Difficult Decisions: Closing & Merging Academic Libraries. Sara Holder and Amber Butler Lannon, eds. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2015. 253p. Paper, $58 (ISBN 978-083898791-9)


668

Book Reviews

Difficult Decisions: Closing & Merging Academic Libraries. Sara Holder 
and Amber Butler Lannon, eds. Chicago: Association of College and 
Research Libraries, 2015. 253p. Paper, $58 (ISBN 978-083898791-9)

The 2008 recession brought considerable budget and resource pressures to 
many academic libraries in the United States. One of the difficult options 
available for academic library directors was to consolidate collections 
and staff from branch libraries into the main library, especially at large 
campuses. While this decision brought about considerable cost savings in the long 
run, it also entailed even greater political, emotional, and morale issues related to staff 
reductions, academic faculty displeasure and pressures at the subject and discipline 
level, and overall administrative support at a high level. Restructuring operations, 
such as reducing service points, redesigning spaces, reducing print footprints, and 
cross-training are other options available that academic libraries must do in this new 
environment. 

This book provides case studies around the topic of closing and merging libraries, 
both internally and externally to one’s own campus. It is composed of fourteen chap-
ters, starting with a set of three chapters that examine the New Service Model (NSM), 
a multiyear program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Libraries to 
move from a decentralized system to a large-scale restructuring and realignment of 
library services. The overview of NSM and its implementation and process is provided 
in chapter 1, while chapter 2 focuses on the consolidation of a number of international 
studies libraries and reading rooms into a single International and Area Studies (IAS) 
Library. Chapter 3 describes the merger of various social services, health, and edu-
cation studies libraries and services into the Social Sciences, Health, and Education 
Library through the NSM program. Chapter 4 details the personal experience of one 
librarian involved in two separate academic libraries undergoing massive transition 
and change, one through consolidation and the other through downsizing. A survey 
of those librarians involved at both institutions was completed, and the analyses and 
results are shared in this chapter. The transformation of the Welch Medical Library at 
Johns Hopkins University is the topic of chapter 5, in relation to financial, technological, 
and staffing challenges. The decentralization of the Purdue University Libraries dur-
ing a ten-year period from fifteen specialized libraries and units to an organizational 
structure loosely arranged around four broad subject areas comprises chapter 6, while 
chapter 7 discusses the consolidation of seven science libraries into one science and 
engineering library at Columbia University. Three branch library mergers at McGill 
University are detailed in chapter 8, while the closure of the 100-year-old Scripps 
Institution of Oceanography Library and the consolidation of its staff and collections 
with the University of California, San Diego Geisel Library are documented in chapter 
9. The collections mergers at three social science libraries at the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley campus and the role that data played in merging, consolidating, and 
improving collection-related decisions, as well as the impact on users is described in 
chapter 10. The merger of two large print collections and the human logistics that this 
entailed are the focus of chapter 11, including the cleanup phase and planning for the 
future use of the merged collection. Moving into the digital environment, chapter 12 
details the creation of a unified library web presence of two Georgia universities, and 
the challenges and opportunities that this created in collaboration and partnerships 
with other university units. Academic library leadership in relation to academic library 

doi:10.5860/crl.77.5.668



Book Reviews 669

doi:10.5860/crl.77.5.669

management is the fascinating content of chapter 13, with an emphasis on how these 
two are very different from each other and how management is emphasized over 
leadership in professional education. A case study of a failed merger between a library 
and an information technology services unit in an academic setting is the backdrop 
for this discussion. Finally, chapter 14 examines the closure and consolidation of a 
number of branch libraries at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library during 
a two-year period and the challenges of communication, collaboration, participation, 
and messaging that this entailed.

The subject of closing, consolidating, and merging branch libraries, collections, and 
operations is always a difficult one, especially as it relates to history and historical pre-
cedence, uniqueness of services to particular faculties and disciplines, the emotional 
and psychological distress for both the library and the subject faculty, and the often 
political challenges to enact financial and staffing savings in the long run. This book 
stands out because it is totally devoted to the topic, thus providing a number of excel-
lent case studies and personal experiences that can be mined and digested by library 
administrators who must direct and lead these types of reorganizations in the future. 
There are some great figures, charts, pictures, and tables included with many of these 
chapters, which provide additional resources and data for the reader to incorporate 
into their own specific situations. The level of emotional angst and energy for many of 
the authors surrounding their experiences lends an air of appreciation, empathy, and 
credibility around much of the content. This book gets beyond the theory and details the 
practice and experience of numerous individuals involved at the grassroots of planning, 
communicating, organizing, and leading academic libraries through consolidations, 
mergers, and closings.—Bradford Lee Eden, Valparaiso University

Ronald C. Jantz. Managing Creativity: The Innovative Research Library. Chicago: Associa-
tion of College and Research Libraries, 2016 (Publications in Librarianship; no. 70). 
185p. Paper, $44.00 (ISBN 978-083898834-3)

The foreword to this book sets the tone for the content and direction of the overall 
topic, which is a detailed study of the research literature and theories on innovation, 
and how new models for innovation relate to North American research libraries and 
their future. James G. Neal, university librarian emeritus from Columbia University, 
provides the vocabulary in the foreword for what research libraries will be in the future: 
expansive, schizophrenic, legacy, infrastructure, repository, portal, enterprise, public 
interest, virtual, virtuoso, and virtuous. He then indicates how the author (building 
on his 2013 doctoral dissertation) will provide the theory, analysis, and impetus for 
research libraries to work with innovation in what he terms the “current period of 
polygamy … the coming period of parabiosis … and the future period of particular-
ism” (vii). Part of this process will involve the dismantling of traditional bureaucratic 
and hierarchical structures for more agile and modular systems. Neal indicates that 
the 2013 ARL strategic plan defines the what of research library innovation, while this 
book provides the how. 

The author bases his insights on his research on innovation models and theories 
and then applies them to the world of research libraries. The book is divided into three 
sections: a historical perspective of library innovation and the theories of innovation 
(chapters 1–3), the research model and the results of the empirical analysis of innova-
tion in ARL libraries (chapters 4–9), and additional avenues of research related to the 
innovation culture in libraries (chapters 10–12). Written primarily for those within 
academic libraries who are managers, administrators, leaders, and future leaders, 
the book provides a useful introduction to organizational innovation as well as the 
author’s dissertation and findings related to innovation in ARL libraries. This study is