Abstract:
The purpose of this case study was to increase the knowledge base of how
research librarians experience and cope with the turbulence of change within
their library system. This research also examined the issues that surround the
organizational structures and leadership of transformative change in one
research library. A library belonging to the Association of Research Libraries
was selected for case study investigation. Seventeen librarians participated in
on-site interviews, utilizing a protocol composed of a clustering technique
and semi-structured interviewing. Instrumental case studies of each
individual were then developed through a collective case method to present
the intrinsic case study of the library system as an organization. Data were
analyzed primarily through a complex systems theoretical framework while
at the same time were grounded in a broad literature base of organizational,
leadership, individual change, and library organizational development
theories. The findings of the study include: the competing tensions between
the physical and virtual environments, the search for professional meaning,
coping with the experiences of professional change, the evolution of the
organizational structure, and leadership as a shared experience. Analysis of
the findings suggest: the emergence of a hypercritical state, the limiting
nature of negative feedback, a complex systems framework for professional
thinking, coping in the hypercritical organization, the emergence of disorder
in the complex system, the blending of self-organizing systems with
structural feedback mechanisms, and the complexity of leadership in the new
research library.
