impact of organizational structure on acquisitions and collection development

Impact of organizational structure on acquisitions andcollection development

William Fisher*

School of Library & Information Science, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, 95192-0029, USA

Abstract

The library’s organizational structure is examined within a framework of acquisitions and collec-tion development. A review of the literature and analysis of data obtained in a survey reveal no clearpattern of an optimal organizational structure to enhance acquisitions and collection developmentactivities. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Organizational structure; Acquisitions; Collection development

1. Introduction

The purpose of any organization is to accomplish a task or series of tasks and in doing soproduce a product or deliver a service in response to a predetermined set of goals andobjectives. Regardless of the actual structure an organization uses, classic managementtheory tells us that the structure should be based upon two general principles: 1) Unity ofObjective –a structure is good if it facilitates the contributions of all the units of theorganization to meeting the goals and objectives of the organization; and 2) Efficiency –thestructure is good if goals and objectives are met with a minimum of unplanned or unwantedconsequences. This means that as an organization’s products and services change over time,a systematic review of the organization’s structure should also occur to ensure the structureused is the most effective and efficient. And we all know for the most part this rarely happensin any organization, including libraries.

Form, we are told, should follow function, and Irene Hoadley and John Corbin reveal thatearly libraries did follow true to function, utilizing acquisitions, circulation, reference, and

* Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (W. Fisher).

Pergamon

Library Collections, Acquisitions,& Technical Services 25 (2001) 409–419

1464-9055/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S1464-9055(01)00217-2

integration (cataloging, classification, and processing) departments in their organizationalstructures [1]. Bryant, however, reminds us that, “ the larger a library grows in terms offunding and staff size, the more complex its organizational structure becomes, ultimatelyde-emphasizing the basic functions of the library” [2]. Now that libraries have become moretechnology dependent, others have suggested organizational structures driven by technology[3]. When I cover organizational structure in the management classes I teach, I identify 8basic ways to structure or departmentalize an organization. Seven of these are applicable tolibraries, and most libraries use a combination of three or four of these methods at the sametime. Is it any surprise that we often feel the organization is working against itself?

While all the units of the library are affected by the library’s organizational structure, theunits we will focus on today are acquisitions and collection development. One of the mainreasons for any library to exist is to provide information services to its primary clientele. Toaccomplish this, the appropriate resources need to be identified and accessed. Thus thequestion of interest would be how well do library organizational structures facilitate meetingtheir goals and objectives to identify and obtain access to needed resources with a minimumof unwanted consequences?

2. Literature review

Our literature of the past 15 years or so provides an interesting, although somewhatslanted, view of the variety of organizational models used for both collection developmentand acquisitions. The view is slanted because it is primarily oriented toward academiclibraries. While some authors have addressed the issue in a general manner or differentiateonly between large and small libraries, there are few examples specific to the public libraryenvironment. Another factor that stands out is that most of the literature focuses on collectiondevelopment and acquisitions separately. Following that pattern, we’ ll look at collectiondevelopment first. Although issues relating to how the collection development function fitsinto a library’s organizational structure have been a continuing topic for discussion, some ofthe best overall summaries were all published in the same year.

I’m not entirely sure what was going on in 1987 or perhaps if there was something in thedrinking water wherever ALA met the year before, but four separate articles were publishedin 1987 all dealing with organizational structure and collection development in academiclibraries. Bonita Bryant was one of those writing in 1987 and also one of the authors whotried to take a more general view of the situation [4]. Bryant identifies seven possibleorganizational structures that she felt went beyond large academic libraries and could befound in smaller academic libraries, as well as some public, school, and special libraries.These structures include:

1) collection development that is performed by a single librarian;2) separate subject-oriented segments of the library, each of which has its own collectiondeveloper(s) who may or may not report to a collection development officer (other thanthe director);

410 W. Fisher / Libr. Coll. Acq. & Tech. Serv. 25 (2001) 409–419

3) collection development that is the function of a committee that reviews suggestionsfrom patrons and staff, making final purchase decisions;4) a group of librarians who come together to perform collection development activitiesand then disperse to their primary assignments throughout the library;5) a unit of full- or part-time collection developers that is subsumed by a larger divisionof the library;6) a unit of collection developers that is separate from other divisions of the library; or7) a collection development unit that subsumes one or more other library functions, suchas acquisitions, special collections, or inter-library loan (creative thinking can add to thislist of possibilities) [5]

