources; to acquaint academic librarians to the concept of word‐of‐mouth marketing and its potential for academic libraries; and to share a word‐of‐mouth marketing academic library success story.

Includes an introduction to the concept of word‐of‐mouth marketing and its application to academic libraries. Also includes how one academic library successfully employed this marketing technique.

Provides an introduction to the word‐of‐mouth marketing strategy and its usefulness for academic libraries. Shares a real‐life success story of academic library word‐of‐mouth marketing.

Useful as an introduction for academic librarians to a specific type of marketing strategy that works well in a college/university setting and provides some successful techniques of word‐of‐mouth marketing for academic libraries.

Helps fill a void relative to using marketing strategies in an academic library setting and offers suggestions on how to do this successfully.

Librarians working in public service posts are well aware that students possess varying levels of library skills. High school librarians bemoan the fact that students seem to have learned little about libraries during their elementary school years, college librarians bemoan secondary level preparation, and all librarians wonder at the assignments students bring with them. The assignments seem to range from trivia quizzes to inappropriately advanced research tasks, and, inevitably, the students seem to lack complete information and adequate direction.

The purpose of this study is to assess the current level of education qualifications of the workforce working in academic libraries in Botswana. The study also aims to determine the current and required level of continuing professional development (CPD) of librarians working in academic libraries in Botswana.

The study adopted positivist research paradigm and quantitative research design using a structured questionnaire to collect data, where survey questions were developed based on existing, tested and verified NeXus1 and NeXus2 instruments developed in Australia.

Findings revealed that majority (41 or 35.3%) of the academic workforce in Botswana had first degree professional qualification, while those with diploma qualification were 28 or 24.1%; about a quarter of respondents had obtained master’s degree qualification. Most of the CPD activities undertaken were workshops and other workplace training programmes. While about half of the total respondents had attended conferences, less than half of them had published or presented a paper, and mentoring, that should have been given a pride of place in the libraries, largely suffers near neglect. Some knowledge and skills have been acquired on the job and have beneficial impact in the service rendered.

The study seems to be the first of its type in Botswana as a thorough search of literature did not yield any result in the field. What is more, it combines the librarians in public and private universities, colleges of education and institutes of health sciences. Recommendations generated from the findings are likely to improve the services rendered and interest of the librarians in the profession.

This chapter introduces Building Back Better Libraries (BBBL) as a critical concept for improved library planning both prior to and following a disaster or other emergency. Building Back Better, an idea widely discussed in the disaster recovery literature, seeks to use the difficulty of a disaster as an opportunity to go beyond the status quo and to promote changes that result in stronger, more resilient communities. The authors will define BBB elements and frameworks, building upon those to create a model for library disaster planning and recovery, and applying it to cases involving space and facilities, collections, services, and people.

Literature on the Building Back Better concept and frameworks, as well as library emergency response, was reviewed. This source material was used to develop a modified framework for improved library disaster planning and recovery. The Building Back Better Libraries framework is discussed and applied to cases involving library facilities and spaces, collections, and services, and its implementation through a disaster planning team is reviewed.

Though all libraries hope to avoid disaster, few succeed. One survey found that as many as 75% of academic library respondents had experienced a disaster or emergency. Evidence also suggests that few libraries are prepared, with as many as 66–80% of libraries reporting that they have no emergency plan with staff trained to carry it out. Even when plans are in place, the rush to respond to immediate needs following a disaster can overwhelm the ability to pursue effective long-term planning. Building Back Better, when framed for libraries, provides a planning tool to balance short-term response with long-term recovery and resilience. The Building Back Better Libraries framework focuses on the areas of risk assessment for library collections and spaces; recovery and rejuvenation for facilities, collections, and services; and implementation and monitoring, with particular discussion of the human element and the role of a library disaster planning team.

The proposed framework, Building Back Better Libraries (BBBL), can be used to strengthen disaster planning in a manner that balances meeting immediate needs with implementing longer term plans to create stronger and more resilient libraries.

Although aspects of BBB ideas are present in existing library literature, the concept is not formally defined for the library context.

The purpose of this paper is to report on The AAAS's Forum on Science and Technology Policy, and The ALA's National Library Legislative Day, held in May 2008 in Washington, DC, USA. Design/methodology/report.–.Conference report. Findings – The underlying (single) theme of the two meetings was governmental funding. Each meeting was devoted to advising participants about the present status of budgetary allocations and appropriations of Federal funds for the current or subsequent years.

