Abstract
The changing environment of academic libraries in India demands new skills and competencies for future academic library professionals. This chapter discusses the managerial skills for the library professionals in the present scenario. The main objective is to highlights the managerial skills for practicing library professionals. It also discusses the functions of library management, how it is benefited to library professionals. It is also discussed that library professionals who have the managerial skills perform and maintain the library.
TopIntroduction
Library associations are learned societies. They promote development of the library movement in a country. They strive for better provision of library and information services. This process also strives for advancement of the profession and the professionals. Professional associations are made up of and for the professionals of the fields concerned e.g. librarians, library staff members, library science teachers, users of libraries and library associations.
‘Management’ has suddenly become a magic word in librarianship. But what is library management that has not hitherto been taken for granted by senior librarians as their essential role as administrators of their libraries? Have senior librarians not in effect been ‘managers’ since time immemorial, for what is librarianship other than managing collections so that they may be exploited to maximum effect by those requiring recourse to them? No part of librarianship can be divorced from the concept of management - not even the more recondite aspects of professional activity such as paleography or the bibliography of early printed books, for these, too, are concerned with the efficient control of such materials to make them readily accessible to readers. Every librarian – certainly every senior librarian - has always been ipso facto a manager, even if he has not descended, as he might well say, to thinking of his duties in such mundane terms. In recent years, however, attention has increasingly been given to the need to analyze the ways in which a librarian can more effectively carry out his role of making his resources available to his readers.
Managerial Skills
The managerial skills expected of new LIS professionals are quite vast. The managerial skill or competency required for working in the electronic environment. To start with technological awareness coupled with skills for technology assessment or evaluation and selection of appropriate technology and products is fundamental. As the librarians are the manager of a library and information centre, they should have some basic managerial skills for managing the different sections like Finance, Human Resource, etc. They should have to apply some of these managerial skills in planning, decision-making, motivating etc.
The library professional that has managerial skills can easily grow. In the information technology age the concept of library is totally changed. So all library professionals are required to possess the following managerial competencies to perform their duties:
- 1.
Technical skills,
- 2.
Communication skills,
- 3.
Problem solving skills,
- 4.
Critical thinking skills,
- 5.
Decision making skills,
- 6.
Leadership skills,
- 7.
Performance skills,
- 8.
Team building skills,
- 9.
Time management skills,
- 10.
Effective thinking skills,
- 11.
Interpersonal skills,
- 12.
Negotiating skills,
- 13.
Teaching skills,
- 14.
Presentation skills,
- 15.
Motivating skills.
Literature Review
Barbara Ivy (1987) argues that leadership and managerial skills can and should be developed in all people to a greater or lesser extent. Since children’s services are part of a larger library organization, this article addresses the problems of developing managerial skills to cope with today’s issues as a training function of the library organization. Although the suggestions are written for an administrator planning such training, the theories behind each suggestion should allow individual children’s librarians to follow and benefit from most of the activities within their current position.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Competencies: The combination of observable and measurable knowledge, skills, abilities and personal attributes that contribute to enhanced employee performance and ultimately result in organizational success.
Skills: A skill is a type of work or activity which requires special training and knowledge.
Library Management: Management refers to series of functions for the organization and administration of various activities and people in the organization. Management is essential for all types of organization and libraries are no exception. Libraries had very limited financial resources and limited services. Now libraries exist in great variety. These vary in size, goals, structural pattern, financial resources, staff and many other characteristics. From management point of view, these very in management style, morale of the staff, environment for innovation, etc. Now a variety of information and communication technologies are available as means to improve library services and operations.
Academic Library: Academic libraries work together with other members of their institutional communities to participate in, support, and achieve the educational mission of their institutions by teaching the core competencies of information literacy—the abilities involved in identifying an information need, accessing needed information, evaluating, managing, and applying information, and understanding the legal, social, and ethical aspects of information use.