Dorothea Sommer

Management of library and information services at the University and State Library Saxony-Anhalt :
selected papers. Halle 2000

The book contains a collection of essays, reports and project studies which focus on several aspects of the management of library and information services at the university and state library of Saxony-Anhalt in Halle (Saale). They concentrate on developments in the library system within the last decade of the 1990's. The papers deal with the application of different management styles in libraries, consider implications for planning library moves in particular, and depict strategies of Continuing Professional Development in a library context.
The studies include papers on issues of evaluation, on the environmental factors influencing a university library and on its financial management. There are also explorations of classic library tasks such as collection management, of how to provide specifications for prospective library suppliers and of the pros and cons of measuring the quality of collections with the help of a Conspectus analysis.
Finally, a case study with particular emphasis on human resource management discusses the need for leadership in a changing organisational setting. The study identifies organisational structures and the decisive role of managing and leading staff as central prerequisites for any strategy to manage change. A focus group discussion between members of the senior management at Halle library provides the basis for an analysis of qualitative data. This discussion reflects their internal perception of the implementation of change within the library system during the last decade