Book Review: The Purpose-Based Library: Finding Your Path to Survival, Success, and Growth

Abstract

Building on the management principles presented in his book, Lean Library Management: Eleven Strategies for Reducing Costs and Improving Services (Neal-Schuman 2011), John Huber extends the “lean” philosophy to help libraries define the core purposes that add value to their community in order to survive, succeed, and grow. Huber includes anecdotes and facts from libraries with which he has consulted to illustrate the effect that increased competition, reduced assessments, budget cuts, and outsourcing have on libraries and that ways that some libraries have resisted these effects. In addition to examples cited by Huber, each chapter also features insights from Steven V. Potter, library director at Mid-Continent Public Library in Missouri, which put the discussion in the context of library administration experience.