LIS 204:Introduction to Library and Information Science

Week Eight

Kevin Rioux, PhD

Looking at Libraries as Organizations

• Why do we want to look at organizational aspects of libraries?

– Better understand the daily functioning of libraries and they types of work performed

– Better understand how libraries interact, in a “nuts-and-bolts” practical sense, with their societal environment

– Better understand politics, motives, goals, etc., of those involved in libraries

Review: basic functions of libraries

• Selecting, ordering and purchasing materials

• Developing and maintaining appropriate collections

• Making information available through document delivery, and other access mechanisms

• Conserving and preserving materials

• Delivering programs: e.g., bibliographic instruction, story time, ESL, etc.

Libraries are organizations amongst many competing organizations

• Functional competition:

– Bookstores and publishers

– Mass media (TV especially)

– Internet

• Financial competition:

– Parks

– Social services

– Tax issues

Typical Functional Units of Libraries

• Boards of Trustees

– Often established by statute

– Make policies, plans, goals for library

– Especially public libraries (academic and school report to deans, administrators or principals)

• Library Administration

– Management function of libraries: personnel, planning, policy creation and enforcement

Typical Functional Units of Libraries, cont’d.

• Public service units– Are often headed by a librarian with administrative status

• Reference--handles user-initiated inquiries– Sometimes divided into subject areas or relies on subject

area specialists – Other possible divisions: youth services, business services,

etc.• Circulation--aka: access services. Handles inventory control

(e.g., check in/out), fines, etc.• Electronic information center--handles computers and A/V

materials• Special services: e.g., service to the visually impaired,

bookmobiles, nursing homes, prisons

Typical Functional Units of Libraries, cont’d.

• Support Units

– Tech Services--generally, prepare materials for easy access

• Acquire materials– Deal with vendors (negotiating, ordering bill paying, etc.)

• Cataloging and bar coding

• Preservation of materials

– Maintenance of physical plant

– Security

– Tech support

US Libraries, as of 2002

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2002

94,342School

10,452Special (law, medical, religious)

2,398University/college

1,082Junior college

3,480Academic

7,153Public branches

9,445Public excluding branches

16,598Public

Public Libraries: key characteristics

• Ultimate goal: to disseminate information to citizens

• Created by public law

• Run by boards appointed or elected to serve the general public

• Are open to all

• Mission depends on its community

• Usually supported by income taxes or property taxes (ratio between local, state and federal gov’ts vary)

• Heavily used, but not across all demographic groups.

– Better educated with higher incomes with kids are most common users

– Health, recreation, homework are common interests

Public Library Issues

• Political climate– Anti-intellectualism– Anti-public institution– Low commitment to community among citizens– Competition from other public agencies

• Information technology– Cost– Training: patrons and staff– Digital reference– Public access machines– Filtering

Public Library Issues, cont’d.

• Quality vs. demand

– Who chooses “quality”?

– Entertainment or education?

– How to balance given the tight budgets?• Service to multicultural populations

– We’ve been under-prepared in recent decades, but not historically

– Multi-lingual staff shortages

– Non-English collections (and politics that accompany these)

– Perceived as non-helping institutions

– Lack of education/resentment with certain racial and ethnic groups among staff and vice versa.

Public Library Issues, cont’d.

• Children’s and youth services

– Extremely popular programs

– 1/2 of all public library users are younger than 18

– Severe shortage of librarians trained in children’s and youth services

– Social factors: single parent households, poverty, new immigrants need to be reflected in programming, but not enough librarians are trained or are interested in learning how to service these groups (new advocacy group in ALA: Library Advocacy Now)

Public Library Issues, cont’d.

• Children’s services, cont’d.

– Outreach to schools, Headstart programs, daycare centers, etc. TAKES TIME.

• Cooperation with school media centers

– Exchange of materials and expertise

• Some budgeting and turf issues to overcome

School Libraries (aka: Media Centers)

• Mission: to support the curriculum of the school in which it is located

• Facility that provides a non-classroom format for other educational goals: stimulating curiosity, exposes kids to a variety of ideas, entertains, and provides professional literature for staff.

• Typical chain of command: school district, principal, librarian

School Library Issues

• Not always seen as integral to the school’s function--superfluous? Need to education service constituency about value, and take leadership role.

• Technology: costs, training, space, content

• Challenges to particular materials

• Children are perceived as a a vulnerable population. Is the library positioned to promote a variety of values and points of view or a set of accepted values and points of view--different in each community.

Academic Libraries

• Harvard was the first, but mostly started as departmental collections

• Johns Hopkins (first German-modeled, research-based university in the US) had the first “modern” academic library

• Mission: to support higher learning pedagogy and research among students, faculty and scholars worldwide.

• Collection reflects institutional mission

Academic Library issues

• Preservation of materials

– Long-term collections are common in academic libraries

– Acidic paper on older books makes them brittle--millions of these books

– Acid free paper lasts hundreds of years--longer than many electronic formats

– Data migration and technology obsolescence

– Quite costly

Academic Library issues, cont’d.

• Higher expectations and limited resources

• Cooperative collection development and resource sharing

– Creation of consortia

• Not always possible due to competition for faculty and students, turf issues

• Periodical costs

– Skyrocketing costs, which causes reductions in overall purchases

Academic Library Issues, cont’d.

• Budget crunches and competition for resources on all campuses

• Information technology

– Primarily an expense and sophisticated consumer issue

Special Libraries

• Provides information for particular processes (e.g., factory, lab, marketing etc.) or a particular profession (engineering, medicine, law).

• Often involved “value-added” services

• Small, highly specialized (and usually very expensive collections)

• Regularly have to demonstrate their usefulness

• Do “marketing” to justify existence

• Fair use in special libraries? Not fully determined

• Very much a customer service orientation

General issues

• Low numbers of minority librarians

– Not enough recruitment in these communities

– Not seen as a desirable job by these communities

– Support for minority students is lacking

• Sex discrimination

– Fewer men, but they get paid more

– Men are more likely to be administrators

• Creation of new tech positions

– Competition with other employers who offer more money

– Need MLIS?