Abstract
The article discusses the method of team organization of work (teamwork) employed in German university and academic libraries. The starting point for the discussion is the description of the shortcomings of the ubiquitous functional organizational model used in academic libraries. This model features numerous flaws, particularly noticeable in the decision making process carried out at the hierarchical level. The solution enabling elimination or, at least limiting the adverse shortcomings hampering the development of any library, can be the concept of work organization o f teamwork. This method aligns employee mindsets towards a specific business purpose (goals and tasks to be fulfilled) and employs abilities and skills of individual members of teams to a higher degree than before. The teamwork concept, originated in big industry, has now ceased to be just a theory in libraries. It has been used successfully in German university, academic and public libraries. With the example of three university libraries - the Konstanz University Library, Munich University of Technology Library and Dortmund University Library, the author presents the main features of the new organizational model and the stages of its implementation in the said libraries. In a word, teamwork means a change in the organizational structure of a library, cuts in the middle managerial staff, introduces a completely different management system and, additionally, a change in the mentality of the staff. Rewording the above, all this can simply correspond to a great change in the organizational culture of the library.License
Copyright (c) 2008 Zdzisław Gębołyś
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Works published in the journal Biblioteka on the PRESSto platform of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań since 2015 are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). 
Accordingly, all interested parties are entitled to use works published since 2015, subject to the following conditions:
- Attribution — users must provide appropriate credit when redistributing the work, including the author’s name, the title of the work, the source (with a link to the original work and its DOI), and the applicable license.
- ShareAlike — when remixing, transforming, or building upon the work, users must distribute their contributions under the same license as the original work.
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań retains copyright in the journal as a whole, including its layout, graphic design, title, cover design, logo, etc.
Authors retain their economic rights to their works while granting Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań permission to use and publish their works. Authors whose submissions have been accepted for publication are required to complete, sign, and submit the relevant publishing agreement.
If an author is uncertain whether they may lawfully use third-party works (e.g. illustrations, photographs, or tables) within their manuscript under the right of quotation, they must obtain and provide the journal's editorial board with permission from the relevant rights holders.
All rights are reserved with respect to texts published before 2015.