The power is in the method! Operational Excellence as a management approach for sustainable and resilient libraries

Abstract

The poster aims to share with the librarians’ professional community an action-research project conducted within the PhD Programme Cultural Heritage in the Digital Ecosystem at the University of Bologna. The research regards library management, aiming to develop an Operational Excellence (OpEx) model tailored to the digital environment of a scientific library. The study combines observation and intervention in a real organisational setting: the Dario Nobili Library of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Bologna (Italy). While OpEx methodologies are widely used in corporate sectors worldwide, the literature review shows their adoption in cultural institutions and libraries remains limited. The project therefore highlights an innovative research direction within Library and Information Science. The poster communicates two main ideas: the novelty of applying OpEx in libraries and the importance of encouraging interest in this emerging research area. It maps and briefly describes the 10 OpEx principles, showing which ones the Dario Nobili Library experiments with, and it highlights the connection to sustainability and organisational resilience. More broadly, the initiative aims to bridge operational excellence frameworks with professional library practice, contributing new knowledge and supporting future innovation in library management. Tags • #library management • #sustainability • #resilience