Jeanne Sohn, writing in the same issue of LTRS as Bryant, looked specifically atorganizational structures for collection development in research libraries [6]. Sohn, as do anumber of others, points out that collection development in academic libraries by someoneother than either the library director, one person designated as the university bibliographer,or the faculty is a fairly recent pattern. When collection development became a more“universal” function, most libraries responded in one of three ways: a) making collectiondevelopment a component of technical services because of its relationship with acquisitions;b) making collection development a component of public services because of the heavyinvolvement of the reference staff as collection developers; and c) making collectiondevelopment a separate department, whether staffed by full-time or part-time selectors. In hersurvey of ARL libraries, Sohn found that these three patterns were still predominate –62 outof 70 libraries responding identified one of these three organizational structures being used.However, she also found that almost half of her respondents were dissatisfied to some extentwith their collection development structure.

James Cogswell was the third author to look at collection development and organizationalstructure in 1987 [7]. Focusing on research libraries, Cogswell presents six organizationalmodels on a continuum from most centralized to most decentralized, as outlined below:

Model 1 - An AD (assistant or associate director) for Collection Management heads aseparate unit and has a staff of highly focused bibliographers reporting directly to him/her.All the collection management activities take place within this unit.

Model 2 - An AD for Collection Management heads a separate unit and has a staff of morebroadly focused bibliographers than in Model 1. The AD also heads some kind of “collectionadvisory group” made up of the bibliographers and librarians from other units who havesubject or language expertise and thus participate in collection management. The bibliogra-phers may also have additional duties outside the collection management unit.

Model 3 - Here a Coordinator for Collection Management (more like a department headthan an AD, although reporting to the library director) chairs an advisory group made up oflibrarians from throughout the library who are all involved with collection management inaddition to other responsibilities. In this model, the Coordinator does not directly superviseany staff.

Model 4 - The AD returns for a combined unit of Public Services and CollectionManagement or perhaps Technical Services and Collection Management, with a Coordinatorreporting to the AD. Collection Management is primarily done by department heads andother staff within the unit, and as above the Coordinator does not directly supervise any staff.

411W. Fisher / Libr. Coll. Acq. & Tech. Serv. 25 (2001) 409–419

Model 5 - Here we have an AD for Research Services, a unit comprised of InformationServices (general reference, inter-library loan, and government documents), Special Collec-tions, and some departmental libraries. Collection Management is again primarily done bydepartment heads and other staff within the unit, however, rather than having a Coordinatorthere is an advisory group to help coordinate activities. The Head of Acquisitions is a memberof this advisory group.

Model 6- Staff throughout the library perform collection management activities in addi-tion to other responsibilities, however, there is no systematic attempt to coordinate theseindividuals. The Director is ultimately responsible for Collection Management.

Cogswell also identified eight primary functions for collection management to be effec-tive. He then evaluated his organizational models according to each function to determinewhich models were more effective, neutral, or less effective for collection management.Cogswell found models 1 and 2, either jointly or individually, to be more effective for sevenof the eight functions. For collection maintenance, the one function not “covered” by Model1 or Model 2, none of the six models were determined to be more effective. Thus Cogswellcomes down strongly for a highly centralized structure for collection management.

The last of the 1987 studies that focused on collection development surveyed “medium-sized” academic libraries, those with 18 to 30 librarians according to Carol Cubberley [8].The responding libraries to her survey fell into one of three categories: a) selection activitiescarried out by librarians from a variety of units (usually public services), while the funds arecontrolled by technical services (usually acquisitions); b) collection development is a unitunto itself as a full-time responsibility; or c) collection development is a unit unto itself,however, staff pursue collection development responsibilities on a part-time basis. This laststructure was the most often identified by the responding libraries. Most of the respondentsfelt they had sufficient time to keep up with their collection development responsibilities,however, almost as many indicated other responsibilities took priority over their collectiondevelopment work. Cubberley concludes her work recommending medium-sized academiclibraries transition toward the second type of organizational structure identified above, eventhough most of her respondents were satisfied with their current organizational structure fortheir collection development activities.

