Examining the costs of library leadership turnover

2026/01/01 by Gabrielle Toth, Gabrielle S. Toth, Joshua Vossler +1 · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Human Resource and Talent Management #Library Science and Information Literacy #Mentoring and Academic Development

paper · doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2025.103193

openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/01/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

While all positions in academic libraries eventually turn over, the departure of top leadership positions (deans, directors, or university librarians, hereafter referred to as “deans”) can be particularly disruptive, incurring a variety of costs, including financial, political, and the opportunity costs related to delays. In this manuscript these costs are examined–drawing from existing literature and the experiences of two of the authors who served as interim library deans–and suggestions are presented about how they can be mitigated.

Citations

• The Low Morale Experience of Academic Librarians: A Phenomenological Study
• The structure and experience of interim roles in academic health sciences libraries

Discussions

• Examining the costs of library leadership turnover #library doi.org/10.1016/j.ac... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

Related

• Structure, Culture, and Agency: Examining Succession Planning in California State University (CSU) Libraries
• The structure and experience of interim roles in academic health sciences libraries
• Adaptive leadership in academic libraries
• Academic Library Succession Planning in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
• On the Political Nature of Library Leadership