Heiliger, Edward M.

English

IDEALS @ Illinois

Administration of Small Libraries

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository

Administration of Small LibrariesEDWARD M. HEILIGERA SMALL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY often seems largeto a high school or special librarian, and the difference in size betweenvery large and small public libraries is tremendous. The sophisticatedlibrarian would cross off of his list many small libraries, of which thereare tens of thousands, as not deserving the name "library." For thisarticle, a search was made for a yardstick large enough to include thegood small libraries without being big enough to get into many ofthe organizational problems plaguing large libraries. The one mostsuitable seemed to be that used by the McDiarmid study: 1 " ••• thosewith staffs of less than ten people." Uppermost in mind, however, willbe the small library that struggles along with only a few on the staff.It seems reasonable to consider administration in terms of size ratherthan function, because many problems of administration are directlyaffected by the factor of size. As to the reason for small libraries, it issimply that they are ample for many needs. A small college, with avery limited undergraduate enrollment, certainly does not require thelibrary plant essential in a large university. The village of five hundredpopulation would find a big city library something of a white elephantif it were set down on Main Street. In special libraries, a small libraryis very important to a company involved in a lesser research program,and a library big enough to serve a large industrial complex would inno way be suited to it. Small libraries have their place, and a veryimportant one in the total picture.This article is concerned with administration in all kinds of smalllibraries. It will discuss the elements and principles of the administra-tion of small libraries, using the outline employed by L. R. Wilson andM. F. Tauber.2 The elements of administration vary in importance withthe size of a library, and this will be taken into account. Planning,staffing, budgeting, organizing, directing, coordinating, and reportingwill be considered. Although the principles of administration are theThe author is Librarian, University of Illinois, Chicago Undergraduate Division.EDWARD M. HEILIGERsame for small libraries as for large ones, the emphasis differs. The prin-ciples to be discussed are division of labor, authority and responsi-bility, discipline, unity of command, unit of management, subordina-tion of individual interests to the common good, remuneration, cen-tralization, the hierarchy, span of control, departmentation, line andstaff, order, equity, stability of staff, initiative, and esprit de corps.Planning is important for all kinds of libraries. It involves not onlythe unit itself, but that larger thing of which the library is a part,whether it be a university, a city government, a school, or a researchinstitution. As in chess, every move must lead toward a predeterminedend. Planning states the objective and routes the movement towardsit. In today's large library, motivated by a democratic type of admin-istration, planning is benefited by the participation of a large pro-fessional staff. The small library suffers from the lack of such participa-tion. Some of this can be overcome by outside professional advice. Fora special project, such as a new building, such advice can be hired.For other matters, the small staff can profit greatly by attendance atprofessional meetings and by professional reading. In planning, as inall administrative phases of his work, the head of a small library isusually handicapped because of work pressure. He tends to be moreinvolved in the operation of the library, as distinct from the admin-istration of it. The smaller the library, the more likely this is to betrue. An awareness of it on the part of the librarian will do more tocure it than anything else. Planning is often made difficult in the smallunit also by the fact that the place of the library in the larger budgetstructure is less clear, less secure. In general, larger libraries have abetter idea of the amount of money with which they will have tooperate. The planner in the small library is hampered continually bylack of adequate funds and by uncertainty, and this probably explainsa certain stagnancy in the growth of small libraries in general. A casecould be made for the proposition that planning is even more im-portant in the small library than in the large, in that as much as pos-sible must be extracted from the limited resources available.Although the small library has fewer positions to fill, it needs toexercise great care in filling them. Members of its staff find themselvesdoing a wider variety of things, and should be capable of adjustingto a wider range of activities. The clerical help must be of highcalibre because it often must fill in when professionals are absent. Inthe large library, if an inadequate person has been hired, he can betransferred to some part of the staff where his shortcomings are less[466 ]Administration of Small Librariesevident. This is impossible in the small library. In most, but not inall types of small libraries, the salaries are smaller. This is only onereason that it is harder to attract people to positions in them. Thereis less opportunity for advancement, and less chance to specialize inany certain aspect of library work. Because small libraries are morelikely to be understaffed than large libraries, work pressure is alsogreater. On the plus side, it certainly can be said that the librarian inthe small library comes to know more thoroughly the public he serves,and thus is often able to render better service to the individual. Again,while the new staff member is in training in a small library, he findshimself benefiting from close contact with the whole staff. In a libraryof any size, administration must be concerned with personnel policy,hence salaries, hours of work, convenience of physical surroundings.These are all of concern in the small library as