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Contents
Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
SECTION 1—INTRODUCTION
1 Managing in T
oday’s Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 The Evolution of Management Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3 Change: The Innovative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
SECTION 2—PLANNING
4 Strategic Planning, Decision Making, and Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5 Planning and Maintaining Library Facilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6 Marketing Information Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
SECTION 3—ORGANIZING
7 Organizations and Organizational Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8 The Fundamentals of Organization: Specialization and
Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9 Designing Adaptive Organizational Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
SECTION 4—HUMAN RESOURCES

10 Staffing the Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
11 The Human Resources Function in the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
12 Other Issues in H
uman Resource Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
SECTION 5—LEADING
13 Motivation in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
14 Organizational Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
vii
viii Contents
15 Professional Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

16 Organizational Communication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
17 Empowering Employees through the Use of Teams . . . . . . . . . . 413
SECTION 6—COORDINATING
18 Evaluating Organizational Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
19 Library Finance and Budgets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
20 Library Fund-Raising (Development) and Grant Writing . . . . . 491
SECTION 7—MANAGING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

21 Managers: The Next Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Elements of Competitive Advantage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 Levels of Management in Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 The Functions of Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4 Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1 Major Schools of Management Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2 Classical Schools of Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3 Frederick W. Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Lillian and Frank Gilbreth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5 Simplified Gantt Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.6 Max Weber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.7 Mary Parker Follett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.8 The Elements of the System Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1 Information Paradigm Shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2 The Continuum of Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.3 Internal and External Pressure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.4 Interrelationships of the Various Subsystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.1 Strategic Planning Is a Continuous Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2 Development of a Strategic Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.3 Looking-Around Aspect of the Planning Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4 Political, Economic, Social, and Technological (PEST)
Factors Impact Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.5 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats (SWOT) Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.6 Components of a Mission Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.7 Steps in the Decision-Making Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.1 Sample Page from Library Architectural Program. . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.1 Marketing Mix—The Three Cs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.2 Marketing Mix—The Six Ps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.3 10 Reasons for Marketing Library and Information Services . . . 129
7.1 The Life Cycle of Organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
ix
x Illustrations
7.2 Organization Chart Showing Authority Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

7.3 Line and Staff Organizational Units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.4 The Three Levels of Corporate Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.1 Mintzberg’s Model of the Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
8.2 Types of Departments Found in Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
8.3 Vertical and Horizontal Specialization within Libraries . . . . . . . 178
8.4 The Flow of Authority within a Traditional Organization. . . . . . 179
8.5 A Flat Organization Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
8.6 A Vertical Organization Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
9.1 A Comparison of Mechanistic and Organic
Organizational Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
9.2 A Readers’ Services Department Organized with
a Matrix Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
9.3 A Networked Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
10.1 Hackman’s and Oldham’s Core Job Characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . 231
10.2 Job Description: Youth Services Coordinator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
10.3 A Hierarchy of Professional Library Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
10.4 A Hierarchy of Support-Level Positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
10.5 Stages in Recruiting and Hiring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
11.1 Performance Rankings in a Forced Distribution
Rating System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.2 A Graphic Rating Scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.3 A Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
12.1 Stages of a C areer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
13.1 A S imple Model of Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
13.2 Maslow’s Hierarchy of H uman Needs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
13.3 Application of Maslow’s Hierarchy in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . 315
13.4 Comparison of Maslow’s and Herzberg’s Motivation Theories. . . 316
13.5 The Equity Theory of Motivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
13.6 Vroom’s Expectancy Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
13.7 Elements of Effective Goal Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
14.1 Some Differences between Managers and Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . 336
14.2 A Toxic Triangle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
14.3 Likert’s Four Systems of Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
14.4 The Leadership Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
14.5 Fielder’s Contingency Model Relating Style of Leadership
to Situational Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
14.6 Situations and Preferred Leader Behavior According
to the Path-Goal Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
14.7 The Five Levels of Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
15.1 Categories of Human Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
15.2 Factors Influencing Ethical Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
15.3 Multiple Loyalties of Information Professionals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
15.4 Normative Frameworks for Ethical Decision Making . . . . . . . . . 373
15.5 The Code of Ethics of the American Library Association. . . . . . . 376
Illustrations xi
16.1 A Model of the Communication Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

16.2 A Classification of Types of Media According to Their
Communication Richness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
16.3 Five Styles of H
andling Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
17.1 Empowerment, Involvement, and Workplace Commitment. . . . . 420
17.2 Differences between Teams and Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
17.3 Characteristics of Effective Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
17.4 Five Stages of Team Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
18.1 PERT Diagram Shows the Planned Schedule of a Task,
in Graphic Format, of a Two-Path Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
18.2 A Four-Path PERT Diagram Can Be Used to Illustrate
the Critical Paths of Complex, Multipart Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . 455
18.3 Step-by-Step Usability Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
19.1 Sources and Uses of Funds at the University of Michigan. . . . . . 473
20.1 Gift Pyramid for a $1,000,000 Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Tables
1.1 Most Important Skills Needed for Success in 2015 and 2020 . . . . 17
2.1 Fayol’s Fourteen Principles of Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2 Assumptions of McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1 Comparing Library’s Existing Space to Proposed Program
and to Comparator Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
9.1 Characteristics of a Bureaucracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
10.2 Library Support Staff Job Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
10.2 Permitted and Prohibited Questions in
Employment Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
11.1 Onboarding Responsibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
11.2 Differences between New Employee Orientation
and Onboarding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
11.3 Employee Development Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.4 Common Errors in Performance Appraisals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
12.1 Job Description from Classified Advertising Sections in
the January 15 and July 1959 Issue of Library Journal.. . . . . . . 291
12.2 Major U.S. Federal Legislation Relating to Equal
Opportunity in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
15.1 Some Definitions Related to Ethics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
15.2 Questions for Examining the Ethics of a Business Decision . . . . 375
16.1 Examples of Communication in a Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
17.1 How Do You Know that You Are Empowered?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
17.2 Types of Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
17.3 Roles Played Within a Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
19.1 Sample Format of a Minimal Library Budget—Operating
Income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
19.2 Sample Format of a Minimal Library Budget—Operating
Expenditures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
19.3 The Line-Item Budget. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
xii Illustrations
19.4 Program Budget Sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

