Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Abstract
This article is written for a Festschrift for F. W. Lancaster, and it
summarizes the author???s library school experiences as a student of
Professor Lancaster and Professor Herbert Goldhor at the University
of Illinois. Both professors instilled in students a strong inclination
to use real and appropriate information in evaluating situations,
making decisions, delivering information services, and managing
libraries. The author suggests that this Lancaster-Goldhor approach
to information, and to data-driven decision making, anticipated the
current movement toward evidence-based practice (EBP) in libraries.
He suggests that libraries embrace the premises, philosophy, values,
and practices of organizational development (OD) as an overarching
discipline that facilitates EBP in the library culture, and ultimately
leads to healthier and more effective organizations. This article
complements a 2004 Library Trends article on OD, and numerous
recent publications on OD and related topics are cited.published or submitted for publicatio