Library and Information Center Management, 5th ed.

Two new editions of textbooks which cover the management of libraries and information services, have been published within a few months of each other. Both are available in hardback and paperback, and the price of the paperback edition is about the same for both titles. One has been published in the UK, the other in the USA.

Effective Library and Information Centre Management has been written by a West Australian who has headed up a forward‐looking public library service, lectured in an ILS school, and worked for her State government as a policy adviser on ICT matters. She holds an MBA as well as a professional qualification in ILS. Her text has been prepared for managers of small‐ to medium‐sized organisations, and for students. “It focuses on managing information services in dynamic environments where information is critical to maintaining organizational competitiveness through customer satisfaction and retention, increased productivity and performance, and financial viability”.

It consists of 39 chapters divided into nine parts and an epilogue. The nine parts are: understanding the role of the manager; understanding the environment; managing the environment through integrated planning; creating the corporate environment; getting things done in the corporate environment; managing and communicating information in the corporate environment; managing the individual; managing risk, and service delivery. This can be compared with the first edition which had eight parts and an epilogue and the word “strategies” featured in the title of each part with titles such as “strategies for managing the psychosocial environment” and “strategies for managing the goals and values system”. Each of the chapters in the new edition is short, has effective use of sub‐headings and many diagrams and tables. A major criticism is that it contains very few references, and most pre‐date 1990. There is an index. Chapter 39 – the epilogue is “The final strategy” that brings together the parts of the volume, providing an overview of each part.

The volume is most likely to be of value to those managing small services within a larger corporate setting. By reading the text you can quickly, and painlessly, pick up the buzzwords of management and an understanding of what they mean. If you need to learn more – and a little learning can be dangerous – then it leads naturally into the literature of mainstream management, but further guidance for the reader would have been helpful. There are no citations to the literature of ILS management that would have provided the reader with examples to link the use of the general management concepts to the ILS field.

Library and Information Center Management is a tried and tested standard US text, which was first published in 1977. It is designed to be a “basic text for library and information science management courses, primarily in North America”. Since that time its use has extended to lower and middle management and broadened to be more representative of practices throughout North America. The authors note that changes have taken place in management in libraries and information services.

The text has seven chapters: management development: an historical overview; the planning process; organizing; staffing; directing; principles of control; changing library and information systems. There are five appendixes that provide illustrative documents from US libraries. Each of the chapters has been sub‐divided, and there is a detailed contents list. Many references are given to the general management literature and that of ILS management, and there are lists of readings for each chapter which have been revised for this new edition. There are a number of illustrations and quotations given in the text, the reviewer found the layout and design of the text to get in the way of the message. The index is more extensive than that provided in Bryson.

Each text takes a very different approach to the management of ILS. Stueart and Moran have written a text that might be used in any type of service; that by Bryson is intended for the smaller service. Bryson focuses on management, whereas the word “library” features strongly in the text by Stueart and Moran. The styles also differ. Bryson, whilst writing well, writes very much to the point. Stueart and Moran guide the reader more gently through the field.

The texts reflect the different approaches to the teaching of management in the ILS schools. Some lecturers prefer to work from the field of management and give a firm grounding at the general level: whilst others prefer to work from practice and relate this to the field of management. A choice of approach can be made, knowing that there is a text to suit the view of the lecturer. Bryson has provided a text that has broader application at an international level. Stueart and Moran draw heavily on North American practice and so their text will be of greater value in those countries that have followed US practice. Both are good, and one or the other – or perhaps both – might well be read by more senior managers who need to review theory and practice from time to time.