30 Years of Drucker

At this time 30 years ago, during my first summer semester as an MLS student at the Catholic University of America, I received my first formal introduction to the work of Peter Drucker. I wrote about this in more detail in two guest posts for LexisNexis Government Info Pro, “25 Years of Drucker” in 2011, and “How a New Business/Self-Development Book Had Its Genesis in a Library School Class,” in 2009.

Drucker’s 1974 magnum opus, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, was the textbook assigned by my professor, Duane Webster, the longtime executive director of the Association of Research Libraries. Drucker’s book spoke to me on a very deep level. In 2008, three years after Drucker’s death at 95, I reviewed the revised and updated edition, Management: Revised Edition for USA TODAY.

The study of Drucker’s work that began 30 years ago ultimately led to a number of interviews with Drucker, articles about him in a variety of publications, and my two books, Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way, (McGraw-Hill/Brilliance Audio, 2013) and Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life (Berrett-Koehler, 2009).

And although I’m not teaching this year, I’ve been an adjunct professor at CUA for 20 years, and have taught several times in the 1986 classroom, Marist 213. As I pause to think back to that fateful semester, I’m struck by how differently my life would have unfolded if Duane Webster had assigned a different textbook!