Beyond the Basics: The Management Guide for Library and Information Professionals (review)

Information professionals who perform well in their fields invariably reach a fork in the professional road: will they persevere as specialists or welcome new duties as supervisors, department managers, or division directors? Beyond the Basics is a valuable handbook to guide those who assume new managerial roles or who are giving such positions serious consideration. The authors, G. Edward Evans and Patricia Layzell Ward, are experienced administrators who practiced their craft in a variety of organizational settings and who have achieved professionally as scholars, leaders, and teachers. Their earlier collaboration produced Management Basics for Information Professionals (Neal-Schuman, 2000), which introduced students and recent graduates to administrative and leadership skills and was a revision of Evans's well-known guide, Management Techniques for Librarians (Academic, 1976).

For an intended audience of middle managers, Evans and Layzell Ward address the complexities of institutional contexts, areas of responsibility, and interpersonal factors that comprise higher level management in information services. They review changing expectations for managers in the context of social, political, and economic changes, both in the external operating environment—think collaboration, competition, and accountability—and in the internal arena, where creating a compelling vision and managing change are essential qualities of an effective administrator. They examine the responsibility of managing resources, including budget planning and tracking, cost benefit analysis, organizational design, quality management, emergency planning, and risk management. The manager who performs these "control" responsibilities in today's collaborative working environment must also be able to organize work teams, negotiate and delegate duties, manage discrete projects, and, most importantly, manage their own productivity. Sensitivity to others, listening skills, and ability to resolve conflicts are key qualities to develop given the multiple audiences—senior leadership, supervised staff, and users—with whom a manager regularly interacts. Other "people" issues at play are workforce diversity, customer service excellence, and employee relations. Beyond the Basics also addresses self-management, from giving the best first impression to working through the seven steps of adjustment to management, handling stress, motivating yourself, and deciding when to move on.

Evans and Layzell Ward meld practical advice based on their work experience with a thorough review of relevant literature, strategies for digging deeper, exercises, warnings, and learning goals/summaries in a substantive management handbook. They compile information about context, history, discussion, and practical techniques for nearly any management issue that a new middle manager will confront. They use concrete examples, highlight especially useful resources as "worth checking out," and deliver their advice with a smile, e.g., in a checklist of organizational readiness for change, the work team is "where the banana skin can appear." Beyond the Basics is a book to read through for professional development, to refer back to for solving specific management problems, and to begin searches using its excellent bibliographies. As a veteran reviewer, I found much to praise in terms of scope, content, and organization.