October 2001

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CAMLS Management Training Update

CAMLS Training Broadens the Scope of Mangement Literature

A search on "Library Management Case Studies" written in the last four years in Library Literature yields a scant amount of hits. Any director or branch manager experiences numerous problems and issues that arise on a daily basis, yet these stories make up an insignificant portion of professional literature. Management literature from other disciplines can often be helpful, but the library community's issues and problems - whether unique or universal - need to be more prolific and more available to librarians and the larger community.

The Issues Track participants of the Management Education Series may contribute to filling that void. As practicing managers and directors, they are charged to write a case study describing current dilemmas they face in their libraries. The backbone of the Series is built as participants use a guided strategic thinking process to bring their dilemmas to resolution. The case studies are submitted to Dr. A. J. Abramovitz, director of the Executive Outreach program of the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Some of the case studies will be selected for publication in an in-house collection that will be distributed to the program faculty from the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations. The Mandel Center includes the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, the Weatherhead School of Management, the School of Law, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Faculty can then use these case studies in their graduate and doctoral classrooms to generate discussion on management dilemmas.

The published dilemmas provide a vehicle to distribute library stories to the business and management community. The inclusion of real-life library scenarios to the body of literature on management issues is a significant contribution and could have widespread implications for the library profession and how we are perceived in the broader business population.

Eventually, the published volume of CAMLS case studies will be available for purchase. CAMLS will also house a number of copies for our use by our members.

Copyright 2001 Cleveland Area Metropolitan Library System