Student-led organizational communication audit for strategic university library management

In this interactive session, we present a collaboration between an academic library, the faculty and students of a course on organizational communication at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. In fall 2021, the students carried out an organizational communication audit of the library, which offered insight into its team dynamics and guidance for the future.

The goal of this organizational communication audit was to deconstruct communication patterns, between the library constituents, which lead to failures library operations and to misalignment with the university’s strategy. Students performed an exhaustive assessment of the library structure in relation to the university’s structure to understand the dynamics of leadership, decision-making, motivation and culture. They then developed a questionnaire for library constituents to capture their language, emotions, understanding, and experiences of the aforementioned elements of organizational communication. Infused with the perspective of students and the faculty on best practices in the field, various findings and recommendations arose, encouraging to adopt new systems for improved library management.

The example of Al Akhawayn University will serve as a framework for participants to develop their own organizational communication audit, using their knowledge and experience at their library, along with official university documents which informs them about their specific structure, leadership, decision-making processes, motivation and organizational culture.

Hands-on activities will include outlining the initial known elements of organizational communication, developing an interview guide and questionnaire, and learning how to extract common meaningful narrative unveiling gaps in communication and system failures.