Parallel Session 11 – Leadership for the Future
Date: Friday, 3 July 2026, from 09:00 to 10:30
Moderator: TBC
Location: R8
11.1) Building a Future-Ready Library: Lessons and Challenges from the BCUL 2024 User Survey
Presenter: Adrian Baumann, Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne, Switzerland
Digital transformation, the proliferation of scientific publications, and the recent emergence of artificial intelligence have contributed to changing how students, teachers, and researchers access and interact with information. In a rapidly evolving academic landscape, the Unithèque site of the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire Lausanne is facing a decline in physical loans and limited visibility into its users’ practices. The library must assess the relevance of its collections and their development, the effectiveness of their availability, and its integration within the university, for which it acquires resources but remains institutionally peripheral. The central challenge is to understand how the library’s collections and services can stay relevant and accessible in this changing context.
In 2024, the BCUL conducted a survey of the entire university population to investigate these issues. The online questionnaire, developed in collaboration with the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, examined users’ interactions with the collections across study, teaching, research, and leisure activities. The analysis was segmented by respondent profiles (students, teachers, and researchers) and their respective disciplinary fields.
The survey yielded 1,678 responses from 21,023 invitations, resulting in a comprehensive dataset on both physical and digital use of the collections. Descriptive and segmented analyses identified differences in user practices, points of friction, and opportunities to optimize the composition and availability of collections, as well as the library’s service offerings.
The analysis revealed two main modes of library use: as a learning space for students and as a documentation hub for teachers and researchers. Key findings included: the problem of resource unavailability and inaccessibility, which puts library collections in competition with other channels for resource acquisition; divergent preferences for digital or physical formats depending on the type of resource; and the enduring role of the physical library in facilitating serendipity. The resources used in teaching are predominantly accessed via a university platform rather than the library, thereby restricting the ability to track the use of library-provided materials. Additionally, the library encounters difficulties in promoting its services and offerings.
These observations led to the development of recommendations and the design of an action plan, the first steps of which will be presented at the LIBER 2026 conference alongside the survey results. These steps will focus on monitoring the collections’ availability, the consequences regarding acquisition policies, and cooperation between the library and the teaching and research staff of the University of Lausanne, illustrating how university libraries can strengthen their role and impact in an unpredictable landscape.
11.2) From Structure to Strategy: Building Future-Ready Library Teams at UAB
Presenters: Núria Casaldàliga Rojas and Anna Florensa Farré, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
The UAB Libraries are committed to delivering an enhanced user experience while reinforcing their central role within an evolving information ecosystem, shaped by continuous technological advancements, generational transitions, and profound social transformations.
To meet this challenge, we launched a strategic project four years ago with a clear objective: to review and redesign the organizational structure of library staff, aligning it with the future needs of our academic community.
The first phase involved an approach based on the Library Service process map, analysing the expected evolution of each process, identifying operations being phased out or representing new opportunities, determining key activities, and mapping them to job categories. We introduced a data-driven methodology, creating a detailed grid covering 11 processes and their activities, complemented by indicators and weight analysis to ensure objective assessment. This framework provideda top-down view of organizational dynamics, enabling evidence-based decision-making.
The outcome was a comprehensive report structured around a 4-helix analysis, integrating process data, job categories, performance indicators, and trends identified in the literature on university libraries.
The second phase focused on adaptive workforce design, redistributing staff across libraries according to the study’s findings, updating professional profiles, and introducing new roles to address emerging challenges such as digital scholarship, data management, and user experience design. This step emphasizes flexibility and future-readiness, ensuring alignment with evolving academic priorities.
The third phase, following approval of the model by the university board and unions, is currently in progress and focuses on developing a two-year implementation roadmap.
To provide context, the UAB Library Service comprises seven libraries, central services, and Library Management, supported by a team of 166 professionals. This project has impacted 87% of the staff (145 individuals) through a comprehensive review of their profiles. Notably, 77% of these positions (112 roles) have received category and salary upgrades. Furthermore, 13 basic positions have been reclassified as technical roles, strengthening the team’s expertise.
By integrating data analytics, strategic foresight, and role design, this project positions UAB Libraries as a proactive agent of change, ready to deliver high-impact services in a rapidly shifting academic landscape.
11.3) Beyond Hierarchy, Not Beyond Responsibility: Ethical Leadership in a Role‑Based Academic Library
Presenter: Gabriela Lüthi-Esposito, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Academic libraries are operating in an environment characterized by technological acceleration, social change and increasing political and economic uncertainty. At the same time, they face rapidly evolving user expectations, growing resource constraints, the need to develop new competencies, shifts in service portfolios and a shortage of specialized professionals. These conditions require libraries to rethink not only what they do, but also how they organize themselves to remain resilient, effective, and sustainable.
Against this background, the University Library of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences began a transformation towards agile ways of working five years ago, with the explicit goal of placing people (users and staff) as well as innovation and leadership at the center of organizational development. Building on this foundation, the library worked intensively throughout 2024 on the design and implementation of a role‑based circle model (inspired by holacracy and sociocracy). This organizational approach replaces traditional hierarchical structures with clearly defined roles, distributed decision‑making authority, and interdisciplinary collaboration across former departmental boundaries — while remaining attentive to critiques and limits of holacracy‑style models. The transformation combined bottom‑up and top‑down approaches to foster participation and acceptance while maintaining strategic coherence.
Since June 2025, the university library has been organized according to a role‑based circle model. Following a six‑month pilot phase (June–December 2025), the transformation process and the degree to which its objectives have been achieved will be jointly evaluated in early 2026 through a structured feedback process. This evaluation will form the basis for evidence‑based adjustments and further development of the model.
The objectives of the transformation include increasing transparency regarding roles and responsibilities; strengthening organizational and individual performance; fostering interprofessional collaboration and breaking down silo thinking. Central to these aims is strengthening the organization’s capacity to anticipate, absorb, and respond rapidly to changing conditions to sustain innovation and high performance in an increasingly uncertain environment. To support this, decision‑making is shifted closer to where relevant expertise resides, enabling faster and more context‑sensitive responses to emerging challenges.
Even within a self‑organizing model, staff require clear orientation and reliability. Leadership therefore shifts from operational decision‑making toward setting frameworks, designing governance structures and cultivating organizational culture. While formal leadership remains legally accountable for areas such as budgets, personnel, compliance, and crisis management, subject‑specific decisions are increasingly embedded in clearly defined roles and processes.
This experience‑based contribution analyses the transformation of the ZHAW University Library and offers practice‑oriented insights into challenges, successes, and lessons learned. I am going to reflect critically on the competencies required for such a shift, emphasizing that self‑organization, decision‑making capacity and constructive conflict management must be developed and supported through psychological safety. With a focus on leadership, governance, and organizational resilience, this contribution addresses practitioners planning or implementing role‑based or agile organizational models in academic libraries.
References
Bernstein, E., Bunch, J., Canner, N., & Lee, M. (2016). Beyond the holacracy HYPE. Harvard Business Review, 94(7/8), 38–49.
Kets De Vries, M. F. R. (2025). The path to individual and organizational transformation: Confronting the elephant in the room. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88330-9
Meyer, C. R., Cohen, D. G., & Nair, S. (2017). Some have to, and some want to: Why firms adopt a post‑industrial form. Journal of Management & Governance, 21(2), 533–559. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-016-9353-5
Moreira, M. E. (2017). The agile enterprise. Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-2391-8
Rau, T. (2020). Sociocracy – basic concepts and principles. Available online at https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/