Change has always been a fact of life in the library world; administrators, staff, and patrons have all come to expect it. This does not mean, however, that managing and embracing change are easy for those in the library community. With this in mind, authors van Duinkerken and Mosley hope to assist library managers in becoming more effective change managers.

This book would be more aptly titled The Challenge of Library Change Management, as all of the chapters and examples focus on understanding and working through the difficulties that library mangers face when attempting to implement change. The subtitle, “Leading with Emotional Engagement,” highlights the authors’ commitment to focusing on the personal and emotional needs of library employees, especially when they are confronted with change. The authors state that they hope to address how certain strategies lead to better change implementation while focusing on the “softer side of change management” (vii). However, this is by no means a touchy-feely take on library management. Instead, the authors explain how managers must take into consideration employees’ likely emotional responses to change to do a better job of implementing that change.

The authors cover definitions of change, change initiation and implementation strategies, organizational pitfalls, and self-evaluation in the preface and nine chapters of this title. Scholarly library literature and business and management literature are cited by the authors to support their assertions, and these references are listed as endnotes for each chapter as well as in a works cited section at the end of the book. Each chapter ends with a bulleted list highlighting key points and a short list of “Thinking Exercises” focusing on issues from that chapter. These exercises are especially helpful and thought-provoking, and although they are focused on the reader as an individual, they could be useful in sparking group discussions as well.

Readers unfamiliar with basic management theory and library environments may want to explore some library management primers before tackling this book. Experienced librarians moving into administrative roles will find this title especially helpful when confronted with change initiatives. The authors encourage middle managers to embrace employee responses to change and understand that if emotional responses are marginalized, change implementation will usually fail. Hypothetical examples are used throughout the chapters to help clarify some of the more business-based models for management and change implementation. However, these examples can still be difficult to follow and are often too vague to be particularly useful. Thankfully, the final chapter provides several longer, more specific examples of how spatial, organizational, and mission changes can be fostered successfully in libraries.

Overall, this title provides an interesting look at change management by focusing on the human side of change. The chapters on organizational culture, as well as the many academia-focused examples throughout the book, make this title especially useful for managers in academic library settings. Library managers who seek to hone their leadership skills in times of change and become efficient change managers will find this book very valuable.