Anchoring Change: Using the Kotter Change Management Framework to Analyze & Facilitate Change in Academic Libraries

Changes in the higher education landscape are happening more rapidly than ever and require academic libraries to engage with users in new and different ways. Libraries participate in digital scholarship, lead textbook affordability and OER initiatives, create makerspaces, and more. These new and different expectations require library leaders, managers and employees at every level to facilitate change in a variety of situations that range in complexity and are almost always messy. Learn about trends across a collection of twenty change stories in academic library settings, including two- and four-year institutions in the United States and Canada. At the same time, explore Kotter’s (1996, 2012) Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change as outlined in his book, Leading Change. This will serve as the framework to examine changes that involve technology, strategic planning, culture shifts, reorganizations, and adapting to new roles. This session will utilize a case study approach to examine change at the programmatic level and organizational level. Whether you are a library administrator, a middle manager or an active participant in the daily work of a library, this session will provide a deep dive into a change framework to use before, during or after a change initiative at your institution. Presented at the ALAO Virtual Conference on October 29, 2020