Workplace culture refers to conditions that collectively influence the work atmosphere. These can include policies, norms, and unwritten standards for behavior. This book focuses on various aspects of workplace culture in academic libraries from the practitioners' viewpoint, as opposed to that of the theoretician. The book asks the following questions: What conditions contribute to an excellent academic library work environment? What helps to make a particular academic library a great place to work? Articles focus on actual programs while placing the discussion in a scholarly context. The book is structured into 14 chapters, covering various aspects of workplace culture in academic libraries, including: overview of workplace culture, assessment, recruitment, acclimation for new librarians, workforce diversity, physical environment, staff morale, interaction between departments, tenure track/academic culture, mentoring/coaching, generational differences, motivation/incentives, complaints/conflict management, and organizational transparency. - Includes the most current best practices and models in academic libraries - Represents the viewpoints of both the employee and manager - Focuses on the academic library as workplace rather than as a service provider

Historically, academic libraries have struggled with providing consistent customer service. How might understanding the underlying motivations of staff u2013 including student workers u2013 impact the quality of customer service an academic library is able to provide? This poster presents a theoretical model based on current research and literature that explores whether alternative customer service models -- where more time, energy, and passion is invested in the staff who interact with the public on a daily basis -- would result in academic libraries seeing a larger return on investment in terms of student success, faculty support, brand loyalty and advocacy, and overall user satisfaction. We will review the current research on consistent customer service in academic libraries and describe methods outside of the traditional library approaches that have been used to explore the principles behind employee motivation techniques and how they could be implemented to improve employee support and patron satisfaction. We plan to additionally present a model for research that would identify gaps (if any) between what employees identify as motivators and what their supervisors perceive as motivators, to be able to offer recommendations to better train both employees and supervisors to provide higher quality customer service.

The Library Staff Development Handbook: How to Maximize Your Library’s Most Important Resource provides practical tips, suggestions for resources, and concrete examples for addressing the multiple and varied aspects of staff development. From crafting a job description to recruitment, hiring and retention, and from progressive discipline and succession planning to continuing education, performance appraisals, and the importance of workplace fun, this handbook can serve as a companion for managers, supervisors and library staff as they negotiate the challenging range of staffing issues and the opportunities they provide in the library setting.

Academic library workers will learn how to collaborate with staff in academic advising and student services to improve undergraduate student belonging, retention rates, and graduation rates for at-promise students. As the demographics of student populations change, many students require additional or different support to be successful in their college careers. Meanwhile, higher education is under pressure to reduce budgets and serve more students within certain areas of the university, including the library, academic advising, and other student services. Academic librarians and student success administrators can collaborate to create additional pathways for students who struggle to succeed. Authors Vecchione and McGraw provide a roadmap for library employees and student success administrators to initiate and develop discussions on college campuses to define and address these emergent student needs. Through a selection of case studies and historical context, readers will learn how to define what student success looks like and how to design custom services to address student barriers to that success. Library employees and student success professionals both serve students at the margins. These readers will acquire skills to enhance student success initiatives and strengthen collaborations with one another.

This standard text has been fully revised and updated for its fourth edition to reflect continuing technological changes, as well as issues such as social inclusion, lifelong learning and European employment legislation. Chapter 1 on the working environment has been completely rewritten. The present environment brings problems of staff motivation, de-professionalization and the loss of control: Chapter 2 reminds readers of basic motivation theories, now presented in a more logical sequence, and how to deal with such problems. Chapter 3 on workforce planning has been retitled Human Resource Planning and revised to take into account the modes of staffing appropriate for today's turbulent environment. Effective human resource planning requires excellent selection and recruitment procedures: best practice and developments in this area are explored in Chapters 4, Job Descriptions and Person Specifications, and 5, Recruitment and Selection of Staff. In Chapter 6 on staff appraisal more attention has been given to multi-rating approaches, such as 360° whereby different aspects of work can be assessed by different groups of people, and to appraisal of junior by senior staff. The last decade has seen increased emphasis on training and development to deliver high quality services in a climate of constant change. Chapter 7 has therefore been reordered and expanded in order to reflect new approaches and changes in this area. In Chapter 8, Staff Supervision and Interpersonal Skills, recent emphasis on leadership and counselling skills are reflected, as is the growing need to do more with less through enhanced time management and stress management techniques. With this new edition, this core guide brings professionals involved in managing library and information staff up to date with how to cope with the most pressing problems and challenges in today's fast-changing environment.

This book, first published in 1991, presents a variety of insightful perspectives on how proper human resources management strategies can provide library staff members at all levels with the skills needed for libraries of the future. The shift of the concept of management from control to development means that library administrators must adapt to a more inclusive definition of the human resources field. In addition to such administration activities as recruitment, wage and payroll management, and benefits, human resources management now encompasses all activities that promote greater job satisfaction and support the development of individuals within the context of the workplace. This valuable book examines some of the procedures that can help library managers identify the human resources in their organizations; design and implement programs, policies, and procedures to address these issues; and commit the necessary resources to support the full development of all library staff.