Development of Administration in Library Service: Current Status and Future Prospects

HIS ARTICLE attempts to assess the point to which management of libraries has progressed, to draw parallels with related fields, and to point out avenues which ap-. pear most promising for furthering development of management theory and practice in the library field. One distinct limitation of present-day thinking about management or administratio n is that there has not yet been developed a standard or universally accepted terminology covering managerial activity. To avoid confusion over semantics, the terms administration and management will be used interchangeably; what is meant here is that group of executive functions commonly associated with the management or administratio n of any organizational enterprise. In 1900, libraries were small compared to their modern counterparts, librarianship was fundamentally a custodial function,' and the techniques of management were relatively simple. Public library clienteles were small and highly literate, and consequent demands upon librarians were modest. College libraries were designed primarily to serve the faculty and only incidentally the students, and the duties of the librarian were frequently absorbed by any available professor. As libraries grew in size, methods were devised locally to organize and preserve the collections, and these techniques were passed on to apprentices or other library workers through individual or class instruction. Early in the century the principal attributes necessary for the library administrator were scholarly attainment and local library experience.