19.5 Monthly Summary Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
20.1 Naming Opportunities List for a Library Capital Campaign. . . . 501
21.1 Schein’s General Managerial Competence C areer Anchor. . . . . 517
Preface
The first edition of this book was published in 1977. That edition, co-authored
by Robert D. Stueart and John T. Eastlick, was designed to fill a need for a
basic management textbook for library and information science (LIS) stu-
dents. At the time it was published, there was little material available about
library management, and LIS faculty who taught library management courses
had e ither to assign textbooks intended for students in public administration
or business management or to compile a reading list of selected material
on management from various sources. During the more than 40 years since
the publication of the first edition of Library Management, libraries and infor-
mation serv ices have changed dramatically and each new edition of this
textbook has reflected t hese changes in both libraries and in their external
environment. The ninth edition of this text is very different from the one that
was published in 1977, but its purpose is the same—to provide in one vol-
ume a comprehensive introduction to all the most important functions in
library management for not only LIS students but also for beginning library
managers.
Each edition of the book has introduced new material and features. In
the early editions before the internet, a large portion of each volume was
devoted to examples of forms, charts and documents used by managers. More
recently, those examples have been included in the companion Web site to the
textbook. This new edition reflects the helpful feedback we have gotten from
LIS faculty both in the United States and internationally who use the text-
book in their courses. In preparing this revision, the authors have continued
to draw freely from writing and research in cognate fields, including busi-
ness management, public administration, and many areas of the social sci-
ences. Although all of our chapters have been revised and updated, we have
expanded the chapter on budgeting, with more real life examples and added
a grant writing section to the fundraising chapter
This edition continues to provide numerous opportunities through case
studies, role-plays, and simulations for experiential learning to enable stu-
dents or beginning managers to apply their knowledge to real world problems
or situations. In this latest edition, we have added more activities to allow
students to interact with one another and to participate in managerial-related
exercises. In this new addition, each chapter begins with “Chapter Take-
aways” which lists the most important concepts covered in that chapter.
Another new feature, “Management on the Job” is located near the beginning
xiii
xiv Preface
of each chapter and presents up-to-date examples of the application of the

management function covered in that chapter in various library settings. This
edition, also has added two new features to the end of each chapter: first a
“Practice What You Have Learned” section, that allows students to apply the
concepts from the chapter to their own experiences, and second, a “Discussion
Questions” section, that poses challenging questions for students to discuss
with one another. More of t hese experiential activities such as in-basket exer-
cises, case studies and simulations, which can complement and supplement
the material presented in the book can be found on the volume’s companion
Web site.
We hope that LIS faculty, students, and managers w ill find the material
in the volume helpful. We have enjoyed writing this ninth edition and hope
that our book w ill provide insight and perspective on this important function
of management in library and information organizations.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the many p eople have contributed to ninth edition of
Library and Information Center Management. Readers of previous editions,
including students, faculty, and practitioners, have made useful suggestions
and many have been incorporated into this latest edition. Colleagues through-
out the United States and the world have indicated the value of this text-
book to them and to their students. We are grateful for their encouragement
and hope they will be pleased with the changes made in this edition.
Our appreciation goes Rebecca Vargha, the SLIS Librarian at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Monica Colon-Aguirre from Simmons
College SILS; and Elizabeth Fowler from the University of New Hampshire
Library for their help in this latest edition. Brian Nussbaum and his team
of talented student assistants at the IT desk at UNC–SILS provided much
needed assistance whenever needed. We are also grateful to Rachel Anne
Spencer, who helped with the preparation of the manuscript. Our editor at
Libraries Unlimited, Blanche Woolls, provided us with assistance throughout.
We would also like to acknowledge other colleagues from Libraries Unlim-
ited, especially Emma Bailey, for their efficiency, assistance, and continuing
encouragement to write yet another edition of this textbook.
In addition, we need to once again recognize the contributions of A. J.
Anderson, who wrote several of the case studies used in the book and the Web
site. Finally, we again recognize Bob Stueart, friend and mentor, who first
saw the need for a textbook in library management over 40 years ago and
who coauthored the first seven editions of Library and Information Center
Management. His work in library management continues to be an inspira-
tion to us.
Many library and information center managers permitted us to repro-
duce documents that are used as examples in the book and the Web site, and
we thank them. Their management practices and procedures make our dis-
cussions and illustrations of the issues and challenges more relevant and
effective.
Finally, we thank our husbands, Joe and Lennie, and our families for
their help and encouragement during the writing of this manuscript. With-
out their support, the task would never have been completed.
Barbara B. Moran Claudia J. Morner

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Portsmouth, New Hampshire
xv
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Section 1
Introduction
It has become a cliché to say that constant change is the new normal, but we
are certainly living in a period of time when the pace of change has increased
dramatically. Organizations of all types are struggling to stay ahead of trans-
formations that often threaten their traditional ways of doing things, real-
izing that those organizations that do not adapt will likely not survive. In
2015, Udo Gollub, a German entrepreneur and CEO, provided an interesting
perspective on the consequences of not being able to adapt quickly. He used
Kodak, which just a few years ago was a h ousehold name in cameras and film,
as an example of an organization that was not able to adapt rapidly enough. In
1998, Kodak employed over 170,000 employees and was the source of 85 percent
of all photo paper sold worldwide. However, in just a few years its business
model was completely destroyed, and the company entered bankruptcy. Kodak
was too slow to change in response to the advent of digital photography, which
constituted a transformative change in the environment for photography. This
change almost resulted in the demise of an organization that had existed as
a leader in its field for over 100 years. Gollub speculates that what “happened
to Kodak w ill happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years—and most
people don’t see it coming.”1
Gollub described other transformative changes that he thinks will become
mainstream in just a few years, advances that w ill pose the same threats to
the traditional practices of many existing organizations that digital photog-
raphy did to Kodak. These are trends to which today’s managers need to be
responding to now if they want their organizations to remain viable. Some of
these changes are:
Software Organizations are now defined by soft-

ware and not by what they actually own.
Uber is now the biggest taxi company in
the world, and Airbnb the biggest h otel
company. Uber owns no taxis and Airbnb
no hotels.
Artificial Intelligence Computers are becoming exponentially
better at defining the world. L egal and
1
2 Introduction
medical advice is available from IBM

