Making a Difference

Leadership is separate from but integral to management; and library directors today and for the foreseeable future can be expected to play an institutional role as they lead the library to contribute towards the mission of their college and university. Similarly new courses in library leadership now accompany more traditional ones on managing organizations and information resources. However much of the literature on LIS leadership represents a distilled application of principles and practices borrowed from other disciplines with few reports of research from the library field. Conceived as a companion to The Next Library Leadership (Libraries Unlimited 2003) Making a Difference includes not only a discussion of effective attributes but of issues central to the development of leadership qualities strategies and dispositions. Essential reading for anyone interested in advancing the quality of leadership within LIS particularly academic librarians in or aspiring to positions of managerial leadership.