So much for collection development; how has acquisitions fared over the past 15 years?If the basic difference for collection development can be summarized as whether selectorshave full-time or part-time collection development responsibilities, then acquisitions can besummarized as the difference between a structure based on format or function or subject.

With acquisitions, not only does the best group of articles appear in the same year, butthey also appear in the same publication. In 1992, Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theorycarried a special section dealing with the reorganization of acquisitions departments. Six casestudies from academic libraries were presented (Berkeley, Emory, Iowa, Louisville, Wis-consin-Madison, and Yale). However, there was little consensus among these libraries withthe results of their reorganizations. While Berkeley moved from a format-based structure(separate acquisitions for monographs and for serials) to a function-based structure withcentralized acquisitions [9], Iowa [10] and Louisville [11] took the opposite approach andadopted structures by format. Iowa also made the change of acquisitions reporting to theDirector for Collection Development & Management rather than to Technical Services.


Wisconsin [12] and Yale [13] both stressed the impact of technology on their reorganiza-tions. However, Wisconsin saw this as an opportunity to move from a format-based structureto a more decentralized structure based on subject, while Yale did just the opposite, givingup a decentralized subject oriented structure and bringing back a centralized acquisitionsdepartment. Emory [14] combined its Collection Management and Technical Servicesdivisions into one unit, and also broke-up the Serial Control Department, with somefunctions going to Cataloging and other functions going to Acquisitions. Most of thesereorganizations had occurred within the two-to-three years prior to these articles, and theauthors all indicated some level of satisfaction with the results of those reorganization efforts.The one exception to this was the Louisville situation, which the author saw as a result of“crisis management” rather than an attempt to identify an ideal organizational design,although the structure was seen as sufficient to keep the operation functioning during thistime period.

To summarize the literature, as represented by these two “sets” of articles, a number ofpoints stand out. No single model (or even two models) has been found to help libraries(regardless of size or type) structure their collection development or acquisitions functions.Accordingly, the majority of reorganizations discussed in these works cited, as well as inother readings, were not done as part of a systematic examination of the organization’s goalsand objectives. For the most part, the reasons given for restructuring were: a) arrival of a newdirector, b) personnel change (loss or gain) other than the director, c) introduction of newtechnology (usually adding modules to an existing ILS or bringing in a new ILS), d)participation in a network or consortia, or e) trying to reduce the hierarchy within the library.Cook and Farthing’s discussion of the reorganization process at Appalachian State [15] is butone of a few that puts their reorganization within the context of a systematic review of thelibrary’s mission, goals, and objectives, although even here this was done under a newdirector and while a new ILS was being introduced into the library.

3. Current study

The readings cited above provide some idea of the situation a decade or so ago. As the useof technology has increased and library funding and staff size have fluctuated over the past10–15 years, has the organizational structure issue seen any change? In an effort to answerthis question, a survey was conducted in Spring 2001. A survey instrument was developedand made available on a San Jose State University server. A message was posted to theACQNET-L, COLLDV-L, and ALCTS News listserves informing subscribers about thesurvey and providing the URL where the survey could be found. [See the appendix for a copyof the survey and the numerical responses.] Between March 15and April 6, 119 individualsaccessed, completed, and submitted the survey. Of these 119 respondents, 102 were fromacademic libraries, 10 from public libraries, and 7 from a variety of special libraries. Adecision was made to eliminate these last 7 responses because a number of the questions didnot apply to their organizational situations and the partial responses would not add anythingto the overall results.

Data analysis was based on the 112 responses from the academic and public libraries, with


academic libraries dominating this group having 91% of the responses. One commoncharacteristic of the positions held by most of the respondents is some type of supervisoryresponsibility. This includes 5 respondents who were either an assistant, associate, or deputydirector; plus an additional 65 respondents with a variety of position titles includingmanager, supervisor, head, chair, director, coordinator, officer, and team leader. There werealso 33 respondents with a position title of librarian, 5 who were either a bibliographer orselector, and 4 position titles that did not fit into the other categories. A little more than halfthe respondents worked exclusively in either acquisitions (28 respondents) or collectiondevelopment (30 respondents), with another 11 respondents who indicated a fairly equal splitof time between both acquisitions and collection development. Three people indicated theyprimarily worked with serials; while another 19 respondents indicated different combinationsof assignments among these three areas, including acquisitions and serials (12) collectiondevelopment and serials (2), and acquisitions, collection development, and serials (5).Among the other responses there were 20 combinations of acquisitions or collection devel-opment with a variety of other functions and one person who did not respond.

