ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how change management has developed and puts the theory into the context of librarianship. Both classical and scientific management assumed that organisations were stable and that they need not be affected by the things that went on outside their boundaries. Behaviourism covers a spectrum of views coalescing around the basic idea that organisational change needs to concentrate on the reaction and role of the individual, whether this reaction is a mechanical one or not. Ideas about scientific management were largely American in origin. In European management theory, the same desire to improve performance gave one the classical school. Modern organisational conditions require a more refined approach which can only be informed by ideas stemming from field theory, open systems, human relations, learning organisations and knowledge management. Chaos Theory is becoming relevant as libraries are affected more and more by their environments.
