Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians

The Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians (LIAL), which offered its first institute in 1999, is a collaboration of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. [i] Intended to provide participants with the tools and insight needed to improve effectiveness and respond rapidly to a changing environment, LIAL is held each year for one week in August on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [ii]

The need for leadership programs for librarians was recognized by John Collins, a librarian at Harvard University, who had lobbied for several years for an institute for librarians similar to those the university held for other academic administrators. In 1998, Harvard University invited ACRL to join with them in planning a leadership institute for academic librarians. The president of ACRL at the time, Maureen Sullivan, brought the proposal to the ACRL Board of Directors, which approved it. Sullivan shared in the initial curriculum development and has been a member of the LIAL faculty since the second institute in 2000. [iii]

Notes

[i] For more information about all of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education, see http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/programs/higher-education/.

[ii] Association of College and Research Libraries, “ACRL Harvard Leadership Institute.”

[iii] Saunders, “ACRL Harvard Leadership Institute.”