Practical and Effective Management of Libraries

5

Communication

When it comes to management and the broader topic of leadership (addressed more completely in the next chapter), few, if any, issues are more important than communication. According to Deborah Barrett (2006: 385), ‘Managers spend most of their day engaged in communication…’ She goes on to highlight older studies indicating that, even before e-mail and cell phones, somewhere between 70 per cent and 90 per cent of a manager’s daily work involved communicating in some fashion (ibid.).

It should be noted that this chapter takes a slightly different approach from some of the earlier ones. While there is a solid foundation of theory that applies to communicating, an attempt has been made here to be as practicable as possible. Hence ...