Over 80% of the respondents were well-positioned within their libraries, 49 indicatingthey were one reporting level away from the director and 43 indicating two reporting levelsaway. Twelve respondents indicated they were three reporting levels from the director, 7respondents were either more than three levels away or a clear relationship could not bedetermined from their response, and one person did not reply. When asked how long thecurrent organizational structure had been in place, there was a fairly even reply betweenthose with structures for 5 years or less (21 with structures less than 2 years old and 33 withstructures from 2–5 years old) and those with structures over 5 years (29 with structures from6–10 years old and 28 with structures over 10 years old), with one person not responding.

Those respondents with organizational structures for 5 years or less were asked therationale for the change. Fifty people responded to this question. In 8 cases the change wasbrought about by the arrival of a new director (although in a couple of cases the director hadto wait a year or two before the changes were made). Personnel changes (other than director)were cited 16 times; in 7 cases as a result of new positions added and 9 cases of someoneleaving or retiring. These reasons for change are typical of many of the case study situationsreported in the literature. However, 13 respondents indicated the change in organizationalstructure at their libraries came as a result of an overall effort to reorganize the library andnot caused by personnel changes. These were primarily situations where the library wastrying to flatten its hierarchy and/or move toward a team-based approach, although there wasone respondent who indicated the library was moving back toward a hierarchical structurebecause the teams were not working there. Finally, another 13 respondents cited a variety ofreasons for moving to their current organizational structures. These reasons included the roleelectronic resources were now playing in the collection; the introduction of a collectiondevelopment committee; reorganizing work around ineffective staff or to resolve interper-sonal issues; and additional responsibilities being given to the director which in turn resultedin a reorganization to accommodate the delegation of new duties to the staff.

Those responding that their current organizational structures were over 5 years old wereasked if any change to the structure had been discussed. There were 61 replies to thisquestion (apparently a handful of respondents from the group above also replied here), and


the response clearly favored no change having been discussed (45 responses), while only 16people indicated some discussion of change without any particular results of those discus-sions.

Ultimately, there were about as many respondents who felt their current organizationalstructures were working well (53 responses) as felt some change to the current structurewould be helpful (44 responses, with 15 not responding). This supports Sohn’s earlier findingthat half her ARL respondents were not happy with their organizational structures and alsoseems to support the results of Cubberley’s study of medium-sized academic libraries, wheremost were satisfied with their current set-up although Cubberley was recommending adifferent structure as optimal.

No relationship was found between the respondents’ reporting level in the library and apreference for changing the current organizational structure. Of the 49 respondents who areone reporting level from the director, 23 were satisfied with the current structure, 21 wantedsome change in the structure, and 5 did not indicate a preference. Of the 43 respondents whoare two reporting levels from the director, 21 wanted no change in the current structure, 16indicated a change was preferred, and 6 indicated no preference.

Furthermore, size or type of library appears to be relevant to preference for change onlyfor small academic libraries. Of the 19 small academic libraries responding, 11 were satisfiedwith their current structure, 5 wanted some change in the current structure, and 3 did notrespond. For the 21 medium sized academic libraries, 9 preferred their current structure, 10indicated a desire for change, with 2 not responding. Ten of the 18 medium-large academiclibraries indicated a preference for their current structure, 7 wanted some change, and one didnot respond. For the 44 large academic libraries, 21 wanted no change to the currentstructure, 16 indicated a desire for change, with 7 not responding. While the public librariesare not numerous enough to distinguish any clear relationships, one of the medium sizedrespondents wanted a change in the structure and the second respondent did not reply; bothof the medium-large public libraries wanted change in their current structures; and three ofthe large public libraries wanted change, two did not, and one did not respond.