Watson with higher accuracy than advice
given by h umans. Facebook now has soft-
ware that is able to recognize faces bet-
ter than h umans can.
Driverless Cars In just a few years, driverless cars w ill
be available to the public. This innova-
tion may bankrupt the traditional auto
industry as new entrants such as Tesla
and Google begin to envision cars as
computers on wheels.
3D Printing The price of the least expensive 3D
printer has dropped dramatically, and
soon smartphones w ill be able to scan
in 3D. For example, soon you w ill be
able to scan your feet and print a perfect
pair of shoes at home. Within a decade,
10 percent of all goods manufactured
will be 3D printed.
Work In the next two decades, 70 to 80 percent
of the jobs that now exist w ill disappear.
There will be new jobs, but it is less clear
what they w ill be and how many t here
will be.
Agriculture Farmers will be freed from working all
day in their fields with the development
of a $100 agricultural robot.
Currency Bitcoin w ill become mainstream and
might become the default reserve
currency.
Education The cheapest smartphone already costs
only $10 in Africa and Asia. Soon almost
everyone will own a smartphone that can
provide access to first-class educational
information.
Solar Solar power will continue to grow expo-
nentially. The price of energy will drop so
much that all coal companies w ill be
defunct in a few years.
The changes listed above are all speculations, but they are grounded in
reality. Although they may not occur within the time frame predicted by Gol-
lub, it is highly likely they all will occur. Most of them are already begin-
ning to happen. All organizations that exist t oday w
ill feel the impact of one
or more of t hese transformative changes and likely w ill be impacted by o thers
that we are not yet able to foresee. Managers are facing the need to stay
ahead of these changes while at the same time encountering more competi-
tion in terms of funding and support than ever before. Some of the transfor-
mations faced by organizations are the result of demographic and other
changes, but most have been the result of the dizzying pace of change in tech-
nology that has occurred in the past few decades.
Just as organizations w
ere transformed after the advent of the indus-
trial revolution of the 18th century, we now are entering a new industrial
Introduction 3
revolution. This new era has been given various names including the Digi-
tal Revolution, the Second Machine Age2 and the Fourth Industrial Revolu-
tion3, but whatever you call it, the indications are that this new era is poised
to bring fundament alterations the way we live and work. The first industrial
revolution was triggered in the mid-1700s by the advent of the steam engine
that allowed many processes that had previously been done by hand to be
mechanized. The second arrived about 100 years later when electric power
began to be used to drive mass production. The third industrial revolution
began in the late 1960s and was based on electronic technology that provided
new ways of generating, processing, and sharing information. The fourth
industrial revolution, unlike its predecessors, is not based on a single technol-
ogy but instead is a coming together of a number of technologies; this fusion
of technologies is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biologi-
cal spheres.4 As a report from the World Economic Forum states, “Develop-
ments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing
and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one
another. This w ill lay the foundation for a revolution more comprehensive
and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen.”5
Today’s organizations have already been affected by the changes brought
about by the information technology associated with the third industrial rev-
olution. Few organizations have been transformed as much as libraries, which
have experienced change in almost e very area of responsibility and activity.
These already transformed organizations w ill face further changes during
the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At least for the immediate future, librar-
ies will need to continue many of the legacy functions they have always per-
formed while at the same time implementing the new services needed to meet
the information needs of the 21st century user. Today’s library managers
must be able to respond rapidly and flexibly to this new environment. Good
management has always been important for libraries, but it w ill be even more
critical as they face the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
This book examines the current management practices in libraries and
other types of information agencies. It w ill discuss both current thinking
about management and some of the principles developed over the past cen-
turies that still provide a framework for thinking about modern organ
izations. The first chapter of the textbook w ill begin with a general overview
of the skills and competencies needed by modern managers. This chapter is
followed by a historical overview that provides a retrospective look at the
roots of modern management. The third chapter focuses on change and its
impact on organizations.
Library and Information Center Management provides an introduction
to the principles of management, but serves only as a foundation. Although
the principles of management can be imparted, the practice of management
really cannot be taught—it must be learned through experience. This book
will acquaint you with the basic principles, concepts, and techniques of man-
agement. It w ill also teach you the professional vocabulary of management,
but if you are interested in becoming a manager, you must continue to learn.
It is hoped that this book will cause you to become interested in becoming a
manager yourself, because good management is critical to the success of all
organizations.
Notes
1. Udo Gollub’s Facebook Page, April 22, 2015 https://w ww.facebook.com/udo
.gollub /posts /10207978845381135
4 Introduction
This citation itself provides an interesting illustration of some of the

changes that IT has brought to intellectual property. The original
post was a Facebook entry written after Gollub attended an event at
Singularity University. The original post was widely shared and liked.
Interestingly, soon after, the exact same post then began appearing
on the Internet with other individuals purporting to be the author.
As far as I can tell, Gollub was the original author of this post.
2. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The Second Machine Age: Work, Pro
gress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2014).
3. Nicholas Davis, “What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?” World Eco
nomic Forum, January 19, 2016, https://w ww.weforum.org/agenda/ 2016/ 01/what-is
-the-fourth-industrial-revolution /.
4. Klaus Schwab, “Will the Fourth Industrial Revolution Have a H uman
Heart?” World Economic Forum, 2015, https://agenda.weforum.org/ 2015/10/will-the
-fourth-industrial-revolution-have-a-human-heart-and-soul.
5. Klaus Schwab and Richard Samans“Future of Jobs” World Economic Forum,
2016, http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/preface/.
1
Managing in
Today’s Libraries
Chapter Takeaways
After reading this chapter you should:
• Understand why managers are important in all organizations

