Strategic Priorities: A Roadmap through Change for Library Leaders

Authors

  • Anne Marie Casey Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5860/llm.v29i2.7085

Keywords:

priorities, change management, strategic planning

Abstract

In an era of constant technological, institutional and financial disruption, library leaders often need to reallocate resources or reengineer positions and services. How do they make these organizational changes effectively while maintaining services and resources and even innovating? This paper discusses that question by exploring the role of strategic priority-setting as a roadmap for successful change in libraries. Against the backdrop of the Great Recession, the author explored three academic libraries with published strategic priorities that weathered major changes, including severe budget reductions and planning for a new building, to see what role the priorities played in the decision-making of the leaders. Through interviews of key stakeholders and an analysis of documents, the author discovered that the library leadership and staff used the priorities to maintain the most important services and resources; innovate in some ways; and support employee morale.

Author Biography

Anne Marie Casey, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Anne Marie Casey is currently the Dean of Retention and Student Success at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) since January 2014. Prior to this she was the Director of the Hunt Library at ERAU and worked at the libraries of Central Michigan University, National University in San Diego, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the Springfield (MA) City Library. She received a Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions from Simmons College in 2011, an AMLS from the University of Michigan in 1981, an MA in Medieval Studies from the Catholic University of America in 1979, and a BA in Classics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1977. For a large part of her library career, Anne Marie has been involved with the provision of library services to distance learners. She is a past Chair of the Distance Learning Section of ACRL and is the 2007 recipient of the ACRL Distance Learning Section Award. Currently, Anne Marie serves on the Boards of FACRL and NEFLIN and she is an active member of ALA and FLA. Her areas of research include distance learning library services, leadership in academic libraries, strategic planning, and scholarly communications.

Downloads

Published

2015-01-20

How to Cite

Casey, A. M. (2015). Strategic Priorities: A Roadmap through Change for Library Leaders. Library Leadership & Management, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.5860/llm.v29i2.7085

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 2 (2015)

Section

Peer Reviewed

License

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.