4. Summary and conclusion

While the results of the current study do not provide any consensus on organizationalstructures for collection development and acquisitions functions, these results are not unex-pected based on prior reports in the literature. With all the changes the profession has seenin the last 10–15 years, over half the current respondents reported no change in theirorganizational structures for at least six years. Earlier reports by Busch [16] and by de Klerkand Euster [17] also found little change to organizational structures even with the increaseduse of technology throughout the library. In a study of organizational change from 1985 to1990, Patricia Larsen found the majority of her survey respondents still utilized a structureof a technical services division and a public services division. However, of the six functionswhich Larsen found were most often reassigned from one division to the other, collectiondevelopment was listed first, acquisitions was third, and serials was fifth [18]. In the currentstudy, for those libraries that had undergone a change of organizational structure in the last


five years, a number of those changes involved moving one or more of the functions abovefrom one unit to another or combining them into a newly created unit. Larsen also found thatthe most often cited reasons for the changes found in her study were changes in adminis-tration, to increase efficiency, to improve services, and the introduction of technology [19].These reasons are similar to those given in the current study and found in the articles citedearlier in the literature review.

The desire to improve efficiency that Larsen found in her study brings us back to the ideasof “unity of objective” and “efficiency” introduced earlier. Are organizational structures oflibraries enhancing their ability to build and maintain collection (either through access orownership) that respond to community needs, hindering this process, or neither helping orimpeding this function? Unfortunately, the results of the current study do not provide a clearanswer. For those respondents who indicated they thought a change in their current structurewas needed, their comments focused on two issues. First, a number of people wanted tochange their current reporting relationship by either changing the position they directly reportto or by upgrading their position (e.g., from Head of Collection Development to AUL forCollection Development) and thereby changing the reporting structure. The second mostcited reason for seeking a change was to increase and/or improve communication andcooperation among the various units involved with collections –usually acquisitions, col-lection development, and serials, although media, electronic resources, and branch or de-partmental libraries were also mentioned as needing to be involved. For those respondentswho indicated they were satisfied with their current structure, again two issues stand out.First, a number of people felt their current structures gave them the communication andcooperation sought by those unhappy with their structures. The second reason provided wasthe flexibility they felt they had in performing their jobs. Further details were not given,however, flexibility has been a highly touted attribute recently in the management literature.It is not surprising that someone who feels that he/she has the flexibility to do what isnecessary for his/her job would be satisfied with the organizational structure that helps createthat environment.

The impression one gets from reading the literature cited in this article is that the authorswere all somewhat surprised by the lack of or slowness of organizational changes made bythe libraries they studied, especially at a time of one technological innovation after another.To some extent, those earlier findings are confirmed by the current study. There are a numberof possible reasons for this. First, libraries (and by extension, their parent organizations) maytruly be very traditional organizations which, if not resistant to change, are at least very slowto change. Second, a good deal of the technology that came into libraries was introduced onemodule at a time and the cumulative impact on the organization may not have been readilyapparent. Finally, because many of those technological innovations were in fact “new tools”to help us accomplish work tasks, they did not significantly alter why we were doing thosetasks. Since the library’s mission and goals would not have changed, there was little to needto change the organization’s structure. While these reasons may account for a lack ofstructural changes 10 or 15 years ago, one would hope they are not valid today and certainlynot valid tomorrow. Much of today’s technology can still be considered “new tools.”However, some of this new technology allows us to go beyond quickly keeping track of whatinformation is available and how to acquire it to now accessing the actual information in a


variety of formats and acquiring it if that is desired. This is leading to major changes in whycertain tasks are carried out (or no longer done), which should in turn lead to an organization-wide re-examination of both what we are trying to accomplish and how best to accomplishit. The stage is set for us to see an improvement in both the quantity and quality of changesin organizational structures over the next few years.