• Be familiar with the most common functions that managers perform
• Be able to discuss the roles that managers play in organizations
• Be familiar with the three levels of management and the skills needed in each
• Know the major differences between managing in the for-profit and the not-for
profit sectors
• Be able to identify some of the challenges faced by t oday’s managers
Libraries existed in the ancient world and still retain their importance in
the modern information age. Throughout history, as libraries have developed
in various nations and cultures, they have all shared a defining character-
istic: they provide access to information that has been recorded on some type
of medium. Over the years, the medium has changed, from stone slabs to clay
tablets, from papyrus and palm leaves to vellum, from scrolls to hand-copied
books, and, most recently, from printed paper to interactive electronic and
multimedia resources.
It is easy to imagine the concern felt by librarians in ancient times as
scrolls were superseded by the new technology of books. Such concerns still
exist to this day as modern hybrid libraries supplement or replace their print
resources with electronic ones. For librarians, however, the format in which
the information is recorded is far less important than whether patrons can
5
6 Introduction
retrieve and access this information efficiently and effectively. To make that
retrieval and access as smooth as possible, librarians need to create suitable
environments by employing appropriate methods of management.
Management on the Job: Management Challenges

in Rural and Small Town Libraries
Much of the library management literature focuses on large, well-funded libraries. How-
ever, almost 90 percent of public libraries in the United States are small ones, located in
towns with populations of 50,000 or fewer. In 2015, Rachel K. Fischer surveyed manag
ers in some of these small libraries to identify the management challenges they were
facing. Budgets were a big problem for most of these managers. The majority of the librar-
ies had budgets of u nder $250,000 per year. Because of low budgets, some mana gers
reported problems such as restricted hours of opening, low salaries, and difficulties in
keeping up with technology. The good news, however, was that over two thirds of the
libraries had received budget increases within the last five years.
All the libraries had small staffs and most had only one managerial level position.
These library managers reported being unable to do a lot of marketing but nonetheless
most reported their libraries were valued by the communities. The respondents stated
that keeping up with technological change was especially challenging. Two technological
areas in which t hese libraries w ere lagging b
ehind w ere lending e-readers and having
a suitable Web site. The respondents to the survey described a number of management
challenges. Leading the list was staffing—there are not enough people to do all that needs
to be done. Some are not able to hire librarians with master’s degrees. Other challenges
reported frequently were budget/funding, marketing/PR/advocacy, time management,
human resources issues, technology, Board of Trustees, building maintenance, and
volunteers.1
Small libraries face their own set of management challenges but not all their prob
lems are found exclusively in small institutions. How do the management challenges of
small libraries differ from those of larger organizations? What do you think the major
differences in managerial responsibilities are between the two types of libraries? Would
you prefer to work in a large organization or in a smaller one?
The Importance of Management

Libraries and other information-intense enterprises have, over the
years, a dopted many management principles that originated in business,
industry, and government. In some cases, libraries have been required to do so
as when, for example, they are part of a government structure or other large
organization. Usually, however, library managers borrow established man-
agement principles from the nonlibrary world in order to make their organ
izations more successful.
Of course, most libraries are not businesses; almost all libraries are non-
profit organizations. Nevertheless, all enterprises, w
hether for-profit or non-
profit, must provide a product to customers or clients, deliver consistent and
efficient service, give employees and employers a sense of well-being, and fos-
ter an attractive and healthy environment. A well-managed library accom-
plishes all of these objectives far better than one that is poorly managed.
Effective organizations cannot rest on past success. Instead, they must
focus on quality and customer satisfaction, must respond quickly to changes
Managing in T
oday’s Libraries 7
in the external environment, must be creative and innovative, and must be

committed to continuous learning. Libraries w ill need to continue to change
in order to succeed in the future as they face the challenges of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution.
Talk About It
Look at the predicted changes listed in Section 1: Introduction and discuss which of those
changes have already had an impact on libraries. Which are likely to have an impact in
the future? Do you think today’s libraries are adequately prepared to meet the chal-
lenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution? If not, what else should they be d
oing?
The most effective organizations use their available resources to main-

tain a competitive advantage. In the past, libraries had almost a total mono
poly on information provision and w ere funded because they were considered
a public “good”; however, in today’s environment, libraries must compete with
numerous other nonprofits for public support. In addition, their position is
being eroded by the growing influence of the private information sector. As
a result, libraries are being forced to behave more and more like for-profit
institutions, sometimes even charging for services that were formerly free.
In the private sector, individual companies are accustomed to attempting to
outperform their competitors in order to survive; competitive advantage is the
edge a company has over its rivals in generating greater value for the organ
ization and its shareholders. Libraries are beginning to focus on their own
competitive advantage. Although libraries do not typically have to compete
against other libraries, they do need to use e very possible means available
to demonstrate that they are able to generate value for the investment made
in them by their stakeholders. They now need to demonstrate their competi-
tive advantage, and good library managers target available resources to com-
pete successfully. The measures used to demonstrate competitive advantage
typically are quality of product offered, efficiency, responsiveness to patron
needs, and innovation in terms of continuing to respond to new demands in
the market.2
Almost all libraries have attempted to incorporate the elements of com-
petitive design into their operations. The quality of the product offered by
today’s libraries continues to improve. Digitization has made it possible for
libraries to offer products never possible before, and these products are highly
attractive to library patrons. Many libraries are innovating and offering
services and products that have not been available before. Libraries increase
their efficiency when they use fewer resources (such as p eople) to produce
their goods or services. The IT revolution has increased productivity of all
workers, and recent cutbacks in library funding have led to an increase in
responsibility and workload at all levels. Most of t oday’s libraries are much
more efficient than in the past. They are doing more with fewer employees.
Libraries have become increasingly customer-oriented and are very respon-
sive to patron needs. It is common for librarians to do market research and
find out what services and collections their patrons would like to have offered.
This new emphasis on customer service, quality, and efficiency has resulted
in better libraries for all.
However, any good manager knows that libraries cannot excel at all of
these elements at once. Pressure to increase organizational performance can
8 Introduction
FIGURE 1.1. Elements of Competitive Advantage
be beneficial b
ecause it does force an organization to rethink its priorities
and practices. However, too much pressure to increase efficiency can be harm-
ful. It produces g reat stress on employees and can result in managers try-
ing to cut corners in any way possible to contain costs. As Maurice Line, a
British library consultant, pointed out:
Improved productivity and service can hardly continue forever.

