Interim Leadership in Libraries:: Building Relationships, Making Decisions, and Moving on

It's common for libraries to use visiting, interim, temporary, and acting roles to solve a variety of personnel vacancies. And with the current, widespread retirements and turnover at the most senior levels of library leadership, more and more libraries are being led by interim leaders.

Interim Leadership in Libraries: Building Relationships, Making Decisions, and Moving On draws on evidence-based research, professional expertise, and personal experience to address the practical implications that arise from the decision to appoint interim leaders. Authors from a variety of institutions who have served in many different interim roles explore this unique type of leadership in five thorough sections:

• Building Relationships for Interim Leaders
• Leading with Confidence
• Making Long-Term Decisions as an Interim Leader
• Leading Through Contraction: When No One Can Be Hired
• Moving On: When the Dust Settles

Chapters cover topics including serving as a non-librarian interim, leading through a hiring freeze, strategic planning and reorganization as interim, and developing future library leaders. Individuals asked to step into interim or acting leadership roles face personal and professional challenges. This book will help leaders, and those who work with them, learn from the successes and failures of others who came before them in order to have a lasting impact on their organization.