This paper traces the evolution of the American library system from its rule-enforcing origins in the late nineteenth century to its contemporary focus on patron-centered service. Drawing on historical records, management theory, and library science literature, the paper examines how libraries have adapted their decision-making processes, organizational structures, and staff practices to better serve patrons. Topics covered include the history of library cataloging and service orientation, change management frameworks, group decision-making models, SWOT analysis applied to library systems, and practical computer and customer service guidance for frontline library staff. The paper argues that effective library management requires placing the patron at the center of every operational and strategic decision.
In 1897, according to "The Library and the System of Cataloging: Report of the Committee on the Library," a patron had to pay a fine of one cent per day for each overdue book. In addition, rules regarding patrons' use of the library stressed: "Members may borrow books for home use, but no one shall have more than four books at any time, nor keep any book more than five weeks" ("The Library and the System..." 6). Rules enforced during 1897 appear to indicate that the library itself, not the patron, was the primary focus of the American library system. Patrons were warned:
Any person mutilating or losing a book shall pay for the damage, or replace the book. Any one who violates the above rules shall, upon written request from the Librarian to the Board of Government, be debarred from the privileges of the library for such time, not less than three months, as the Board of Government may determine. ("The Library and the System..." 7)
American libraries, Kenneth E. Carpenter reports in "A Library Historian Looks at Librarianship," began in 1876 with the founding of the American Library Association. In 1887, at Columbia University, the first library school in the United States officially opened. Since that time — seemingly contrary to the concepts that warned patrons not to cross particular lines — the library system changed and began to recognize the value of positioning the patron as its primary focus and making decisions to best serve his or her needs.
In the past, a person manually operated the system of cataloging the library's books and pamphlets. These were readily "separated into a few classes having distinctive characteristics, and these large classes, in turn, could be easily and naturally subdivided into sets of books. This fact determined the general principles upon which cataloging and shelving should be done." Next, the librarian manually arranged the books in large groups called "sections" ("The Library and the System..." 11).
Sections were arranged in the following order: Section 1 included all publications of societies; Section 2, bound volumes of periodicals; Section 3, city and town reports; Section 4, reports issued by the departments and commissions of various states; Section 5, publications of national governments; Section 6, reports and papers of expositions, congresses, conventions, etc.; and Section 10, text and reference books and books of general interest. All library catalogs and indexes bound in separate volumes were collected onto one shelf and labeled "Indexes." Section numbers 7, 8, and 9 were left for possible future acquisitions of reports or similar publications that could not by any reasonable possibility be classed with one of the sections already established ("The Library and the System..." 11).
Also in keeping with the library system of that era, when the librarian checked out a book for a patron, he or she was reminded to ensure that the book was entered by catalog number and brief title, by hand, in the library record. Written instructions reminded the librarian — who received no salary for his or her services — to plainly record the name and address of the borrower and to be careful to enter the number of the book correctly. When a patron returned a book, he or she had more "entirely reasonable" manual work to complete ("The Library and the System...").
During 1996, Kenneth E. Carpenter reports in "A Library Historian Looks at Librarianship," American libraries had the reputation of being the best in the world. They were reportedly easy to use and offered collections of works and information appropriate to their purpose. Some libraries in the United States were noted to be among the largest in the world, with three of the five largest libraries — exclusive of those in Russia — located in the United States. Carpenter stresses that to maintain their reputations for being the best, U.S. libraries of all kinds need to provide service that meets the needs of patrons. He notes that the tradition of service developed in American libraries partly in response to the fact that if they were to survive, various kinds of libraries had to provide service. Carpenter further explains:
This was true of the membership libraries that flourished from the late eighteenth century to the latter part of the nineteenth. These were libraries in which one bought shares and paid an annual fee, or to which one subscribed annually. These included, among others, athenaeums, mercantile libraries, young men's libraries, mechanics' libraries, and apprentices' libraries.... To survive it was necessary to provide the books that were wanted and give easy access to them. The very short hours of academic libraries were not typical. For example, in 1820 the Athenaeum of Philadelphia was open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., from the first of November to the first of May, and from the first of May to the first of November from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., every day of the week except Sunday.... To be sure, libraries generally did not have the financial means to be open such long hours, but this example illustrates the desire. (Carpenter 77+)
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Carpenter notes, publicly financed libraries competed with the membership libraries. Competition was not stimulated by the desire for public funding, but for readers and, consequently, for the community's ongoing support. The ideology for the formation of the new kind of library — the publicly financed library — also contributed to a service orientation. "Public libraries were seen to be, variously, a means of elevating the lower classes through good reading and by providing sources of information that would help the working man in his trade, of keeping peace between the classes, of inculcating democratic values in immigrants, of promoting civic virtue..." (Carpenter 77+). These concerns contributed to the rationale for the existence of libraries.
