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The purpose of this case study was to explore senior librarians’ perceptions of successful leadership skills in the 21st century. The data gathered from 10 senior library leaders consisted of demographic information and responses to six open-ended interview questions. From the NVivo 10 analysis, several significant themes emerged regarding successful library leadership skills in the 21st century at two levels: foundational and interpersonal. At the foundational level, technical and knowledge skills form the building blocks for the next level of interpersonal skills. Persuasion and collaborative skills are interwoven with these interpersonal skills, both of which are at the core of the postindustrial paradigm of leadership. These two levels of skills, with an emphasis on persuasion skills, should form the basis of succession planning programs for next generation librarians. Implementing such programs could lead to increased leadership diversity, greater job satisfaction, improved job performance and effectiveness, all of which help retain librarians and ease staff shortages. Further studies are recommended.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on academic library leadership in the digital age. Primarily, the goals are to identify: first, the top five major challenges facing academic library leadership; second, the top five most important leadership skills required for effective academic library leadership; and finally, the top five best ways to develop these academic library leadership skills.

A survey was conducted to elicit responses from individuals who hold senior library leadership positions in American academic libraries throughout the USA. The participants were identified through several means: the web sites of the ALA and its divisions; the web sites of American universities; referrals; and the author’s professional contacts. To simplify the survey research process, e-mails including the survey research questions were sent to potential participants. In all, 38 invitations (n=38) were sent out to large and medium-size academic libraries throughout the USA. Over 36.8 percent (n=14) of the participants returned the survey. The participants represent a wide spectrum of libraries.

The top five major challenges are how to: demonstrate the library values to the university community, operate the library under fiscal uncertainty, retrofit outdated library facilities to accommodate new services, strike a balance between digital and print materials, and keep the library staff trained and current. The top five essential academic library leadership attributes are: vision, integrity, management skills, collaboration skills, and communication skills. The top five best ways to acquire these skills include the need to have mentors, to attend leadership development programs, to gain practical library leadership experience, to seek leadership roles, and to know oneself.

Research in this area is rather limited. As a result, this study will contribute to the academic library leadership literature and help current and aspiring academic library leaders worldwide with insightful leadership lessons needed to lead academic libraries successfully in this transformational era.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on major issues and trends of academic libraries and leadership in the changing nature of higher education. Changing environment of academic libraries has impacted significantly on the knowledge, skills requirement and role of the library leaders, and how organizations can maintain and manage the changing nature of academic libraries as well as leadership while effective leadership is extremely required for the library leaders and organizations are concern about future scenarios. The primary objective is to identify the key challenges in libraries, leadership skills and approaches of the leaders, their effective leadership traits and future perceptions are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to facilitate as how to develop effective and successful leadership for the academic libraries during the changing nature of higher education. The findings and recommendations in the paper are based on personal experience of leadership positions in an academic library as well as experience of library leaders across the world.

Academic libraries are facing similar challenges and issues across the world. This paper identifies that library leaders need to be effective communicators, strategic thinkers, visionary, and able to examine the new ways of working.

This paper discusses why academic library leaders need a set of new skills and how can they develop leadership skills and competencies in the changing nature of academic libraries.

This study aims to investigate the impact of leadership skills (technical, human and conceptual) on organizational citizenship behavior in Vietnamese libraries and the role of organizational culture as the mediator.

A quantitative approach was chosen to gather data from 356 participants working in various libraries in Vietnam. The validity of the measures was assessed through regression analysis and SPSS software.

The results showed that leadership skills do have a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior, but only human skills had a significant effect on bureaucracy culture. The study also revealed that bureaucracy culture played a significant role in affecting organizational citizenship behavior of organizations. Furthermore, bureaucracy culture was found to mediate the relationship between human skill and organizational citizenship behavior of organizations.

This study makes a valuable contribution to the field by exploring the influence of three types of leadership skills on organizational citizenship behavior and the role of leadership in promoting organizational culture. The findings of this research can help organizations understand the importance of leadership skills and organizational culture in promoting good citizenship behavior among employees. The research implications are discussed and can be used to inform decision-making and future research in the field.

Purpose – Canadian library workforce data were used to explore recent graduates’ perceptions of their MLS programs: their ratings of the competencies acquired, satisfaction with the overall quality of education, and suggested improvements.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Surveys of libraries and practitioners were conducted from 2003 to 2006. These data were used as a baseline in replicating the survey with the staff of Canadian research libraries in 2013/2014. Recent graduate librarian data were extracted from the two data sets and comparatively analyzed.

Findings – The profile of recent graduates did not change appreciably between 2004 and 2014. Graduates surveyed in 2014 more favorably rated generalist skills and were more likely than the 2004 sample to indicate that they were provided with the range of skills and abilities required to effectively perform their jobs. Management, leadership, and business skills continued to rank lowest. Roughly half of 2004 and 2014 graduates continued to indicate satisfaction with the quality of education received overall. Similarly, half of 2004 and 2014 graduates felt that they could apply what they learned to their current jobs and fewer agreed that they were provided with a realistic depiction of what it is like to work as an academic librarian. Suggestions for program improvement were mostly stable over time, with greatest importance attached to making programs more practical/practice-oriented and improvements to the relevance and currency of the curriculum.

