Best practices for managing innovations in public libraries in the USA

Abstract

Public libraries serve as anchors for thousands of communities across the United States. Innovations are critical for the survival and relevance of public libraries in the country. Few studies, if any, identify the best practices for managing innovations in public libraries based on the experiential guidance shared by administrators of public libraries that are recognized for their innovations. This empirical study fills in the gap by identifying the challenges and solutions for managing innovations in public libraries in the USA. A thematic content analysis of qualitative responses collected through an online anonymous survey of 219 administrators of 211 innovations in 106 urban public libraries awarded for their innovations revealed 30 unique challenges to planning and implementing innovations and an equal number of solutions, which were then organized into five clusters: strategy, finance, organizational behavior, human resource management, and communication. Administrators and staff in public libraries need to develop competencies in these five areas to better manage innovations in the future. Other public libraries can learn, apply, and benefit from these best practices. The best practices for managing innovations, if applied, can enhance the perceived and real value of public libraries to their local communities.

More than Lip Service

“…In order to identify a sample for evaluation, the researcher searched for "social justice" in two major LIS databases: Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) and Library and Information Science Source (LISS). These specific databases were selected because of their size, scope, and LIS focus to provide a useful data source for assessing the research that uses social justice to situate itself within the LIS discipline (Garg et al, 2019;Figuerola et al, 2017;Potnis et al, 2020). The author decided to focus on results published before January 2020 as work on the study began in March of 2020 and the end of 2019 provided a useful end point.…”

The relationship between the development level of American public libraries and the output of science and engineering publications

“…The above shows that the shock of the development level of American public libraries on the output of S&E publications has a certain lag. The deficiencies of American public libraries in the quality of computer and internet infrastructure (Noh, 2019), the application of management innovation (Potnis et al, 2021), and the uneven development level (Mehra et al, 2017) restricted the output of S&E publications in the initial period. With the gradual emergence of the information aggregation effect of American public libraries, the supporting effect on the output of S&E publications begins to appear.…”

How to measure service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty of public library users: Application of library customer satisfaction index (LCSI) lite model

“…Nowadays, regardless of their type, many libraries are confronted with competitions from other libraries and/or related organizations (Dorner et al, 2017;Potnis et al, 2021;Rabig, 2020;Sukovic et al, 2011). In these competitive situations, libraries are requested not only to justify their value and roles (Aabø, 2005(Aabø, , 2009Aabø and Audunson, 2002;Appleton et al, 2018;Stenstrom et al, 2019;Sørensen, 2020Sørensen, , 2021 but also to prove their importance in the community based on their performances for and responsiveness to their customers (Harris et al, 2020;Hernon and Nitecki, 2001;Weinstein and McFarlane, 2017).…”