Appendix. Organizational Structure for Acquisitions/Collection DevelopmentSurvey

Please respond to the following questions as completely as possible. (Results provided arebased on 112 respondents) Type of library in which you work:102 (91%) Academic

19 (17% of the total) small (collection �300,000 volumes)21 (19% of the total) medium (collection 300,000–700,000 volumes)18 (16% of the total) medium-large (collection 700,000–1.2 million volumes)44 (39% of the total) large (collection 1.2 million volumes)

10 (9%) Public

2 (2% of the total) medium (serves population of 50,000–125,000)2 (2% of the total) medium-large (serves population of 125,000–250,000)6 (5% of the total) large (serves population of 250,000)

My position title is:

65 (59%) Manager/Head/Chair/Supervisor/Director/Coordinator/Officer/Team Leader33 (30%) Librarian5 (4%) Assistant/Associate/Deputy Librarian5 (4%) Bibliographer/Selector/Subject Specialist4 (3%) Other

My position is primarily involved with:

30 (26%) Collection Development28 (25%) Acquisitions12 (11%) Acquisitions/Serials11 (10%) Acquisitions/Collection Development5 (4%) Acquisitions/Collection Development/Serials3 (3%) Serials2 (2%) Collection Development/Serials20 (18%) Other1 (1%) No Response

Describe the current reporting structure for your department to the director level:


49 (44%) One level from the director43 (38%) Two levels from the director12 (11%) Three levels from the director7 (6%) Other1 (1%) No Response

How long has the current structure been in place:

21 (19%) Less than 2 years33 (29%) 2–5 years29 (26%) 6–10 years28 (25%) Over 10 years1 (1%) No Response

If the structure is less than 5 years old, what was the rationale for making the change:

13 (12%) Planned reorganization8 (7%) New director7 (6%) New staff (other than director)9 (8%) Staff leaving13 (12%) Other62 (55%) No Response

If the structure is over 5 years old, has there been any discussion of changing it:

16 (14%) Change discussed but not acted upon45 (40%) No discussion of change51 (46%) No Response

What would be your ideal organizational structure that would allow you to be most effectivein your job:

53 (48%) Current structure works fine44 (39%) Some change in the current structure is desired15 (13%) No Response

Thank you for participating!

References

[1] Hoadley IB, Corbin J. Up the Beanstalk: An Evolutionary Organizational Structure for Libraries. AmericanLibraries July-August 1990;21:676–678.

[2] Bryant B. The Organizational Structure of Collection Development. Library Resources & TechnicalServices April-June 1987;31:113.

[3] Corbin J. Technology and Organizational Change in Libraries. Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory1992;16:349–353.

[4] Bryant. Organizational Structure. 111–122.


[5] Ibid. 111–122.[6] Sohn J. Collection Development Organizational Patterns. Library Resources & Technical Services April-

June 1987;31:123–134.[7] Cogswell JA. The Organization of Collection Management Functions in Academic Research Libraries.

Journal of Academic Librarianship 1897;13:268–276.[8] Cubberley CW. Organization for Collection Development in Medium-Sized Academic Libraries. Library

Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1987;11:297–323.[9] Barker JW. Integrating Acquisitions: Reorganization at the University of California, Berkeley. Library

Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1992;16:355–360.[10] Wachel K, Shreeves E. An Alliance Between Acquisitions and Collection Management. Library Acquisi-

tions: Practice & Theory 1992;16:383–389.[11] Niles J. Acquisitions and Collection Management Reorganization: An Exercise in Crisis Management.

Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1992;16:379–382.[12] Dewey GL. Technical Services Reorganization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: A Subject-Oriented

Approach. Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1992;16:373–377.[13] Ogburn JL. Organizing Acquisitions: The Yale University Experience. Library Acquisitions: Practice &

Theory 1992;16:367–372.[14] Jasper RP, Treadwell JB. Reorganizing Collections and Technical Services: Staffing Is Key. Library

Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1992;16:361–366.[15] Cook EI, Farthing P. A Technical Services Perspective of Implementing an Organizational Review While

Simultaneously Installing an Integrated Library System. Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 1995;19:445–461.

[16] Busch BJ. Automation and Reorganization of Technical and Public Services. Washington, DC: Systems andProcedures Exchange Center, Association of Research Libraries, Office of Management Studies, 1985.

[17] de Klerk Ann, Euster JR. Technology and Organizational Metamorphoses. Library Trends 1989;37:457–468.

[18] Larsen PM. The Climate of Change: Library Organizational Structures, 1985–1990. Reference Librarian1991;34:79–93.

[19] Ibid. 79–93.


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