Originality/Value – Studies of the Canadian library workforce had not been conducted previously. This study should be of interest to MLS schools who are re-envisioning their programs with the experiences of recent graduates/new professionals in mind.

The dynamic environment in which the academic library operates requires explicit links between business strategy and a new management priority including the development of people; this is the focus of human resource development (HRD). It serves the needs of an organization by ensuring that employees’ expertise is state-of-the-art, something that is critical in a period of rapid technological development coinciding with ever-expanding societal needs. HRD can be relied upon to support and shape a wide range of academic library initiatives requiring a competent and engaged workforce by recognizing people as the organization’s most critical asset, one that drives competitive advantage and helps it out-perform the market. Emphasis is placed on developing an organizational context that will attract and develop talented individuals and leaders and keep them engaged. Furthermore, HRD activities must respond to job changes and integrate staff skills sets with the long-term plans and strategies of the organization thus ensuring the efficient and effective use of resources. This chapter explores HRD as a strategic concern of the organization and how it can best serve the organization in the long term. In so doing, it considers how HRD can help the academic library focus resources in those areas where there are strong likelihoods that they can produce substantial improvements in future capacity and performance. This kind of strategic planning helps the organization configure resources within a dynamic competitive environment, thus serving market needs and satisfying stakeholder expectations, helping meet its business purpose and maintain its strategic direction. The case study developed here highlights the need for the effective linkage of HRD and strategic planning for the advancement of the academic library. It suggests the need for developing and implementing both a strategic plan and an HRD plan and developing a culture of strategic human resource development (SHRD) in academic libraries.

This paper aims to introduce the column and the idea of library leadership as it relates to library finances. It distinguishes between good leadership (dynamic) and good management (static), and sets forth the subject of subsequent installments of the column that will focus on attributes of good library administrative leadership.

The approach taken is to introduce the column, define what it will cover and set up subsequent columns which will each expound upon one “leadership performance standard.”

This paper shows that although leadership has been extensively studied, it is still not readily understood. As a quality that should be modeled and taught it first requires definition.

Learning the differences between good administrative leadership and good management as well as the fact that there are specific attributes to good administrative leadership lays the groundwork for subsequent discussion of those attributes for library administrators at all levels.

The purpose of this paper is to identify insightfully future roles and skills required by librarians to meet the ever changing users’ need in the modern library landscape.

The study adopted a qualitative approach. It deployed the Delphi technique and other knowledge elicitation techniques, such as systematic literature review, in-depth key informants interviews, formal and informal discussions, and own experience. Data collection was quitted when it reached to the theoretical saturation. Content analysis was used to analyze the gathered data. Triangulation of methods was also employed to complement one another, and enhance the credibility and validity of the results.

The findings of the study revealed that some of the roles and skills required by librarians are evolutionary, while others are revolutionary, but the ultimate future role of librarians is to change knowledge revolution into society (to create informed society) through re-socializing and shaping the young generations. The result also confirmed that a synergy of passion, knowledge, skills and cultural intelligence yield blended librarians that fit the future library landscape. To be a librarian is more than just equipped with knowledge and skills; it requires passion and solid discipline. For librarians, unlearning is equally relevant skills like learning.

Instead of the usual skills assessment, this study approached it in a new perspective and divulged a synergy of passion, knowledge, skills, cultural intelligence, professionalism, and discipline as essential assets for the twenty-first century librarians.

The Library and Information Science (LIS) discipline face challenges such as technology applications and information overload in its effort to remain relevant in the challenging job market. This study aims to determine the skills and knowledge needed for LIS professionals in the job market to rethink the current syllabus and offer better future employability.

The research used a survey method to collect data concerning personal information, LIS employment opportunities, job titles and skills needed. Content analysis followed to determine librarianship job listings and the need for LIS graduate jobs in Kuwait.

The findings suggested difficulties and challenges; they also compiled a comprehensive list of skills needed and recommended courses and institutions hiring LIS graduates. The research improves decision-making in syllabus development and experiences recommended by employers.

Academic departments can follow this research to develop and update their syllabuses according to the requirements of the job market, thus offering better future job opportunities.

As LIS graduates are provided with better education, the updating of their employability skills will help them socially by recognising their employment status and economically by raising their pay.

The research is the first in Kuwait to collect LIS job titles and analyse employability needs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership style, organizational culture and job commitment in university libraries of Pakistan and the relationships among them.

A structured questionnaire was developed and self administered to 115 professional librarians. Hypotheses were tested through t‐test, Pearson chi‐square and ANOVA.

The results show that the library professionals were not very sensitive about any relationship among these three variables at their workplace. A majority of the professionals perceived that their chief librarians had an autocratic style of leadership and libraries tend to adopt an achievement and bureaucratic culture. Most of the library professionals seemed to be highly committed with their organizations. It means that they favored result‐oriented culture.

The research was limited to university libraries in Pakistan's province of Punjab and federal capital Islamabad.

The study is useful to understand leadership style, organizational culture and job commitment in university libraries.