Management skills for Library Managers in Improving the Library Performance

The effectiveness of organization in achieving its objectives can be employed by applying management knowledge to management functions. However, current studies show the lack of management skills among managers which could lead to undesirable circumstances and reduce the staff satisfaction especially in performing their roles correctly. In this study, the management skills that are required by managers in the Malaysian university’s library are investigated. This is due to the importance of the library as the main function for supporting research and development of universities. The study aims to identify problem occurs when the managers fail to perform decisions in the university’s library. The management skills typology differences are compared based on demographics factors including age, gender, experience and management rank. The respondents are selected from ten libraries from public universities in Malaysia. Five research university’s libraries and five non-research universities libraries are compared. These libraries are selected based on the university rank listed by the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. This study employed a quantitative approach of structured questionnaire to investigate the management skills possessed by the respondents. A qualitative semi-structured interview is then conducted to support the findings from the aforementioned approach.