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Strategic Planning and Management for Library Managers
By Joseph R. Matthews. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2005. xiv, 150p. $40 (ISBN 1-59158-231-8).
The
reality for most librarians is that, sometime in their career, they
will be involved in strategic management and planning. While library
school courses occasionally deal with this topic, it is from a
theoretical perspective only. Most librarians are promoted or coerced
into leadership and management roles, often with little or no training
or resources at their disposal to assist them with the transition or
change of responsibilities. Strategic planning is one of those duties
assigned to library managers and leaders that often get pushed to the
lowest-priority list, mainly because there are few guidelines and
handbooks available in this area. Since the publication of Donald
Riggs’s Strategic Planning for Library Managers (Oryx, 1984),
little attention has been given to this vital topic. Matthews’s book
attempts to provide information on how to explore strategies; demystify
false impressions about strategies; how strategies play a role in the
planning and delivery of library services; broad categories of library
strategies that can be used; and identification of new ways to
communicate the impact of strategies to patrons. As the author states
in the introduction, the focus of libraries has moved from collections
to encompass the arena of change itself. Finding strategies to enable
operation in a fluid environment can mean the difference between
relevance and irrelevance in today’s competitive information
marketplace.
The book
is divided into three major sections: (1) what is a strategy, and the
importance of having one; (2) the value of and options for strategic
planning; and (3) the need to monitor and update strategies. The first
four chapters make up the first section. Chapters 1 and 2 go through
the semantics and the need for strategies, as well as the realities and
limitations of strategies. Chapter 3 provides brief introductions to
schools of strategic thought. These include the design school, the
planning school, the positioning school, the entrepreneurial school,
the cognitive school, the learning school, the power school, the
cultural school, the environmental school, and the configuration
school. Chapter 4 introduces types of strategies: operational
excellence, innovative services, customer intimacy, and the concept of
strategic options. Section 2 consists of chapters 5 through 8 and
provides information on what strategic planning is, what its value is,
process options such as planning alternatives and critical success
factors, and implementation. Section 3, comprised of chapters 9 and 10,
focuses on the culture of assessment; monitoring and updating
strategies; and tools available for managing the library. Two
appendixes are provided: one containing sample library strategic plans,
and another with a critique of a library strategic plan.
Overall,
the book is very straightforward and understandable, with numerous
illustrations, process workflows, and charts. I found the information
very interesting and useful, and the final section on assessment and
measurement of strategic planning is essential for libraries to
implement and monitor in today’s marketplace. The various explanations
related to schools of strategic thought were especially helpful. This
book should be read by every library manager and director involved in
strategic planning and process.��Brad Eden, Associate University
Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication,
University of California, Santa Barbara
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book review