It is rather like athletic records: they continue to be broken, but
less and less frequently and by smaller and smaller margins. At
the same time, the body is put u nder increasing stress, with
sometimes permanent damage to muscles, tendons, bones and
internal organs. Similarly, as ‘progress’ continues to be made
with products and services, margins of advantage are certain to
diminish, and industries drive themselves and their staff harder
and harder into the ground.”3
If the library workforce continues to shrink as a result of budgetary cut-

backs, the quality of services offered and responsiveness to patrons’ needs
will inevitably decline. T
here is a need to have balance between the various
elements of competitive advantage.
Practice Your Skills

Identify a library or information center that you know well. How does it demonstrate the
elements of competitive advantage? Do you think that this organization is able to balance
the various elements of competitive advantage or is the drive to become more efficient
having an impact on the other elements?
Managing in T
Modern libraries continue to adjust to the changing climate in which

they operate. Libraries are just emerging from the worst economic recession
since the Great Depression and they have been forced to reevaluate their
business model to be competitive in the changing marketplace. This reeval-
uation serves a useful purpose.4 Because of their long history, libraries have
tended to follow practices that have worked effectively in the past, and often
organizations that have been successful in the past become disinclined to
innovate and hence less able to meet the dynamic needs of customers. The
challenges that libraries are facing today provide them with an opportunity
to reenvision their roles and responsibilities so they can remain v iable. To
compete with the burgeoning—and often aggressive—information industry,
library managers will need to be adaptable, always remaining open to new
methods and techniques.
Over the years, as libraries have become larger, the importance of good
management has grown accordingly. Major national, public, and academic
libraries are in many ways the equivalent of large for-profit corporations.
Library directors who, in the past, w ere often scholars are necessarily becom-
ing more like chief executive officers (CEOs). Directors of large libraries are
responsible for enormous budgets. In 2015, the Library of Congress had a bud
get of over $631 million.5 The Library of Congress is one of the world’s largest,
so its substantial budget is not typical. Nonetheless, it is very common for
managers in all types of libraries to deal with multimillion-dollar budgets,
and regardless of the size of the budget, knowing how to secure and manage
funding is critical to any institution’s success.
Despite its large budget, the Library of Congress is like other libraries
in that it recently has been forced to make hard choices between competing
priorities. From 2010 to 2015, the Library’s total appropriation decreased by
more than $53 million or 8 percent.6 Therefore, managers in both large and
small libraries must not be only able to work with budgets that remain the
same but with t hose that are shrinking. In addition to their financial duties,
library directors also oversee many employees and large facilities, tasks that
often require additional skills.
Of course, library directors are not the only ones who need managerial
skills. Almost all librarians have some sort of managerial responsibilities,
so they, too, need to develop managerial expertise. Today’s librarians face
greater challenges than ever before, resulting from increased competition,
globalization, ever-changing technology, and the rapid pace of change. As dis-
cussed previously, the changes that are occurring as a result of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution w ill continue to buffet libraries with the need to adjust
to changes of all sorts. In addition, libraries like almost all other not-for-profit
institutions are just beginning to recover from the most challenging economic
period they have faced in recent history. Funding of all types—governmental,
institutional, and philanthropic—was drastically decreased while demand
for library services grew to a record high. Library resources w ere strained
by all the cutbacks and are just now beginning to recover. Libraries will need
capable management at all levels to address t hese new developments in the
world of information provision.
What Is Management?
The basic task of management is using organizational resources to achieve
defined goals. Within an organization, managers are the p eople who make
decisions that enable the organization to achieve its objectives. Managers then
work to help others reach t hese objectives effectively and efficiently.
10 Introduction
Early in the 20th century, Mary Follett characterized management

as “the art of getting things done through people.” Follett’s observation
remains relevant b ecause, by definition, it is impossible to manage alone.
Managers rely on the skills and labor of others to succeed, so, for them,
interpersonal skills are extremely important. Furthermore, all managers
must fulfill the functions of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and
controlling. Each of t hese functions w
ill be discussed in more depth later
in this chapter.
Who Are Managers?

As stated above, managers are people within an organization who are
responsible for and support the work of other p eople. Managers can be cat-
egorized in various ways. Commonly they work within a vertical hierarchy.
Managers oversee all levels of the organization; naturally those nearer the
top of the hierarchy have broader responsibilities and authority than do t hose
at lower levels. In typical organizations, including libraries, management can
be divided into three levels:
• Top management, which in libraries usually means the director

and the assistant and associate directors, is responsible for the over-
all functioning of the entire organization. In most cases, managers at
the highest levels establish organization-wide policy and are influen-
tial in setting the leadership style throughout the enterprise.
• M
iddle managers are in charge of specific subunits or functions of
the organization. In libraries and information centers, department
heads act as middle managers. They are responsible for making sure
various parts of the library function successfully. M
iddle managers,
in addition to leading specific subunits or functional teams, also serve
as liaisons between top management and supervisors.
• Supervisors, sometimes called first-line managers, are those on the
lowest rung of the management hierarchy. Supervisors lead the day-
to-day activities of employees working to accomplish organizational
objectives, and they are responsible for the production of goods or ser
vices. In a library, the night circulation manager who works with a
group of part-time student workers would be considered a supervisor.
First-line managers implement procedures and processes that allow
their units to work effectively and efficiently.
The traditional management hierarchy can be seen in figure 1.2. Note

that anyone who is supervising another person is involved in the manage-
ment process. Many recent graduates from library and information science
(LIS) programs become managers in their first professional positions,
although many do not envision themselves in this role when they are LIS
students.
As w
ill be discussed l ater in this book, this traditional managerial hier-
archy is being affected by many of the changes in today’s workplace. One
widespread change has been the adoption of team-based organizational struc-
tures, which has led to a flattening of the management pyramid and the
elimination of some middle-management positions. In most of t oday’s organ
izations, including libraries, management responsibility is being distributed
more widely than ever before.
Managing in T
FIGURE 1.2. Levels of Management in Libraries
What Do Managers Do?

