Developing the Next Generation of Library Leaders (ACRL Publications in Librarianship No. 75)

“Developing the Next Generation of Library Leaders provides myriad insights into the motivations, challenges, and pathways to leadership for those contemplating a move into hierarchical leadership.”
—From the Foreword by Mary Ann Mavrinac, MLS, EdD

The leadership and management skills and competencies needed to lead an academic library are not always limited to domain-based expertise developed in graduate school and honed over careers. Librarians in administrative positions, both within the organization and the greater university leadership structure, need to be entrepreneurial in their approach to leadership and become systems thinkers: consider the overarching structures in which they operate, identify collaborative opportunities to strengthen their organizations, and creatively lead bold change in order to keep their organizations relevant.

Developing the Next Generation of Library Leaders examines how the library profession can foster this skill development for new leaders through the leadership stories and development of twenty-two assistant/associate deans. Ten big ideas emerged through this research:  

• Developing a career ladder
• Mitigating identity crisis
• Learning theory, applying to practice
• Support
• Find your people
• Leadership pause points
• Alternative leadership and management models
• Demystifying leadership and management
• Succession planning
• Battling gender-based doubts

Each of these ideas include questions as well as recommendations that, when taken together, offer a holistic approach to shrinking the leadership gap in our profession and preparing the next generation of library leaders to move the profession forward and meet the evolving challenges of higher education.