Models for Library Management, Decision-Making, and Planning is authored by Robert Hayes, professor emeritus and dean (1974–89), Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of California, Los Angeles. The purpose of the book is to provide library managers with quantitative, qualitative, and descriptive models for effective planning and decision making. The emphasis, however, is largely on quantitative models that consist of mathematical equations that measure the workloads that drive library operations. Hayes incorporates most of these quantitative models into his Library Planning Model (LPM), an Excel spreadsheet on CD-ROM that accompanies the book.
Hayes sets the tone for the book with an introductory chapter that discusses the nature of scientific management, operations research, and systems analysis and the application of game theory to decision making. The next chapter lays the groundwork for how scientific management may be applicable in library decision-making contexts. Hayes focuses on tactical operations such as assessing “what-if” situations, setting fee structures, making outsourcing decisions, assigning staff, and managing collection growth as well as strategic planning for institutional and national information policy effects.
The next chapter presents an overview of Hayes's LPM and its conceptual and operational structure as the tool for bringing together several of the scientific management models to use on the decision problems presented in the previous chapter. LPM is an Excel spreadsheet that provides a means for estimating staff, materials, facilities, and associated costs needed to handle workloads for typical services and internal operations in an academic library. The purpose of LPM is to provide a means for assessing alternatives and “what-if” situations represented by changes in some elements of data while keeping others unchanged. It is a menu-driven tool that allows library managers to enter data about their user population, holdings, acquisitions and cataloging activity, and use of library services. The model also allows for the input of data associated with publishing, an increasing activity among academic libraries. Results are then presented that may be used to generate estimates of staff and associated costs, determine distributions of staff among various operations and services, and determine needs for facilities to serve users, store materials, and accommodate staff. It is possible to modify any of the factors by which LPM determines staff, facilities, or costs. The program also offers the ability to load data from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) or Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) annual statistics as a means for calibrating the values used in LPM or as the basis for comparing one's library with similar values.
The next three chapters deal with operational and tactical issues in library internal management including a framework for estimating staff, materials, facilities, and associated costs needed to handle workloads for typical services and internal operations in a library. Attention is given to models for representing data about users and their uses of libraries in a form that permits generation of estimates of workloads on user services and the impact on facilities. Similarly, Hayes presents models for representing the acquisition of materials and the related technical processing, for estimating the associated staffing, and for determining storage requirements.
The final section of the book focuses on strategic issues that are external to the library. Hayes presents models of institutional requirements as determined by the institution's own objectives and discusses models for representing the past, present, and future status of means for information production and distribution. He touches on the role of libraries as publishers and the impact of information economics on libraries. The book includes a thorough index and detailed bibliographies with each chapter.
Formally trained as a mathematician, Hayes brings considerable expertise in systems analysis to his examination of library management. He presents a thorough introduction to the potential of operations research and quantitative management techniques in library decision making and a well-documented explanation of the rationale behind his LPM. Readers must, however, digest a dense concentration of scientific management theory and statistical analysis to benefit fully from this book. Library managers with minimal knowledge of statistics may find it a challenge to grasp some of the material. The LPM could clearly be helpful in assessing some “what-if” situations in academic libraries and applying standard library workload factors to estimating staffing requirements. It is unclear, however, whether the model and spreadsheet will be helpful in grappling with the increasingly complex decisions driven by digital collections and electronic publishing. The book is recommended for library managers in academic libraries who have an interest in strengthening their knowledge of library management models and those who want to apply quantitative decision-making techniques to their library operations.