elsewhere.Financial administration involves not only budgeting, but dealingwith such things as bookkeeping, purchasing, fines, the financial situa-tion of the larger organization to which the library belongs, and rela-tions with other parts of the larger organization which have someresponsibilities for library finances. The small library is perhaps un-likely to have someone on the staff who takes care of the library'sfinancial affairs as a full-time task. Either the librarian or the businessoffice of the parent institution handles it. Although every libraryshould have a budget system regardless of its size, many small librariesare without that. One of the effects of this situation is that the librarymust live on the leavings of the larger budget from which it feeds. Thebudget of the small library is relatively simple and commonly is madeup by the librarian in charge. This means that the librarian is in some-what closer touch with the budgeting than in the larger library, whichoften has a staff officer to handle such work.In the small library having more than one person on the staff, thenature of the staff helps determine the departmentalization. If thereis only one professional worker, of necessity those tasks that can onlybe pedormed by a professional person must be discharged by him.This often means that the librarian is so busy in selecting, ordering,and cataloging materials that little time is left for service to the public.Inasmuch as the latter certainly calls for a professional type of servicetoo, the next step in organizational growth should be to have a personfor the public service, including reference work. Beyond this, the headof the library should be given more and more time to devote to ad-ministrative duties. At all stages, clerical work should be done byEDW ARD M. HEILIGERclerks whenever possible. Work relationships should be clearly de-fined, so that each individual understands his responsibilities, andposition descriptions should be established for each post. With"directing," as with organization, there is less concern in the smalllibrary than in the large. However, as soon as the staff increases beyondone, someone must direct, and someone must give thought to the effectof this on future policy. The "chain of command" and "keeping inchannels," so important in a very large system, seem relatively un-important in the small library. Coordination, too, is a somewhat simplermatter in the small library. Again, however, the minute there is anydepartmentalization, coordination becomes a problem-for instance,those who select, order, and catalog materials must know the needs ofthe public for which this is done. Poor coordination in this spherecould lead to the creation of a book collection unrealistic in terms ofthe needs of the readers.Reporting is important for the small library as well as the large one,and when the reporting is to persons who are not librarians it is par-ticularly so. In this case there is a responsibility on the part of thereport writer to "educate" the recipient in the real meaning of libraryservice and in the possibilities of that service if it is properly supportedat the top level. There have been cases where properly written reportshave resulted in greatly increased funds for a library. Material forthem must be gathered with the purposes of the reports in mind, beinga part of the administrative responsibility. It should be added that thelibrarian should keep :6.rmly in mind the over-all aims of the institu-tion which the library serves. The effectiveness of the library in fur-thering these objectives may be most important to the reader of thereport.The art of administration is perhaps so-called because so much isinvolved in the way it is done. In discussing the principles of admin-istration of small libraries, it must be remembered that the method ofapplying these principles is very important. Each individual will usethem differently, and therein often his success or failure will lie. It isin such utilization that the chief disparity between large and smalllibraries appears. In the following discussion of these principles, par-ticular applications to the small library situation will be noted.The head of a library is responsible for all of its activities, whetheror not he delegates any of his responsibility. If he does pass on someof his duties however, he can hold responsible the person to whom hedelegates them. In case that person proves unreliable, the authorityAdministration of Small Librariesgiven can be withdrawn. As long as a department head, for instance,has responsibility for his department, he, and not the library director,runs that department. He in turn may hand over authority to someonewithin his department. In a small library this is done somewhat lessthan in a large library because the librarian finds less need to deputeauthority.Related to this is unity of command. A worker should receive ordersfrom only one superior and should be responsible to only one. Depart-ment heads should not give direction to assistants in other departments.Also, the librarian should not give orders directly to assistants of de-partment heads to whom he has delegated authority. A small staffcertainly makes adherence to this principle more difficult, as thereis more of a temptation to by-pass when contact is close.A considerable amount has been said here about division of laboras an element in organization. It is also an important administrativeprinciple. When a library is beyond the one-man stage, each taskshould be the responsibility of one person. If everyone were to dopart of each task, there soon would be confusion. Assignment of tasksshould be reasonable in terms of time and place and should conformto local usage. The small library must often, being a smaller unit andmore dependent, do more than others might do to conform to thehabits of a parent institution. Also, a small library patently can notalways avoid setting up a job requiring less than the full time of oneperson.In libraries of all sizes the problem of discipline must be effectivelysolved through good leadership. The head of