Managers are usually very busy p eople who must carry out many of their
duties concurrently. As a result, managers must often multitask, and their
work is frequently interrupted. Tasks may be fragmented, with some mana-
gerial functions occurring almost daily, and o thers performed on a more
irregular basis. For t hese reasons, it can be difficult to tease out all the
strands that make up the fabric of managerial life. To examine what man
agers do, the two most common approaches are to consider the functions that
managers perform and to describe the roles managers play.
One very common way to view management is as a set of common pro
cesses or functions that, when properly carried out, lead to organizational
efficiency and effectiveness. The managerial functions are those tasks that
managers perform as part of their positions. T hese functions can be classi-
fied in various ways,7 but, regardless of the terminology used by various man-
agement theorists, it is generally agreed that managers perform five main
functions within an enterprise: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and
controlling. These five functions are depicted in figure 1.3. Anyone who has
managerial experience w ill be familiar with all of them.
Planning requires managers to anticipate tasks that need to be done
in order to achieve the organization’s goals and to figure out the best meth-
ods for accomplishing them. Planning allows managers to determine where
their organization wants to be in the future and enables that organization
to make the transition from today to tomorrow.
Organizing is the second function of management. Managers establish
the formal structure of authority through which work is divided among the
employees. They must first match individuals and their talents with the
functions and structures needed to get the job done. A fter that, they create
channels that facilitate communication among the units.
Staffing, often called human resources or personnel, involves hiring, train-
ing, compensating, and retaining the people necessary for the organization
12 Introduction
FIGURE 1.3. The Functions of Management
to achieve its objectives. No organization can be successful without effective

employees.
Leading involves creating a shared culture and values within an organ
ization, communicating goals to its employees, and motivating p eople at all
levels. All of the sub-functions encompassed under this category focus on the
human element in the organization. This human element is very important,
because employees’ attitudes, perceptions, and personality attributes affect
their work.
Controlling means monitoring an organization’s activities to be sure it
is on the right path to meet its goals. Controlling requires analyzing the organ
ization’s operations and then using that information to inform the planning
process. In this way, the organization can continually examine and correct its
goals in light of current information. Controlling is the mirror image of plan-
ning. In planning, managers establish where the organization is headed,
whereas in controlling, they assess w hether they are on target to reach t hese
goals. Planning allows managers to decide where their organization is going;
controlling allows them to find out if it has gotten there.
All managers perform t hese five functions. Of course, managers at dif
ferent levels and in different departments w
ill differ in the time they devote
Managing in T
to them and the depth at which they perform them. Like most other man-
agement textbooks, Library and Information Center Management is orga
nized around t hese five major functions, with a section devoted to each.

You are the library director at a state university in a medium size city. A decision has
been made to combine your library and the city’s public library in a new building that
will provide services for both sets of users. You and your public library counterpart must
plan how to merge the collections of the two libraries and manage the services and staff
in a shared facility.8
You are the director of the information center in a multinational corporation where
employees are rarely in their offices. You have just been asked to make plans to transform
the library into a virtual library with information available by telephone and Internet9
You are a school librarian just hired by a city planning a new high school. Suddenly
you find that you are the administrator of a million-dollar operation and need to be
skilled as a facilities planner, designer, technology consultant, and budget authority.10
You work in a public library that is in the midst of changing from one organized by
using departments to one organized using teams. You have been put on the steering com-
mittee that will decide what needs to be done to make a transition between these two
types of managing.11
Imagine that you are a manager in a library facing challenging problems such as
the real ones described above. How would you go about managing the problem described?
Managerial Roles
Managers must play a number of roles in order to do their jobs well. A
role can be defined as an expected set of behaviors and activities. Henry
Mintzberg, a Canadian management theorist, observed the activities of a
number of managers over a period of time and, from his observations, came
up with a set of roles that managers play. Mintzberg grouped these roles into
three broad categories: interpersonal roles, information roles, and decisional
roles.12 These roles can be seen in figure 1.4.
Interpersonal roles, as a category, involve working with p eople. For
example, top managers often serve as figureheads. Although the term has
taken on a slightly pejorative overtone, figureheads are people—like higher-
level managers—who spend a g reat deal of time representing their organ
izations to the outside world. They perform ceremonial functions and entertain
on behalf of the organization. In such cases, top managers serve as symbols
of the organization itself.
Managers also play a role as leaders. They perform functions such as
motivating, communicating with, and inspiring the p eople who work for them.
Managers often act as liaisons between groups of employees or between
employees and customers, linking information sources inside and outside the
organization. It is often said that managers need to be good networkers;
indeed, when they are serving as liaisons they are building essential net-
works within the organization or between the organization and the outside
world.
Informational roles are more impor t ant than ever in t oday’s
information-based organizations. One role Mintzberg identifies is that of
monitor. Monitors are always seeking information, both from outside the
14 Introduction
FIGURE 1.4. Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles
organization and from inside. They develop systems to keep track of their
units’ performance. They oversee the use of resources.
Complementing their information-seeking role, managers also act as dis
seminators of information. Managers not only gather information, but they
also share it with others. This dissemination can take place in person, by
e-mail, or via other communication media. As organizations in general have
become more participatory, managers share information much more broadly
than in the past.
The final informational role played by a manager is that of spokesperson.
As such, a manager may transmit official information about an organization
to the public by means of e-mails, speeches, newsletters, and the like.
Decisional roles are fundamental to management. The decisions that
need to be made may be tactical, financial, or interpersonal. For example,
managers often have to act as disturbance handlers. Conflict resolution and
crisis response can be among the more challenging aspects of a manager’s
job. Similarly, managers often play the role of negotiator. H ere they repre-
sent their organization or department in pursuing resources such as money,
equipment, or other forms of support. On occasion, managers may take part
in collective bargaining.
In their role as resource allocators, managers spend a g reat deal of time
determining how they w ill distribute assets such as time, money, and people
within the organization. T here are always decisions that need to be made
about allocating resources, especially now when resources are scarce in most
organizations.
Finally, when they work to introduce innovation within the organization,
managers play the role of entrepreneur. Managers must decide which new
ideas are worth bringing into an organization and then ensure that the
organization makes the changes that are necessary to keep it competitive.
Mintzberg’s concept of managerial roles offers an interesting and useful
alternative to the traditional view of managerial functions and has been built
upon by other researchers in the field of management. Some of the roles
Mintzberg describes, such as acting as a figurehead or serving as an official
Managing in T
spokesperson, are performed primarily by top-level managers. Yet all manag

ers must play many of these roles in the course of their managerial activities.

