Administrative Succession in the Academic Library

Data from a national sample of academic library directors indicate that di-rectors hold their positions longer than had previously been supposed. Li-brary size does not appear to contribute to rapid turnover at the top. A multivariate analysis suggests that female library directors are much more likely than male directors to have been hired to their positions from within the library and that this relationship cannot be accounted for in terms of institutional characteristics. The attitudes of hiring committees or the con-strained geographic mobility of many female librarians may account for this finding, though only future research could determine this with authority. wHETHER IN A UNIVERSITY, an army, ali-brary, or any other form of bureaucracy, the inauguration of a new head administrator frequently marks the culmination of a pe-riod of deep concern and the beginning of a time of reevaluation and redirection. The task of appointing a new leader consumes significant organizational energies, an ex-penditure of resources well justified by the power that leaders hold to shape the futures of their institutions. For these reasons, the issue of turnover in top administrative posi-tions has excited keen research interest, both among social scientists interested in formal organizations in general and among academic librarians concerned with the effects of succession on their particular organizations. The interest that administrative succes-sion holds for social scientists can be traced to a series of seminal articles by Oscar Grusky, who noted that the twin potential of succession for constructive change or for destructive internal jealousies made succes-sion a rewarding research topic. 1 Studies by Grusky and Kreisberg. focused on the frequency of succession and indicated that frequency of succession may be positively associated with organizational size. 2 Paul Metz is special assistant in the Congres