Trends in Integration-Based Orientation in Academic Libraries

When new employees join an organization, a great deal of information must be provided to support their success. While clarifying job duties, outlining operational procedures, and reviewing benefits details are priorities, integrating employees into the culture of the organization is perhaps the most critical, and most often overlooked, aspect of orientation programs. In the ever-expanding field of information science and knowledge management, it is imperative that organizations provide comprehensive orientation programs that not only welcome new employees but successfully integrate them to their long-term contributions to the organization and the profession. This chapter examines the importance of orientation programs and discusses how current orientation programs in several academic and research libraries are effectively focusing on organizational culture and employee integration.

Strategies for Diversity Initiatives

In the state of Nebraska, where the population is 90% white, recruiting people of color to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is challenging. Needless to say, intentional efforts are made to recruit and retain librarians and other information professionals. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries has brought together a team of librarians to focus on one of the university’s core values--diversity. This team of librarians from public services, technical services and library administration share responsibility in planning and implementing the Libraries’ diversity initiatives. This chapter will discuss the recruitment and retention efforts of the Libraries and the evolution of the team that has increased the number of librarians from underrepresented populations at University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 2.6% in 1999 to 12.2% in 2009.

Global Issues in Human Resource Management and Their Significance to Information Organizations and Information Professionals

This chapter examines global challenges identified in contemporary human resource management literature, and discusses selected challenges as they relate to information organizations and information professionals. The challenges include skills shortages, talent management, shifting demographics, work/life balance, and managing intergenerational and intercultural work groups. Approaches to these challenges are discussed as reported in the literature of human resource management, library management, and information technology, as well as those suggested by the author. The chapter may be of interest to employers, managers and supervisors of information professionals; emerging, entry-level and senior information professionals at all career levels and in all types of information organizations; human resource managers in all types of information organizations.

Recruitment Experiences in Area Studies Library Organizations

This chapter discusses the urgent need to recruit individuals into academic librarianship for positions within or otherwise related to area studies. It first outlines the major problems that continue to inhibit recruitment efforts in area studies including negative perceptions of academic librarianship, a narrow interpretation of qualifications, deterrents of the library and information science curriculum for subject Ph.D.s, and the shrinking number of dedicated full-time positions. Educational incentives, experiential opportunities, and a stronger focus on professional recruitment and collaboration by area studies library organizations are each explored as potential solutions. The second half of the chapter presents the activities and accomplishments of WESS’s Recruitment to the Profession Committee as a model for other area studies library groups to use to stimulate professional recruitment in their respective specialties.

Mentoring and Supervision? Or, Mentoring versus Supervision?

Supportive mentors and supervisors are vital components in the career success of new librarians. The mentor relationship is generally in addition to the more formalized relationship between the new librarian and her or his supervisor. These are, inherently, two separate roles. These disparate roles, however, do intersect. When each role is taken up by a different individual, there is a possibility that there may be some tension or anxiety on the part of the supervisor regarding the mentor’s influence. When the roles of mentor and supervisor combine in one person the mentor-protégé relationship may conflict with supervisory obligations. In this chapter, this potential tension and anxiety between the roles of mentor and supervisor is explored. The roles of both mentor and supervisor are pivotal in the development of new professionals. A closer examination of how these roles intersect and influence each other will provide insight into how these relationships come together and shape professional careers.

Understanding Organizational Culture and Group Dynamics

The field of library and information science will benefit from a greater understanding of the function of individuals in relation to organizational culture and group dynamics, including how individual experiences underlie the culture of an organization. Understanding how these factors can shape successful human resources management will help today’s information science and management organizations in their recruitment, development, and retention efforts. It is suggested here that, while MLIS curricula and library organizations have traditionally focused on leadership as a function of management, a reorientation towards development of leadership skills at all levels of the organization will have a positive effect on organizational culture and group dynamics. In development of this concept, this chapter provides an overview of traditional approaches to understanding organizational culture and group dynamics and how these are applied in the information and library science literature and curricula; explores an alternate normative orientation towards the understanding of organizational culture and group dynamics as a function of all individuals in an organization and not just management; identifies ways in which information professionals and organizations can use this knowledge to recruit, develop, and retain employees in the information sciences profession; and explores future research directions in these areas.

The Career Development Compass

Due to constant change and intense competition within the information environment, developing a diversified portfolio of professional capabilities ensures employability and career mobility for future Information Professionals (IPs). Capability development begins with career development planning. However, without the proper navigation device to guide future IPs, career plans can go awry and career opportunities may vanish. Because the IP’s role is constantly changing, unforeseen opportunities exist for those who address career development planning beginning the first day of graduate school. This chapter provides future IPs with a navigation tool and roadmap to develop career plans in an unpredictable environment and discusses implications for the future viability of the profession.

Mentoring When Librarians Have Faculty Status

Numerous academic libraries participate in their campuses’ systems for faculty status for librarians, in separate tracks or identical tracks as those for teaching faculty. In either case, a practice is to encourage or require mentoring for librarians without tenure or permanent status. This chapter will cover the special challenges and benefits of mentoring and faculty status, the need for mentoring, and processes for best practices to make mentoring meaningful for all involved. The chapter will draw on the authors’ experiences, an environmental scan, a survey of selected institutional practice where librarians have faculty status, and published research and related literature. It will also feature mentoring programs developed by various institutions, including the University of Maryland Libraries.

Use of the Evolutionary Conscious Model to Sustain a Formal Mentoring Program

Formal mentoring programs, whether occurring in profit making organizations or existing within non-profits, have had a colorful history. Many professionals have been involved as a mentor, a mentee, or else have known individuals who were involved in a mentoring program. Whether participating on an informal basis, or engaged formally in a program arranged by an organization, not everyone who has experienced a mentoring program has a success story to tell. Based on that observation, and data collected from mentoring program failures, program challenges and successes, and research into current literature, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight a mentoring model created to assist organizations with their attempt to encourage the successful development, retention, and recruitment of professions into their organization. With this in mind, the search for the perfect mentoring model continues.

Making the Best of the Best

Library success is a direct result of staff quality, engagement, and satisfaction. Careful selection and training of library staff and commitment to their growth are essential to staff retention, which bears directly on organizational effectiveness. Regardless of the type of library, accountability for outcomes has increased, placing greater importance on the quality of staff appointments, employee skills development, and how staff melds into a team in the work place. The cycle of employee excellence is fueled when supervisors provide challenges, opportunities, and recognition relevant to individual work styles. The authors describe the importance of effective recruitment and supervision to staff retention by discussing effective leadership characteristics, outlining the need for a supervisory commitment to ongoing employee training and motivation, and providing suggestions for building successful supervisor-employee relationships in libraries.