Readers who know and like and use the first edition of this mainstream textbook, dating from 1997, will be pleased to learn that this second edition has now appeared. Jo Bryson brought, and continues to bring, a wide‐ranging topical viewpoint to bear on the management of library and information services: in the first edition the over‐arching concept was one of integrated services, and in this second edition it is transformation. This is a buzzword in the literature, and so one test of whether the book cuts the mustard is whether it applies credibly what could at worst be merely fashionable theory to what is very practical work – managing and leading in library and information work.
It is good that transformation is linked so closely with leadership, probably along with managing change the other gorilla in the corner for the information profession at the moment. It is good, too, that she connects it up with managing and leading at all levels of the organization, and with the sentiment that effective management starts (and probably ends) with good self‐management. By this token, she ranges across policy and planning issues in the context of change (at the start) and moves on through to transformation as it affects and is shaped by employees, from executives to line managers. In this way she makes transformation more than a convenient idea to hang other things on, and ensures that the book is not just puffed by publishers to look good but really is more substantially useful for actual practitioners in the business.
The very wide‐ranging‐ness of the book makes it highly suitable as a textbook for training and education for library and information work, and “library schools” will almost inevitably buy several copies, and they will not waste their money. Wider, the appeal will be to young practitioners entering line management and wanting a good overview of ideas, and to more experienced practitioners interested in watching up with links between theory and practice and, more likely still, examining the ideas in specific chapters like ones on financial management and competitive strategy (that is marketing). For the student chapters like these, and others on teams, motivation, conflict management, negotiation, stress management, and career planning, will be of particular use for any study of human resource management in a library and information context.
Looking at these very issues from another point of view, a critic might well say that the reader has to wade through rather a lot of generality about the management of change, corporate strategy, policy making, and accountability to get to the most helpful bits, which tend to be the most focused bits. Certainly, for anyone familiar with the management of change, the need for leaders to have and share vision, levels of decision‐making in the organization, and the importance of innovation, you simply want the author “to get on with it”, though, to be fair, these issues are very important, not least of all to leaders and to the challenge of leading during times of change, which recent research like Anne Goulding's suggests, at least in the UK, is in short supply. Also, as we said, it does provide a coherent framework for Bryson's (I think more convincingly) argument that transformation drives all employees in library and information work, and then as she goes on, in more detailed sections like those on managing yourself and others, to say how.
Yet even then, the critic might come back and say that her evidence could only best be demonstrated if some proofs were provided, and this is where the book ultimately frustrates. Even though each chapter has further reading, and that is good, and even though the narrative arc of the book is beguiling (from managing the dynamic environment, through what happens in the organization, to governance and service delivery), the case can and could only be made, and the nail really driven home, by a shift from “should” to “can”, and from “can” to “does”. Pragmatic managers, whether they think of themselves as leaders or not, may come away from this book saying “sensible advice but… ”. Some case‐studies with analysis would have pinned things down, simple for newcomers as first‐exposure, and complex for leaders at master‐class level.
An argument might be made, in the library and information profession generally, that far too much faith has been placed in trying to demonstrate that people know the theory, have the qualifications, embrace the performance targets, and recognize the need for leadership, while at the same time the leadership deficit, or sensitivity about coherent and politically‐effective policy and planning remains sitting there. By assuming transformation is needed and can be achieved, Bryson falls into a common professional trap – of implying that, if we all know, aspirationally, what to do, then somehow, sometime, real transformation will take place. As a book, at its level, it adds a lot to general awareness but, as a symptom of the wider debate and challenge at the present time, it seems paradoxically retrospective.
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