Digital Commons Network^™

Erau Scholarly Commons, July 1, 2014-June 30, 2015, Anne M. Casey, Chip Wolfe, Brittany Blanchard

Anne Marie Casey

Scholarly Commons continued to grow in 2014-2015, not only in content added and downloads, but in maturity of the process. At the beginning of the second year, many of the early challenges resolved as teams that oversee the administration and new development began to understand the system and each other’s strengths. Members of the university community also developed a better understanding of Scholarly Commons and its value to many aspects of the research and academic mission. In particular, various departments turned to Scholarly Commons to host conferences and events. Also, members of the Oversight Team met with representatives of Sponsored …

Grassroots Strategic Planning: Involving Library Staff From The Beginning, Anne Marie Casey

Anne Marie Casey

Strategic planning is often considered a managerial tool. The management of an organization surveys the environment and develops a plan that they introduce to the organization as a whole. Most modern organizations seek employee involvement in the planning process and feedback to some degree with varied results. But for one academic library, employee involvement in the development and execution of the strategic plans has been a vital part of the processes. The Hunt Library at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has been developing strategic plans for several years with active input from the librarians and staff. This case study chronicles the different …

Strategic Priorities: A Roadmap Through Change For Library Leaders, Anne M. Casey

Anne Marie Casey

Twenty-first century academic libraries need to adapt on a regular basis because external forces such as increased pressures from the institution and accreditation organizations, emerging technologies, or budget reductions create new conditions. In a twenty-year period ending in 2008, academic library spending shifted substantially from physical to electronic resources and from staff and student salary lines to professionals, signaling profound changes in the way libraries do business. “Then just as academic … libraries were settling into these new behaviors, the worst recession in seventy-five years occurred, forcing many … to concern themselves with survival and making difficult decisions based on …

Leadership Institute For Academic Librarians, Anne Marie Casey

Anne Marie Casey

The Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians (LIAL), which offered its first institute in 1999, is a collaboration of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.[i] Intended to provide participants with the tools and insight needed to improve effectiveness and respond rapidly to a changing environment, LIAL is held each year for one week in August on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[ii]

The need for leadership programs for librarians was recognized by John Collins, a librarian at Harvard University, who had …

Distance Learning Librarians: Their Shared Vision, Anne M. Casey

Anne Marie Casey

Shared vision is a component of leadership that fosters innovation through buy-in at all levels of the organization. It is often evident in circumstances people see a need for innovation but do not have the power to make changes on their own. Many librarians in academic institutions that were early adopters of distance learning envisioned a need for new services that were tailored to off-campus students. This study examines shared vision among librarians through a content analysis of planning documents from early distance learning library programs. It offers a shared vision model relevant to the study and application of leadership.