Management 

By Dr. Lesley S . .J. Farmer 

"Gee, it doesn't look l ike winter . . .  " 

For those subscribers who are looking at the current issue's masthead as it was just publ ished , the timing 
may look suspicious. Fear not. Education Libraries, a biennial journal , is making up for lost t ime and is 
near on schedule.  Thanks go to the Editorial Board , the Department contributors, the book reviewers, the 
Business and Circu lation Manager, and the publ isher. Their continued speedy efficiency wil l be needed 
for the next issue, and by then Educational Libraries will be back on its time track -- and th is Editor will not 
have to push so hard .  

This present issue theme, therefore , may be  prescient: "Management." How many education l ibraries 
must operate similarly to the way this journal operates: feel ing a semester behind ,  cal l ing on the good wil l 
of staff and volunteers, trying to provide a h igh-quality "product" that wil l satisfy its cl ientele? 

The two lengthy articles offer an overview of stu d ies and best practice of basic management issues: 
leadersh ip and staffing .  In terms of these topics, l ibrary and information science has long drawn upon the 
related fields of business, sociology, and psychology. Probably the most salient domain is organizational 
behavior. Nevertheless, education l ibraries have existed for decades, and need to conduct more research 
focuses on their own domain .  Weiner suggests some good areas for investigation .  It should be noted that 
the peer reviewers were rather taken bacl< by the lack of current stud ies, and thought more contemporary 
work was being done. At the very least, education l ibrary-related researchers and presenters need to d is­
seminate their efforts more widely. 

In this area of permeable staff borders between professional and paraprofessionals, largely because of 
budget constraints and technology advances, Osa reminds l ibrarians of various techniques to use in order 
to bui ld a strong staff team. Qu ite frankly, as ed ucation focuses more on student outcomes rather than 
l ibrary inputs ,  staffing practices should also reflect that same focus on impacting students and faculty 
rather than mirroring maintenance of titular caste systems. 

Anne Wade offers useful web sites related to management and admin istration .  She remarked that finding 
such sites was a surprisingly d ifficult task, which might imply that management in general prefers doing 
than documenting. Such a situation is prevalent among l ibrarians, an ironic testament to a profession that 
prides itself on gathering,  organizing ,  storing and retrieving information. 

Kudos to the Harvard ladies with their eag le eyes on current reference books of interest to education l i­
brarians. Their annotations are succinct, pithy, and "spot on." Readers wi l l  also appreciate the thorough 
reviews of featured books in  this issue. More reviewers are welcome; contact Ed itor Dr. Lesley Farmer at 
lfarmer@csulb .edu if interested. A growing pi le of good books await. 

· 

The next theme is "The Visual Side of Education L ibraries ,"  based on 2004 SLA conference presenta� 
tions. Visualize a great article to contribute . 

Education Libraries Volume 26, No. 2 Winter 2003 4