Strategic Management for Public Libraries

Drawing on Hayes's previous work in Strategic Management for Academic Libraries, this professional reference addresses the unique circumstances and needs of public libraries and provides thorough guidance on how to manage change successfully in the community library environment. The volume provides a conceptual framework for strategic management, identifies its major concerns and relationships to the tactical and operational management of public libraries, discusses the particular problems and needs of community libraries, and details the assessment of the library's strategic position. The final section of the book offers extensive practical information for formulating and implementing strategic management in the public library setting.

Public libraries must operate in a time of increasing change, both within the library community and throughout the larger social and economic environments in which the library must function. All community libraries, regardless of size, must prepare for the strategic changes that are occurring, such as the National Information Infrastructure and the onrush of electronic information. Planning for change is not enough. Change must be managed strategically, through the library's recognition of its needs and objectives in relationship to the shifting contexts in which it must operate.

This professional reference is a comprehensive guide to the strategic management of change in community libraries. Drawing on Hayes's work in Strategic Management for Academic Libraries, this volume addresses the unique circumstances and needs of public libraries and provides thorough guidance on how to manage change successfully in the community library environment. The volume provides a conceptual framework for strategic management, identifies its major concerns and relationships to the tactical and operational management of public libraries, discusses the particular problems and needs of community libraries, and details the assessment of the library's strategic position. The final section of the book offers extensive practical information for formulating and implementing strategic management in the public library setting.

ROBERT M. HAYES is the former Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UCLA. He holds a doctorate in mathematics and has published several books on libraries and automated information systems. He is the author of Strategic Management for Academic Libraries: A Handbook (Greenwood, 1993).

VIRGINIA A. WALTER is Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, where she teaches courses in management and library services and programs for children. She has worked as a children's services coordinator, principal librarian, senior librarian, and young adult librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has published numerous articles, and her books include three professional works for librarians and a children's book.

ROBERT M. HAYES is the former Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UCLA. He holds a doctorate in mathematics and has published several books on libraries and automated information systems. He is the author of Strategic Management for Academic Libraries: A Handbook (Greenwood, 1993).

VIRGINIA A. WALTER is Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, where she teaches courses in management and library services and programs for children. She has worked as a children's services coordinator, principal librarian, senior librarian, and young adult librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has published numerous articles, and her books include three professional works for librarians and a children's book.