Notes that four issues from the AAAs Forum would be of particular interest: “Cognition enhancement: promise or threat?”; “A skeptical view of advocacy [conducted by] by scientists”; “Ensuring the best presidential science appointments [after the 2008 elections]” and “Science and the new media”.

The Morgan Library at Colorado State University in Fort Collins suffered catastrophic flooding as the result of a historic rain storm and flood that swept through the town on July 28, 1997. This study examines this single library's organizational disaster response and identifies the phenomena that the library's employees cited as their motivation for innovation.

Purpose – This study provides an example of a library where a pre-disaster and post-disaster organizational environment was supportive of experimentation. This influenced the employees’ capacity and motivation to create a new tool meant to solve a temporary need. Their invention, a service now called RapidILL, advanced the Morgan Library organization beyond disaster recovery and has become an effective and popular consortium of libraries.

Design/methodology/approach – This is an instrumental case study. This design was chosen to examine the issues in organizational learning that the single case of Morgan Library presents. The researcher interviewed employees who survived the 1997 flood and who worked in the library after the disaster. The interview results and a book written by staff members are the most important data that form the basis for this qualitative research.

The interviews were transcribed, and key phrases and information from both the interviews and the published book were isolated into themes for coding. The coding allowed the use of NVivo 7, a text analysis software, to search in employees’ stories for “feeling” words and themes about change, innovation, motivation, and mental models.

Three research questions for the study sought to learn how employees described their lived experience, how the disaster altered their mental models of change, and what factors in the disaster response experience promoted learning and innovation.

Findings – This study investigates how the disruptive forces of disaster can influence and promote organizational learning and foster innovation. Analysis of the data demonstrates how the library employees’ feelings of trust before and following a workplace disaster shifted their mental models of change. They felt empowered to act and assert their own ideas; they did not simply react to change acting upon them.

Emotions motivate adaptive actions, facilitating change. The library employees’ lived experiences and feelings influenced what they learned, how quickly they learned it, and how that learning contributed to their innovations after the disaster. The library's supervisory and administrative leaders encouraged staff members to try out new ideas. This approach invigorated staff members’ feelings of trust and motivated them to contribute their efforts and ideas. Feeling free to experiment, they tapped their creativity and provided adaptations and innovations.

Practical implications – A disaster imposes immediate and often unanticipated change upon people and organizations. A disaster response urgently demands that employees do things differently; it also may require that employees do different things.

Successful organizations must become adept at creating and implementing changes to remain relevant and effective in the environments in which they operate. They need to ensure that employees generate and test as many ideas as possible in order to maximize the opportunity to uncover the best new thinking. This applies to libraries as well as to any other organizations.

If library leaders understand the conditions under which employees are most motivated to let go of fear and alter the mental models they use to interpret their work world, it should be possible and desirable to re-create those conditions and improve the ability of their organizations to tap into employees’ talent, spur innovation, and generate meaningful change.

Social implications – Trust and opportunities for learning can be central to employees’ ability to embrace change as a positive state in which their creativity flourishes and contributes to the success of the organization. When leaders support experimentation, employees utilize and value their affective connections as much as their professional knowledge. Work environments that promote experimentation and trust are ones in which employees at any rank feel secure enough to propose and experiment with innovative services, products, or workflows.

Originality/value – The first of its kind to examine library organizations, this study offers direct evidence to show that organizational learning and progress flourish through a combination of positive affective experiences and experimentation. The study shows how mental models, organizational learning, and innovation may help employees create significantly effective organizational advances while under duress.

An original formula is presented in Fig. 1.

There is currently a shortage of academic librarians in the United States. This shortage is affecting staffing levels at libraries and making it increasingly difficult to fill positions. Pollock (2002) reported that libraries across the nation are facing the same dilemma, “how to fill the growing number of vacancies in the ranks of professional librarians” (p. 94). There are several explanations for this trend. There is a phenomenon known as the graying of the profession. A large number of academic librarians are nearing retirement age and new librarians will be needed to replace them. Crosby (2001) stated that “many experienced librarians are expected to retire, switch occupations, or leave the occupation permanently for other reasons. This will create about 39,000 job openings for new librarians between 1998 and 2008” (p. 9). Wilder (2000) reported, “In demographic terms, librarianship in North America is a profession apart. Librarians are, as a group, substantially older than those in comparable professions, and they are aging at a much faster rate” (para. 1). Lynch (2002) reported that over 20% of the librarians currently employed in the United States will reach age 65 by 2014.