What is the most important point that this chapter makes about higher education? What difference does this make for academic libraries?
Budd talks about organizational culture. What is it? How is it created? How can it be changed?
He also uses the phrase "self-determining professionals." Is this a reasonable notion?
The "Classic School" attributes include:
To what degree to these attributes characterize higher education as you know it?
Budd notes that the structural approach suggests that organizational problems may be solved by changing the structure. How is a university or college organized? Does that seem reasonable to you. How might the structure of an college be changed?
The systems approach suggests the organizations must constantly change to match changes in their environment. How easy might it be to change an organization such as a college or university?
Budd notes that organizational culture means that there is a "fundamental sharing of a set of beliefs and assumptions that are, at some level, a part of the belief system of the organization's members." Can you provide some examples of shared beliefs and assumptions that might be shared by those in higher education?
One component of library school education is socialization or the process of helping students to understand how professionals should act. Is this where organizational culture begins? What shared beliefs and assumptions might you encounter in library school?
Budd notes the shared connection between the goals of the academy and those of the individual. How might your goals be similar to those of the university, for example?
Does it seem reasonable to you that a new "leader," such as UT's new President, is able to change the "culture" of higher administrators, department heads, faculty, and students? Why? An example might be a new president who wants faculty to spend more time on research with external funding potential.
Some recent comments in the Chronicle of Higher Education note that it is increasingly difficult to find qualified candidates for presidential and other senior positions in larger colleges and universities. Might this be related to changing culture or the need by governing boards to change culture?
What happens if, as Budd suggests, the culture of administrators is different from that of faculty?
Here Budd introduces subcultures and suggests that faculty in different units might have a different culture. If culture is a common set of beliefs and assumptions--of ways of acting and knowing, why would culture differ between library science faculty and geography faculty, for example?
How would you characterize the subculture of the academic library? How similar or different might it be from other subcultures on campus?
How might "success" be defined in the academy? In the academic library?
How might the academic librarian learn more about the current subcultures in the academy where she works? How much needs to be known to serve effectively?
One example of imposing an external culture might be requiring librarians to meet faculty tenure requirements as a condition of continued employment. To what degree is research and publication part of the librarian culture? How appropriate is it for librarians to change their culture so that it is similar to that of the faculty member?
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