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This is a case study on the opportunities provided by Open Source library systems and the experience of delivering these systems through a shared service.

This chapter derives from desk research, interviews, and direct involvement in the project. The format is a case study, setting out a detailed timeline of events with information that can be applied in other settings.

This chapter presents reflections on the value and limitations of collaboration amongst libraries and librarians on an innovative approach to library systems and technologies. It also presents reflections on lessons learned from the processes and detailed discussion of the success factors for shared services and the reasons why such initiatives may not result in the outcomes predicted at the start.

Libraries and IT services considering Open Source and shared service approaches to provision will find material in this study useful when planning their projects.

The nature of collaboration and collaborative working is studied and observations made about the way that outcomes cannot always be predicted or controlled. In a genuine collaboration, the outcome is determined by the interactions between the partners and is unique to the specifics of that collaboration.

The case study derives from interviews, written material and direct observation not generally in the public domain, providing a strong insider’s view of the activity.

In an era of unprecedented technological innovation and evolving user expectations and information seeking behaviour, we are arguably now an online society, with digital services increasingly common and increasingly preferred. As a trusted information provider, libraries are in an advantageous position to respond, but this requires integrated strategic and enterprise architecture planning, for information technology (IT) has evolved from a support role to a strategic role, providing the core management systems, communication networks and delivery channels of the modern library. Furthermore, IT components do not function in isolation from one another but are interdependent elements of distributed and multidimensional systems encompassing people, processes and technologies, which must consider social, economic, legal, organisational and ergonomic requirements and relationships, as well as being logically sound from a technical perspective. Strategic planning provides direction, while enterprise architecture strategically aligns and holistically integrates business and information system architectures. While challenging, such integrated planning should be regarded as an opportunity for the library to evolve as an enterprise in the digital age, or at minimum, to simply keep pace with societal change and alternative service providers. Without strategy, a library risks being directed by outside forces with independent motivations and inadequate understanding of its broader societal role. Without enterprise architecture, it risks technological disparity, redundancy and obsolescence. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this conceptual chapter provides an integrated framework for strategic and architectural planning of digital library services. The concept of the library as an enterprise is also introduced.

This is a case study on the implementation of shared services across back-office functions between the National Library of Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland in the period 2008 to early 2013. It describes the potential benefits of a Library doing business in a less conventional way, at a time when the public sector is facing challenges of high customer expectations and tight budgets. From 2004 the concept of building shared services in the cultural sector was promoted by the Scottish Government as a means of achieving improved performance and more cost-effective service delivery. The initial four attempts to create shared services in the cultural sector failed. This study looks at the first attempt that succeeded and draws out the factors contributing to that success. Key precursors to progress included finding common ground and developing trust between parties who were initially suspicious of each other, establishing an effective governance framework, obtaining ongoing commitment from senior management, and aligning everyone’s agendas to make them compatible. By 2013 the program had delivered a common Information Systems network, as well as two parallel finance systems sitting on the same server. In March 2013 the HR teams entered a phase of living together for six months to test their integrated operations prior to formally becoming a shared service, treating both the Galleries and the Library as a single client. Building a shared service with another cultural partner has been a useful, though demanding experience. Both organizations are better off for committing to sharing.

The purpose of this research is to describe a theory of management strategy for libraries based on library core values. This research also determines the fundamental rules that cause libraries’ innovative changes.

This research focuses on 16 detailed management cases involving US and Japanese academic and public libraries from the 1960s to the 2010s. It analyses documents related to strategic management, organisation and operations, collected through surveys and interviews with library directors and managers. Based on those case analyses, the researcher identified the strategic patterns of libraries; a strong relationship of services, organisations, core skills and knowledge and environments. Finally, a strategic management theory for libraries emerged as a result of this research.

This research constructed a theory of management strategies for libraries. It consists of four general strategies and eight specific strategies. In addition, this research also determines fundamental elements that cause strategic and innovative changes of libraries, and describes a rule for those innovative changes that dictates that library services and organisational structures follow strategy, and strategy follows media format.

The originality of this research is in successfully constructing the theory of management strategy for libraries based on library core values. In the library world, most librarians and researchers tend to describe library strategies based on business management theories.

The United Nations action plan on sustainable development, called Agenda 21, is applied as a new framework to strategic management of libraries and information services is described in this chapter. Strategic management with Agenda 21 involves adapting the library to its social and ecological environment. It affects the entire organization including institutional and individual strategies. Key issues are ecology, social responsibility, accountability and ethics. The chapter is not about climate change, but is about goal definition and resource allocation. The message is that library management should contribute to the sustainable development of society on a local level, in addition to its particular cultural or scientific objectives. The global approach of Agenda 21 helps to evaluate library performance as a system, against criteria derived from the action plan, and to develop sustainable scenarios integrating social and ecological impact. Also, following the Agenda 21 philosophy, no performance level such as service quality, information technology, financial balance or carbon footprint should be evaluated unrelated to the other levels. In the new societal context, social, economic and ecological aspects are inter-connected. The author’s conviction is that the traditional cultural and scientific functions of libraries cannot be isolated from this environment, and that strategic library management must integrate sustainable development, not as a marginal element, but at the heart of analysis and decision-making.