Since the 1960s, Patricia A. McLagan reports in "The Change-Capable Organization," the number of books and articles on change management has increased more than 100 times. As organizations succeed and/or fail to implement complex, organization-wide initiatives, costs related to change failures reportedly rise. Surveys routinely place change management at the top of the list of executive concerns. Contemporary changes may include, but are not limited to: reengineering, diversity awareness, globalization, quality and productivity programs, as well as complex alliances, mergers, and acquisitions (McLagan).
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) asserts that change may not necessarily denote progress. "Change is one thing, progress is another," he stated. "'Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy" (Russell, quoted in Columbia World of Quotations). In Developing Effective School Management, Jack Dunham purports that organizations need not only to consider changes they need to improve performance, but also to determine specific strategies for implementing needed or desired changes.
The following table relates key stage actions Dunham notes for an organization to achieve its primary objectives.
Table 1: Identifying Key Stage Actions to Achieve Management Objectives (Dunham 34)
Define objectives: Identify task and constraints (Task); involve the team, share commitment (Team); clarify objectives, gain acceptance (Individual). Plan: Establish priorities, check resources, decide, set standards (Task); consult, encourage ideas and actions, develop suggestions and structure (Team); assess skills, set targets, delegate, persuade (Individual). Brief: Brief the team, check understanding (Task); answer questions, obtain feedback (Team); listen, enthuse (Individual). Support and monitor: Report progress, maintain standards, discipline (Task); coordinate, reconcile conflict (Team); advise, assist, reassure, recognize effort, counsel (Individual). Evaluate: Summarize progress, review objectives, re-plan if necessary (Task); recognize success, learn from failure (Team); assess performance, appraise, guide and train (Individual).
In regard to changes in organizations, Jack Dunham presents the Three Circles Model in Developing Effective School Management. The Three Circles Model purports that effective management of staff occurs when a team leader attaches equal importance to three fundamental factors: the task; the team; and the individuals in the team.
John Adair, management consultant, originally formulated the Three Circles Model, which he describes as "Action-Centred Leadership" (ACL). This model is regularly used in numerous management training programs and relates three specific actions that managers need to implement (Dunham 32).
Robert Mayo Hayes stresses in Models for Library Management, Decision-making, and Planning that in library management, decision-making and planning prove vital. Not only do decisions made in-house by the library matter, but those made by governments at every level "determine the economic, political, and legal environment within which the library must operate" (Hayes xix). These outside decisions often prove significant, as many made within the framework of international, national, regional, state, and local policies directly impact decisions that may appear internally determined, yet depend on larger strategic contexts. To start any decision-making process, the decision-maker must initially understand the problem, Hayes points out.
The objectives must be defined, alternative solutions to the problem need to be identified, and the formulation of means for representing the objectives in a way that may be utilized among the alternative answers must be determined. Components contributing to the library's decision-making process include the library itself; its purposes; its structure and organization; its functions and forms of data; its resources in staff and volunteers; its facilities; and its equipment.