Arrange to speak briefly to a middle or lower-level manager in any organization with
which you are familiar. Ask that manager about his or her daily routine and the amount
of time spent on each of the five managerial functions. Then ask the manager about the
roles that Mintzberg says managers play. Does that manager play any of the Mintzberg’s
roles and what part of the job was being performed when the roles w ere played?
What Resources Do Managers Use?

According to one definition, a manager is someone with the authority to
commit organizational resources. Mintzberg noted that one of the manage-
rial roles is that of resource allocator. The resources controlled by managers
are of four main types:
Human resources are all the employees who work in an organization.

Though these employees have varying levels of skill, experience, and
education, each serves an essential purpose in the organization. The typ-
ical library employs professional librarians, paraprofessionals, clerical
workers, technical specialists, and, in many cases, part-time workers
such as student assistants and pages. Managers oversee the distribu-
tion of all t hese human resources.
Financial resources are the sources of an organization’s funding. In the for-
profit world, the funding sources are primarily customers, who give the
organization money in exchange for goods or services. In not-for-profit
organizations, funding usually comes from federal, state, or city govern-
ments, charitable donations, grants, and similar sources. In both realms,
managers are increasingly held accountable for the financial resources
of their organizations. In nonprofits, managers are often expected to
secure grants or participate in fund-raising.
Physical resources are the tangible or material assets of an organization,
ranging from office supplies to office buildings. Libraries rarely own
their own premises; instead, the buildings are provided by other enti-
ties, such as cities or universities. Nevertheless, a library manager is
still responsible for proper management of the building along with
everything inside it. Management of physical resources can be time-
consuming, since in addition to maintenance, it includes acquisition
and eventual replacement of the library’s facilities and equipment. In
many large libraries, facilities managers are designated, but in cases
involving expensive resources, top-level managers w ill typically make
the final decisions. Control of inexpensive items (such as supplies) is
usually delegated to lower-level managers.
Information resources are increasingly important in all management set-
tings. Of course, the library’s prime function has always been steward-
ship of information resources. Behind the scenes, managers control
16 Introduction
other information resources, those pertinent to the organization’s day-

to-day functions. At one time, this information was stored on paper in
centrally located file cabinets in the organization. Since the advent of
computers, most libraries have maintained electronic databases of
information relevant to employees, resources, and other management
responsibilities. Networks make operational information available
to employees throughout the organization. All of these information
resources are valuable assets and must be leveraged for strategic advan-
tage. Meanwhile, managers must also be sure to safeguard certain infor-
mation in order to ensure privacy and confidentiality of business-related
materials, in particular those that are available electronically.
What Skills Are Needed by Today’s Managers?

Obviously, librarians w ill need different skill sets depending on their
place in the management structure. In a classic article, Robert Katz identi-
fied three essential sets of managerial skills: technical, human, and concep-
tual.13 Technical skills, t hose skills that relate to specific functions and tasks,
take precedence for first-line managers. To be an effective supervisor, one
must understand the processes that are encompassed by the job. The head
of a cataloging department would find it difficult to supervise copy catalogers
without knowing about cataloging and classification. On the other hand, the
director of the library, who may have had this technical knowledge at one
time, may no longer possess such skills, especially in newer competencies
such as creating metadata. Instead, upper-level managers rely more on con-
ceptual skills and their ability to look at the “big picture” of the organization.
The human skill, the ability to interact effectively with people, is important
at all levels.
Talk About It
Identify an organization with which you are familiar and think of the managers who
work t here. What skills are required at different levels of managerial responsibility and
why? As managers rise in the hierarchy, how do they acquire the new skills necessary
to make a successful transition to their new position?
In contrast to Katz’s broad-brush depiction of managerial skills, other

management experts have identified crucial skills in greater detail. Some
studies have looked specifically at the skills necessary for library managers.
A number of years ago, for instance, G. Edward Evans proposed a core of uni-
versal managerial knowledge for librarians, archivists, and information
managers; and the core he proposed is still relevant t oday. The 12 items on
his list are planning, staffing, fiscal management, innovation, motivation,
communication, leadership, quantitative methods, ethics, decision making,
delegation, and marketing.14
Although t here is some variation, many skills that were needed in the
past are still being mentioned in current list of needed skills. In 2016, the
editors of Library Journal polled a group of prominent library directors and
asked them what skills they thought w ere most essential for new librarians.
The skills mentioned w ere: advocacy/politics, collaboration, communication/
Managing in T
TABLE 1.1. Most Important Skills Needed for Success in 2015 and 2020
Top 20 Skills 2015 Top 10 Skills 2020
Complex Problem Solving Complex Problem Solving
Coordinating with Others Critical Thinking
People Management Creativity
Critical Thinking People Management
Negotiation Coordinating with O
thers
Quality Control Emotional Intelligence
Service Orientation Judgment and Decision Making
Judgment and Decision Making Service Orientation
Active Listening Negotiation
Creativity Cognitive Flexibility
Source: Adapted from the “F uture of Jobs” World Economic Forum, 2016, http://reports
.weforum.org/future- of-jobs-2016/preface/
people skills, creativity/innovation, critical thinking, data analysis, flexibil-

ity, leadership, marketing, project management, and technological exper-
tise.15 Not surprisingly, the skills needed by librarians do not differ greatly
from t hose needed by all knowledge workers. Table 1.1 lists the top 10 skills
that the World Economic Forum identified as being necessary for success in
the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2015 and 2020.
These lists provide a core of managerial skills useful to all managers, but
it is difficult to define the exact competencies needed by a specific manager
because these will differ according to position and the type of organization.
Despite t hese caveats, the following skills have proved essential to most con
temporary managers:
Political skills. Like most workplaces, libraries and information agencies

are intensely political organizations. To survive in today’s climate, man
agers need not only to create a vision but also to inspire others to believe
in it. They must create a workplace atmosphere that is conducive to
strategic thinking and action. Politics arise both within internal opera-
tions and from the organization’s relationship to forces outside itself. To
maintain equilibrium for the organization, flexibility and the willing-
ness to take risks are often vital.
Analytical skills. Managers frequently serve as change agents and thus
must be a dept at critical thinking and analysis. Decisions based on
insight or intuition are almost impossible to defend, but lucid, rational,
well-argued analysis is a solid foundation for a manager’s actions.
Problem-solving skills. Problem solving is arguably a manager’s most
important day-to-day activity. Solving problems often involves making
changes within an organization. Managers need a positive attitude
toward change management, since, as mentioned above, flexibility is
often crucial to success.
Social skills. People are the heart of every organization. Because they
possess many different dimensions, a manager inevitably has to deal
with all of these dimensions. To do so, the most essential skills are
18 Introduction
those pertaining to communication, conflict resolution, and interper-

