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The American Library Association has published a new study co-authored by Dr. Yumi Shin, Lamar State College Port Arthur’s Coordinator of Reference and Access Services at the Gates Memorial Library.

She and Kaye Shelton, Professor of Educational Leadership at Beaumont’s Lamar University, considered the need for preparing library leadership to keep pace with the rapid and unpredictable changes affecting library services.

While budget cuts, new information technology, advances in online learning and globalization are changing the ways librarians do their jobs, libraries in general and academic libraries in particular are expected to play a key future role, utilizing current technology to deliver the appropriate resources.

Academic librarians are expected to play more of a teaching and facilitating role to help users access remote library collections.

Shin and Shelton’s study, “The Perceptions of Librarians in Regional Universities in Texas Regarding Leadership Development Experiences,” was published in “Library Leadership & Management,” a journal of the American Library Association.

It can be accessed at journals.tdl.org/llm/index.php/llm/article/view/7433.

Texas regional university librarians interviewed for the study said they had access to leadership development programs but barriers – mostly time and money – existed to developing proper professional leadership.

Suggestions include better support for leadership development by school leadership and an emphasis on leadership development by library schools and professional organizations.

In 2020, Shin received the Outstanding Service in Library Instruction Award from the Library Instruction Round Table of the Texas Library Association (TLA), and was set to be honored at its annual conference. The convention was canceled because of COVID-19.

She also teamed with LSCPA’s Dr. Michelle Judice, Associate English Professor, on a study selected for the publication and presentation at the TLA annual conference 2020.

The pair studied the positive impact on library instruction on College English students.

Shin received another remarkable prize in May 2020, the Student of the Year award in doctoral studies, from Lamar University.

After completing master’s degrees at both University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Texas Woman’s University, she earned a Doctorate of Educational Leadership from LU.