In the pursuit of efficiency, librarians have room for improvement.  Last year I came across a book that changed my perspective on how a large library system could be made more productive.  The book is Lean Library Management by John Huber.

Lean Management, which began as the Toyota Production System, is a set of techniques that aims to improve any system into a quicker and more accurate one with less waste.  Simply put, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. It does so by empowering those who work at the front lines with decision making power while coordinating improvement opportunities across a department. While reading the book, I made many connections between this technique and GTD.

The ideas were so powerful that we contracted with John Huber to work on one of our own internal processes.  In future blogs, I will share how the Library System is benefiting from going Lean.

To get a primer on Lean, please visit Lean.org.