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Deliberate large-scale changes in libraries need an accompanying change management. One of the essential success factors of change management is the communication process, as insensitive communication, using e.g. ambiguous wording or inappropriate tonality can cause great damage throughout the change process. Expert interviews with library managers did show that this change communication does not have to be something elaborate and outstanding using all new technological possibilities, but can be kept simple as the most important factors are to give enough information and to get into a conversation, a personal dialogue with team members. The purpose of this paper is to show the details of a change communication style which enables leaders to cope with deliberate large-scale changes.

The empathic change communication style (ECCo-Style) will be analyzed and described on the basis of an extensive literature research as well as a qualitative research on practical experiences of leaders of different hierarchical levels of academic and public libraries during the change processes.

The leader’s own action – and with this his or her communication style – has a signaling effect on team members of which each leader needs to be aware of and which can be used to release an enormous pulse, especially during the change processes.

This ECCo-Style is newly designed.

From the 1980s – in some parts of Europe from the 1990s – onward, the new public management (NPM) has been emerging in public organizations including libraries. Since then, there has been a need to develop strategies, to plan budgets and to implement cost and activity accounting as well as benchmarking to compare the library’s processes, costs and activities with those of other libraries. One basic idea of the NPM was to make a transition from focusing on how institutions function to product orientation, to improve the quality of library services, to develop output orientation and to act market and consumer oriented. There also was a need to change from bureaucratic and hierarchically acting organizations to a more modern flexible and lean form of management. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The aim of this paper is in the first part to describe the basic ideas of NPM, their realization in libraries and how libraries have to handle constantly reduced budgets and the risk of being closed down (especially in the “age of austerity”); the second part will show how the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Library has managed to improve its services with the NPM approach.

Many libraries are faced with serious financial cutbacks on the one hand and with emergent needs to (re)invest in neglected public infrastructure on the other hand. At the same time, they have to develop modern digital library services. Thus there is a need for efficiency, which is put in action via major budget cutbacks. Also many libraries have been closed down since the implementation of NPM ideas.

In this paper, the NPM tools used in the restructuring of the UEF are described and the outcome of this modern management is shown.

The New Public Management creates new tasks and challenges for libraries. They have to change from input‐ to output‐management, to develop a strategy, to operationalize this strategy and find key performance indicators to see if the strategic goals are reached or if actions or the strategy itself need to be changed. This paper aims to give one example how these new specifications can be accomplished.

The paper describes the strategy adopted which utilises the balanced scorecard (BSC).

The most important results of this research are that an organizational culture based on trust correlates significantly with the use of the balanced scorecard and accounts for 28 per cent of the use of the BSC as a strategic management system. Also, the transformational as well as the transactional leadership affect the culture based on trust. Transformational leadership accounts for 19.1 per cent and transactional leadership accounts for 16.9 per cent of the organizational culture

The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB)‐BSC example described in the paper shows that the balanced scorecard is a possible strategic management system for libraries.

Knowledge Management (KM) in libraries refers to the systematic management and control of knowledge as an important resource when producing high-quality library and information services. If one wishes to make the optimal use and dissemination of organizational and other work life related knowledge, then one needs to acquire appropriate KM tools and to adopt a systematic procedure for KM throughout the organization. This can exert an energizing effect on the lifelong learning of the libraries’ staff which is essential in today’s rapidly changing scientific information environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze KM practices is selected higher education libraries.

This qualitative research conducted in three academic libraries – IZUS/Universitätsbibliothek Stuttgart, Germany; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Library Barcelona, Spain; and University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Library, Finland – makes a comparison of the KM processes being implemented in each of the institutions to ensure the continuous learning of the libraries’ staff.

This comparative study revealed several key reasons and best practices for implementing KM procedures in the selected university libraries. They are collected under three main issues: KM advantages; KM technological opportunities; and KM organizational culture.

Based on three cases and thus are mainly examples of the KM implementation.

Paper gives tools for libraries and their management on the KM system implementation.

Based on the paper’s findings the KM implementation in all the selected libraries led to better management and better staff inclusion into the library service development.

KM implementation studies are still rare among the libraries.