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In the past decade, library literature has witnessed a spate of studies documenting different aspects of Collaborative Virtual Reference Services (CVRS) and a significant amount of valuable information is spread across numerous individual reports. With the support of the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the authors of this chapter undertook a synergistic effort to examine these studies and identify the popular governance models as well as shared challenges and benefits. They conducted a supplementary survey of librarians with personal experience working in CVRS. The authors found that while collaborative structures are myriad, many utilize similar staffing and management strategies. Benefits of CVRS include shared staffing responsibilities, the extension of service hours, professional and community development, access to specialists, and mitigating the risks of a new service, while challenges include answering local questions, cultural differences, and software and technology problems. The literature on CVRS primarily focuses on single collaborations. While these in-depth examinations are valuable, they cannot provide a “big picture” of how libraries may work together to provide a service. As budgets shrink and ICT-facilitated connections grow, collaboration is an option to which many libraries are turning to for the provision of reference as well as other services. The quality of such collaborations may be improved by considering the lessons presented in this chapter, resulting in better service.

This chapter lays out the blueprint the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped followed in meeting the expectations of readers with print disabilities. The chapter also discusses the challenges both state and local public libraries face in meeting the current and future expectations of these clients and presents a scenario of a hybrid service in which state and local public libraries work together to meet client expectations.

Reports the process and strategies the library used to reinvent itself as a community-centered institution. Presents possible approaches for a collaborative, inclusive library service by state/federal sponsored and public libraries.

The Maryland Library successfully met client expectation through creating a community-centered library. Public libraries offer many inclusive services that, combined with the specialized service of a state/federally sponsored library, could provide equitable information access for clients with diverse, individual information needs.

This case study presents a successful library service for a complex, continually changing client population and proposes collaborative partnerships for special and local public libraries.

Library buildings are routinely reimagined, remodeled, or built new to meet the changing needs of their community. The move from collection-centric to user-centric service models has generated numerous writings about the library as place and space. The one concept lacking in the scholarly discourse is the changing roles of librarians to meet the needs of these new spaces and places. How do librarians fit in the new equation? When addressing the professional identity of librarians, which aspect of their work will need to evolve and which will need to be let go? A critical facet of sustaining services in new spaces is the need to develop the sustainable librarian – to remove the stigma of the librarian as “jack of all trades, master of none.” In order to realize this new mindset of mastering our domain we need to begin reimagining our work. Some ways, this can be accomplished by writing increased flexibility into position descriptions and creating organizational structures to better support librarians within the new spaces. With these new developments to our professional identities, librarians may learn to employ entrepreneurial skills in order to continuously anticipate services and develop skill sets to aid the library’s ability to fulfill its purpose. The authors provide a literature review to discuss the changing role of the academic librarian to meet the evolution of the library building and services. We will provide an example through findings and practices of Grand Valley State University and how it reimagined roles in the early 2000s and continues to reimagine roles in a new building and a renovated branch library. The change of spaces and places in academic libraries to accommodate user needs and perceptions has impacted how academic librarians work in these spaces and places. Library administrators need to rethink workflows, and organizational charts by examining flexible workloads, cross-training initiatives, professional development around new skills, and the letting go of obsolete practices.

Originality/value – in this chapter, the authors will discuss how library leaders are charged with translating the new roles of their librarians to meet the needs of their community in these new spaces and how library leaders may look beyond the literature of the profession for ways to facilitate change.

After decades of successful, if not always smooth, working relationships with regional library networks in the United States, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Inc., with approval of amended articles of incorporation in 2008, it implemented significant changes in how it would price its products and services and how it would govern itself. These changes proved to have profound impact on the networks, precipitating the merger of many and the dissolution of some. This chapter describes the results of many interviews with past and present leaders of OCLC and the regional networks, both existing and defunct, and other knowledgeable individuals. The contrasting opinions on how the changes came about and their consequences offer a perspective on the evolution and then decline of some of the powerful consortial relationships of the last four decades.

This chapter discusses how digital project management has fundamentally changed the nature of collection service models in university archives and special collections.

Through a conceptual overview of case studies, this chapter examines the establishment of “digital content hubs,” with a special focus on the ways in which a variety of library units share the work of surfacing distinctive collections through cross-functional team-building.

To successfully build “digital content hubs,” academic libraries have embraced a new alignment to incorporate special collections and archives staff, services, and collections more holistically into larger library collecting initiatives and organizational structures. This chapter posits that, through the stewardship of digital projects, archivists and librarians have had to sharpen and expand requisite managerial and technical skills to support “distinctive collection teams” who work cross-functionality with outward-facing approaches to integrated collection building. In addition to embracing assessment tools and diversified funding strategies, archives and special collections have also adopted new collaboration models reliant on centralized but flexible project management structures that emphasize cross-training, complementary subject and technological specializations, and a team-based focus in order to ensure interoperability, sustainability, and broad accessibility of digital collections.

This chapter offers readers a new way of conceptualizing “distinctive collection teams,” proposes some strategies for marshaling resources from across library units, and suggests ways in which librarians and archivists can collaborate on content selection, copyright clearance, metadata creation, and web design and information technology development.

Changing user needs have created new opportunities for libraries, requiring evolving leadership practices that support innovation and rapid change. Design thinking can provide leaders with a concrete process to move toward action. The authors – one an executive administrator at a large, multi-branch public library, the other an academic librarian who leads a small team – share how design thinking has positively influenced their leadership practices. The benefits of implementing this flexible process have included improved user experience, more creative solutions, wise investments, staff empowerment, increased transparency and trust, and employee learning and development. Both leaders experienced these benefits even though they are in different positions on their hierarchical organization charts. The authors propose that implementing design thinking as a leadership practice has a place in the evolving role of libraries and can shift organizational cultures to become more user-centered and embrace innovation. In addition to these benefits, the chapter discusses specific project examples, challenges, and tips for library leaders to successfully implement the process. Design thinking is translatable across library types and throughout private industry. Discussing design thinking as a leadership practice can benefit the profession and communities by giving leaders a common language to use when learning from and sharing with each other in conversations about innovation.

This chapter illustrates two leadership theories – Heifetz’ (1994) theory of adaptive change, and Bridges and Mitchell’s (2000) theory of leading in transition – to illustrate their applicability to leading experienced staff through change. Using adult learning and followership theories as a conceptual framework, this case study illustrates an application of Heifetz’ (1994) and Bridges and Mitchell’s (2000) theories. Heifetz’ (1994) and Bridges and Mitchell’s (2004) leadership theories offer library leaders a framework for understanding, managing, and leading change efforts. The results in a case study approach are naturally subjective and may have limited generalizability to other library contexts. This study illustrates how library leaders may use established leadership theory to support experienced staff and guide change efforts. In using the adult learning and followership theory framework, the writer advocates for a humane approach to managing change with experienced staff. This chapter is original in its synthesis of three areas of theory in service of understanding leadership and change: adult learning, followership, and leadership. It is the first study to use Heifetz (1994) and Bridges and Mitchell (2000) in the context of library leadership.