"Management teams and other groups play a key role in strategic decision making," Nancy H. Leonard, Laura Beauvais, and Richard Scholl (2005) relate regarding the importance of involving groups in strategic decision making. "These groups include top management teams (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), boards of directors (Forbes, 1999; Pettigrew, 1992), and planning task forces (Van de Ven, 1980)" (Leonard, Beauvais, and Scholl ¶ 2). To effectively manage work groups and decision-making teams, Leonard, Beauvais, and Scholl stress, managers must understand that the underlying psychological cognitive styles and social interaction of an individual impact them and their decision making. When managers better understand the concept of group cognitive style, they may be able to create groups with various strengths based on the composition of group members. When the organization needs information from outside the group or the organization, for example, an extraverted group may prove more effective in resolving an issue than an introverted group. When time is not a factor in the decision-making process, a perceiving group may be more likely to submit more alternatives — and potentially reach a better decision — than a judging group that tends to decide quickly without obtaining additional information (Leonard, Beauvais, and Scholl).
An effective library system, according to Diane Tobin Johnson (1995) in "Focus on the Library Customer: Revelation, Revolution, or Redundancy?," ensures that components of the system possess intrinsic value that matches the customer's needs. A library system that works "...matches the customer to the offerings of the system and evaluates based on the number of matches" (Johnson ¶ 15). For the system to work efficiently, managers need to ensure the patron or user remains the central focus for the services the library provides. According to the Council of the American Library Association, the library profession needs to ascertain which organization and/or service provides the best information for the system or systems the patron utilizes. Those who manage the library system also need to ascertain the role or roles the professional fills to best meet the patron's needs. As staff keeps abreast of activities and technologies that help encompass refinements of the library's system for information storage and retrieval, the patron will ultimately benefit as well (Johnson).
When the objective for the library — or any other organization — centers on customer satisfaction, and management and staff adopt a customer or marketing orientation, success will follow. The library that best determines the patron's perceptions, wants, and needs, and consequently satisfies them through the design, communication, and delivery of appropriate information and services, will in turn operate an effective library system. In fact, the basic conceptual framework of the library and information profession mandates that management understand the patron's needs regarding information and activate this understanding (Johnson).
In Jeremy Hodes' book review of Customer Satisfaction Is Becoming Increasingly Important to Libraries — written by Peter Hernon of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College and John Whitman, president of Surveytools Corporation, a customer satisfaction research company — Hodes also stresses it to be vital for the patron to be the primary focus. "Customers are now seen as core business" (Hodes ¶ 1). Those who manage the library system need to understand and cater to the patron in order to provide quality, responsive library service.
Hodes notes that Hernon and Whitman explain the following nine considerations to be vital in ensuring library systems are effective: understanding customer service; understanding service quality; understanding customer satisfaction; developing a framework for improving service quality and customer satisfaction over time; developing and implementing a service plan; assessing and evaluating satisfaction; using computer technology to conduct surveys; analyzing survey results; and addressing challenges to being successful (Hodes).
Interest in improving library systems is not limited to the United States, as the report "Edutech Holds UAE's First 'Virtua Integrated Library System Users Meet' in Dubai" confirms. This meeting stressed the need for major streamlining within library systems and highlighted the benefits of the Virtua Integrated Library System (VTLS) for users in the Middle East. Best practices noted by other library solutions may enhance the capabilities of the library management system, speakers at the conference stressed. The advantages noted from using VTLS include user-friendliness and "integrated functionality, which covers OPAC, cataloguing, acquisitions, serials, circulation and reporting" ("Edutech Holds UAE's..." ¶ 2).
In "Applying Strategic Management to Economic Development: Benefits and Challenges," K. T. Liou recounts that one common strategic management model or process contains a minimum of five extensive, closely interrelated components that complement a SWOT analysis. Scanning the internal and external environment constitutes a vital component of an organization's strategic planning process. "Environmental factors internal to the firm usually can be classified as strengths (S) or weaknesses (W), and those external to the firm can be classified as opportunities (O) or threats (T)" (SWOT Analysis). This type of analysis of the strategic environment is known as a SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis offers an organization insight into what may best match its resources and capabilities to the competitive environment in which it operates.
A SWOT analysis for a library system may include the following:
Strengths: Cost balanced by funding; staff is team oriented.
Weaknesses: Limited budget hinders growth; managers do not sufficiently encourage teamwork.
"Customer satisfaction research and global library system trends"
"Applying SWOT strategic analysis to library management"
"Practical computer and service tips for library staff alignment"
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