Innovation in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of University Librarians’ Perspectives

Through a series of structured interviews, university librarians at six institutions provided their perspectives on innovation in academic libraries. The literature on leadership styles and organizational change provides insight into the roles of these leaders in the innovation process. Leadership is cited by many researchers as being a critical factor for organizations to innovate. In this study, university librarians’ perspectives reveal a commitment to innovation, some distinctively non-traditional innovations, and a concern for how to encourage risk-taking behavior. The study also seeks further insight into the innovation process by interpreting the interview data within a larger theoretical context. Although leadership and management can foster innovation in a library, researchers have reported other factors that can influence the ability to innovate, including organizational aspects – size and complexity – and environmental factors. Beyond the organizational aspects, the individual and the norms of the profession create a framework with certain boundaries, some of which may impact the ability to innovate.NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Library & Information Science Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Library & Information Science Research, [Vol. 34, Issue 1, 2012 ], doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2011.07.008Peer reviewedData in the form of transcripts can be found in the RUcore Institutional Repository at http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000002163.collection.6412