a small library has agreater opportunity to judge disputes fairly, because he has moreopportunity to know the facts in a case. He should not be a strictdisciplinarian, but make each person realize that everyone on the staff,himself included, is bound by agreements which will render the libraryan effective operating unit. It is important that there be an over-allfeeling of fair play, respect for authority, and freedom from the burdenof discipline applied by a strict taskmaker.The principle of unit of management stresses the need for organiz-ing in such a way that the planning and operation for each kind ofwork, e.g., acquisitions, be done on the basis of units." Such arrange-ment must, of course, £it into the total plan, but each minor part musthave its separate planning and administration. The smaller the library,the less emphasis is needed on this principle. However, it becomesmore important with the addition of each new staff member.[469]EDWARD M. HEILIGERThe number of persons with whom the top administrator must dealis not much of a problem in a small library. However, if the libraryis departmentalized, the administrator may well deal directly onlywith department heads. Certain types of library work, such as cata-loging, call for more detailed supervision. If the library is in twoplaces rather than one there is a limitation on the control that can beexercised by one person. If work in an area is homogeneous, super-vision is relatively easy. In whatever case, the larger situation forcesthe administrator to relinquish his direct supervisory duties, creatinga hierarchy in which authority is exercised through "channels." Ordersgo down the line and requests come up. At each "landing" there is a'1ine" chief who has administrative authority over those directly belowhim. "Staff" officers are advisory and are usually asked to do specialjobs for which they are especially fitted. Their status in the hierarchyis not changed because of this. The small library is not much con-cerned with "line and staff," but the principle entailed in it holds goodfor all libraries staffed by more than one.Determining "what is a fair salary" may be more difficult in thesmall library than in the large, since formal compensation schemesmay be not so likely to exist where there are few persons on a staff.Yet the remuneration of an individual should be just in relation to thewages paid to others having more or less the same qualifications anddoing work of equal importance. Good employees should be rewardedby raises, as an incentive to do better work. In turn, the library assistantshould subordinate his interests to the common good in library matters.In the matters of equity, stability, initiative, and esprit de corps, thewhole staff of any library, small as well as large, is involved. In equity,equal pay for equal work and non-preferential treatment are important.The former assumes that the holders of comparable positions areequivalently qualified, and the latter that individuals ordinarily donot deserve special consideration. Stability of staff, which these daysis endangered by the scarcity of librarians and the resulting turnover,is something to be sought. If a staff is full of excellent people, stabilitymay decline because of opportunities to move to better positions inother libraries. The alternative is to load the staff with librarians whodo average work and will be less likely to resign. Perhaps a combina-tion of the two is best. A completely stable staff would hold some whomight better be lost, which would be unhealthy. Initiative should beencouraged, and staff members who suggest and carry out projectslU'e happier and work harder than would be possible otherwise. This[47P]Administration of Small Librariescan be carried too far, of course, but in moderation it is excellent.The administrator can do a great deal to help develop an esprit decorps. An "open door" policy, plus proper application of the abovementioned principles, will lead to a feeling of general well-being. Theadministrator should be friendly and willing to help in difficult per-sonnel situations.In the small library there should be a higher degree of centralizationthan in the large library. The duplication of bibliographical tools andin book purchasing otherwise necessary is impractical in the smallsituation. Moreover, departmentalization usually does not reach sucha stage of development that a subject arrangement of materials isfeasible, and it is this arrangement that is the usual motivating forcetowards decentralization.Another principle concerns the correct placing of work and per-sonnel. Even in a small library the work How should be such thatincoming materials progress logically from one point to the next inan efficient manner, and that use of the materials later, by staff andpublic, is distributed efficaciously. Personnel-wise, this means that eachperson should be in a place suitable to his experience and talents.This discussion has shown that in administrative matters small li-braries differ from large libraries only in the manner and degree ofapplying administrative elements and principles. The chief dissimi-larity seems to lie in the ways of employing the principles. The close-ness of the administrator to his library operation, the relatively un-complicated organizational structure of the library, and the smallbudget, are all factors in this application. Although administration isnot the problem in the small library that it is in the large one, thelibrarian of the former would do well to study it, thinking in terms ofhis own library activity.References1. McDiarmid, E. W., and McDiarmid, John: The Administration of the Ameri-can Public Library. (Illlinois Contributions to Librarianship no. 3) Chicago,American Library Association and University of Illinois Press, 1943, p. 3.2. Wilson, L. R., and Tauber, M. F.: The University Library. 2d ed. New York,Columbia University Press, 1956, pp. 114-122.[47~ ]

Administration of Small Libraries

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

IDEALS @ Illinois

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository