Managing Creativity: The Innovative Research Library. By Ronald C. Jantz. Chicago: ACRL, 2016. 206 p. Paper $44.00 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-8834-3).
In Managing Creativity: The Innovative Research Library, author Ronald Jantz succeeds by expertly weaving together empirically derived theory with public and private sector case studies to elucidate what it takes for academic libraries to remain relevant via innovative leadership. Not only has Jantz conducted original, data-driven research to support his arguments, he has also gone a step further and described for readers where they—as present or future library leaders—might begin looking for programs and projects to kick-start organizational innovation.
Jantz pinpoints his target reader (“academic library leaders, future leaders, managers, and administrators”) and begins building the case that a top-down combination of integrated leadership, communicated vision, and dedicated research and development will jolt and bolster the role of research libraries, transforming them from “incremental” innovators on campus to agile service providers (xiv). Caution is natural, Jantz argues in part two (of three), especially for those leaders of extended tenure facing today’s economic turmoil. Nevertheless, an exploitative focus, which favors the refinement of existing services, shouldn’t completely crowd out explorative activity, whereby smaller units pursue more innovative (albeit unproven) service strategies and implementations.
The private tech sector, with its myriad breakthroughs (such as robotics and open source software), should be viewed as a particularly fertile source for explorative inspiration, claims Jantz. Because potential innovators are able to operate within a deliberately conceived and executed culture of creativity, and because quantitative tools for tracking effectiveness are available (as is the case in the corporate world), today’s library leaders can readily establish the “conditions to support innovation” (162) and avoid the pitfalls of institutionalized stagnancy.
Why risk decentralizing traditionally bureaucratic organizations while promoting a looser culture for some employees? If “singular leaders” don’t work with an integrated leadership team to foster technology-oriented innovation, Jantz argues, the academic library may cease to function as the crossroads of the university and find itself relegated to a merely symbolic role. The interdisciplinary source material leading Jantz to these conclusions is meticulously documented, and each of the twelve chapters features an extensive bibliography that—along with the body of the work itself—makes Managing Creativity an indispensable resource for tomorrow’s effective library leader.—Matt Cook, Emerging Technologies Librarian, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Norman, Oklahoma