Bradford Lee Eden, Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, 2012, 232 pp., £49.95 (hard cover), ISBN 978-0-81088-381-9, (available from Inbooks)
In the introduction to this handbook, the editor, Bradford Lee Eden, remarks that there is little to support and guide the people occupying the high-level position of associate librarian in universities – not even a support group within the American Library Association. The reason for this is self-evident: these people constitute a unique group of librarians, but not a large group. Fortunately, much of the advice provided in this collection's 17 papers is equally useful for librarians in management positions in any library. The papers are written by a well-credentialed and multi-skilled group of senior university librarians, and each concludes with an extensive list of further reading options for each topic.
The papers are grouped into several sections, including ‘Managing Change’, ‘Funding and Managing Resources’, ‘Managing Your Career’ and ‘Library Leadership’. Much of the information contained in the three papers constituting ‘Managing Your Career’ goes beyond the advice found in standard library-management texts. Susan Parker examines ways of making leadership count by encouraging self-awareness of one's values, strengths and limitations, by improving oneself and one's relationships with others, and by managing one's image and reputation. The second paper considers prospects for moving up the career ladder and becoming an associate director of the organisation. And the final paper, by Sandra Barstow, investigates an unexpected aspect of career management: what to do if you have concluded that striving for promotion is too complex and you want to return to being a line librarian – a commonsense approach not often considered in the literature.
In addition to the informative collection of papers in the handbook, Eden also directs his readers to the Taiga Forum (www.taiga-forum.org), which maintains a discussion board facilitating the exchange of views on issues relevant to managing university libraries. Each year this forum develops a series of ‘provocative statements’ regarding future challenges to be faced by academic librarians. The statements are intended to provoke discussion rather than predict the future, but reading the 2011 list prompts acute consideration of the future for libraries in academia. Facing the concept of library systems located in the ‘cloud’, while books are used simply as decor in designer reading rooms, is a formidable challenge.
The Associate University Librarian Handbook is well set out – with a clear and informative contents page and a good index – easy to read and to refer to as needed. It provides invaluable career advice for those in the position of associate university librarian and those aspiring to attain the position, as well as senior librarians and library managers in any library sphere looking to move up the career ladder.
©2012, Helen Dunford