sonal skills. Increasingly, managers are responsible for coordinating
team-based initiatives. They therefore need to know the best team-
management techniques as well as understand how to coach and men-
tor their subordinates. Learning to see situations through the eyes of
others in the organization can facilitate cooperation and reduce conflict.
Managers should aim to convey concern and interest in the p eople they
manage, and of course a sense of humor is always useful.
Financial skills. All managers need a sound grounding in the financial
structure of their organization. They should know where funding comes
from, where it goes, and how to get it. These skills should also include
knowledge of marketing, since marketing can be a key f actor in secur-
ing funding. Additionally, in an era when governmental funding for
libraries has decreased, the responsibility for private fund-raising has
come to the fore, especially for top managers. Fund-raising is time-
consuming, but the money it brings in can often pay for the extras in a
library’s budget.
System skills. Naturally all library managers need to be familiar with
computer-based information systems, but this type of skill extends far
beyond computers. A fter all, systems include not only technological ones
but also physical arrangements of resources and routines designed to
produce specified results. T oday’s libraries are usually part of even
larger systems, and managers need to be aware of their organization’s
place within t hose larger systems.
In summary, b ecause a manager’s job is complex and multidimensional,

managers need to possess both “hard” skills (such as technical and specific
business knowledge) and “soft” skills (such as the interpersonal adeptness
described above). No manager can completely master all of the skills that
might prove useful. However, good managers know that their success depends
upon their skills and knowledge, so they aim to keep learning and develop-
ing skills throughout their c areers.

A large urban public library wants to hire a new Director of Public Service and the follow-
ing job advertisement describes the responsibilities and requirements for the position:
Your focus w ill be on leading the management team at a main library,

20 branch libraries, and a “virtual” branch to successfully implement innovative
public service initiatives, while continuing excellence in customer service in a
community of avid library users and supporters. Reporting to the executive
director, you w
ill manage a budget of $24 million and a staff of 800. You w
ill work
with other executive leadership team members to develop strategy and assist
with the achievement of the library’s vision. Challenges include implementation
of a new marketing plan and brand image, revision of the public services pro-
grams, identifying and mentoring staff as a part of succession planning, improv-
ing the library’s social media presence and development of a long-range facilities
plan. Key characteristics of the successful candidate will include demonstrated
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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Management, 9th Edition (Library and

SECTION 4—HUMAN RESOURCES

15 Professional Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

SECTION 7—MANAGING IN THE 21ST ­CENTURY

7.2 Organ­ization Chart Showing Authority Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

16.1 A Model of the Communication Pro­cess. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

19.4 Program Bud­get Sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

of each chapter and pres­ents up-­to-­date examples of the application of the

Barbara B. Moran Claudia J. Morner

Software Organ­izations are now defined by soft-

medical advice is available from IBM

This citation itself provides an in­ter­est­ing illustration of some of the

• Understand why man­ag­ers are impor­tant in all organ­izations

Management on the Job: Management Challenges

The Importance of Management

in the external environment, must be creative and innovative, and must be

The most effective organ­izations use their available resources to main-

FIGURE 1.1. Ele­ments of Competitive Advantage

Improved productivity and ser­vice can hardly continue forever.

If the library workforce continues to shrink as a result of bud­getary cut-

Practice Your Skills

Modern libraries continue to adjust to the changing climate in which

Early in the 20th ­century, Mary Follett characterized management

Who Are Man­ag­ers?

• Top management, which in libraries usually means the director

The traditional management hierarchy can be seen in figure 1.2. Note

FIGURE 1.2. Levels of Management in Libraries

What Do Man­ag­ers Do?

FIGURE 1.3. The Functions of Management

to achieve its objectives. No organ­ization can be successful without effective

Practice Your Skills

FIGURE 1.4. Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles

spokesperson, are performed primarily by top-­level man­ag­ers. Yet all man­ag­

Practice Your Skills

What Resources Do Man­ag­ers Use?

­Human resources are all the employees who work in an organ­ization.

other information resources, ­those pertinent to the organ­ization’s day-­

What Skills Are Needed by ­Today’s Man­ag­ers?

In contrast to Katz’s broad-­brush depiction of managerial skills, other

people skills, creativity/innovation, critical thinking, data analy­sis, flexibil-

Po­liti­cal skills. Like most workplaces, libraries and information agencies

t­hose pertaining to communication, conflict resolution, and interper-

In summary, b­ ecause a man­ag­er’s job is complex and multidimensional,

Practice Your Skills

Your focus w ­ ill be on leading the management team at a main library,

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

SECTION 7—MANAGING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

7.2 Organization Chart Showing Authority Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

16.1 A Model of the Communication Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

19.4 Program Budget Sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

of each chapter and presents up-to-date examples of the application of the

Software Organizations are now defined by soft-

This citation itself provides an interesting illustration of some of the

• Understand why managers are important in all organizations

The most effective organizations use their available resources to main-

FIGURE 1.1. Elements of Competitive Advantage

Improved productivity and service can hardly continue forever.

If the library workforce continues to shrink as a result of budgetary cut-

Early in the 20th century, Mary Follett characterized management

Who Are Managers?

What Do Managers Do?

to achieve its objectives. No organization can be successful without effective

spokesperson, are performed primarily by top-level managers. Yet all manag

What Resources Do Managers Use?

Human resources are all the employees who work in an organization.

other information resources, those pertinent to the organization’s day-

What Skills Are Needed by Today’s Managers?

In contrast to Katz’s broad-brush depiction of managerial skills, other

people skills, creativity/innovation, critical thinking, data analysis, flexibil-

Political skills. Like most workplaces, libraries and information agencies

those pertaining to communication, conflict resolution, and interper-

In summary, b ecause a manager’s job is complex and multidimensional,

Your focus w ill be on leading the management team at a main library,