http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1151 19th Clinic on Library Applications for Data Processing (1982). Edited by F. Wilfrid Lancaster. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1167 Management information and the organization: Homily from the experience of the data rich but information poor Shank, Russell Calvin Mooers's Law has long been one of my favorites. I often use it as an excuse for irrational behavior in library management. Over twenty years ago, Calvin Mooers commented: "An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it." Mooers was involved with information storage and retrieval systems in science, but his words are just as appropriate for management information systems (MIS). The problem with having information in Mooer's view is that you can't just let it sit there if it indicates that something must be done. If that something is hard to do or involves difficult social consequences (such as disrupting the faculty's habits of library use, or the student's timing of meeting his date), it will only cause ulcers, sleepless nights or unemployment if you don't make the adjustment. Of course there is one way to avoid all of the trouble, and that is not to have the information in the first place. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1166 Characteristics of managerial resistance to library management information systems Olsgaard, John N. Most of the presentations given at this clinic have made two assumptions: that library managers understand the functioning and capabilities of automated systems; and, given that they understand the system, that they will utilize the information generated by these systems. These may not always be valid assumptions. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Management information systems http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1165 Geac as a source of management information Mullin, Wayne When Professor Lancaster called to ask if I would be willing to give a paper on management aspects of the Geac Online Circulation System,* I was both elated and apprehensive because the University of Arizona was in the unique position of just having gone from a nonstandard version of Geac software to the standard 4.0 turnkey version. At the time I accepted the invitation, no one at the University of Arizona knew much about what management data Geac could provide. I am obliged to tell you straightaway that there is still much that we at Arizona do not know about the management data Geac can provide. But in the almost two years we have been on Geac, we have learned a thing or two some of which relates to the topic of this Clinic. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Management information systems http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1164 Computer-derived management information in a special library Kennedy, Robert A. Not the least of the benefits of automating libraries and information centers is the enhanced ability to monitor processes and services, to collect, structure, analyze, and report critical or useful data hitherto largely unavailable or excessively difficult and costly to obtain. Good management of information requires good management information information that is as cogent, correct, current, clear, concise, and complete as cost effectiveness and enlightened decision-making demand. Computeraided information systems offer not only opportunities to gain new insights into the services they support; they challenge the systems designer to build in the feedback necessary to control and improve the systems themselves. The focus of this paper is computer-supplied management information in the special library environment. The particular context is that of an extensively computerized, corporate library network in a large research and development organization Bell Laboratories. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Management information systems Special libraries http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1163 Management information systems in a network environment Jacob, Mary Ellen Kaske, Neal K. What do the terms management, information and system imply? Management implies control, monitoring and some type of role. Information is more than data, and it is not always knowledge it can lead to knowledge. The term system implies organization, order and plan. In looking at a management information system (MIS), a system which supplies management information or information to management, we need to look first at the function of management. Peter Drucker has given a number of definitions on both management and the role of managers. One of these is: "Management exists only in contemplation of performance." This suggests that management is not an end in itself but a means to an end, and that same aspect of it applies to management information systems. Since we are librarians trained in engineering, the dual approach of a technologist and a humanist seems appropriate. Thus, combining system analysis with an assist from Rudyard Kipling's "Six honest serving men," we should examine the questions, what, why, when, how, where, and who. We at OCLC need to look at management information from several different perspectives, which we will discuss more fully under "who." But much of what we collect and provide must be from the library manager's perspective. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Management information systems OCLC http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1162 Index to Library automation as a source of management information: Papers presented at the 1982 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing Index http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1161 Organizational considerations relating to the implementation and use of management information systems Heim, Kathleen M. A management information system (MIS) is the process and structure used by an organization to identify, collect, evaluate, transfer, and utilize information in order to fulfill its objectives. It is a system that provides management with information to make decisions, evaluate alternatives, measure performance, and detect situations requiring corrective action. For library managers to utilize an MIS in their operations, precise and well-defined data categories are required as Runyon points out in his discussion of the need for systems to assemble elusive and fugitive library statistical measures. Bommer and Chorba (1982) have described the use of MIS for academic and special libraries in a more highly evolved mode that of a decision support system with detailed consideration of management reporting as a means of better identification of the activities, problems and needs of users. Dowlin (1980 and in these proceedings) has consistently presented examples of evermore refined "up-and-running" MIS in library settings with an emphasis on system components and decision-making. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Management information systems http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1160 Front matter including Introduction and Table of Contents to Library automation as a source of management information: Papers presented at the 1982 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing Table of Contents http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1159 A library management information system in a multi-campus environment Evans, Glyn T. Beilby, Albert The Office of Library Services in the Central Administration of the State University of New York (SUNY) has, since 1975, been developing a library management information system based on the analysis of library and other bibliographic and academic data which are available in machine readable form. Although primarily designed for the SUNY libraries, the processes are applicable in other academic libraries because of the general availability of the data used in the system. The task has changed over the years as new ideas and opportunities were realized, as new appreciations of the obtained results were attained, and as the technical environment has evolved. Nonetheless, the fundamental structure of the system design has not changed since the first ideas in 1974. This is an interim report. Progress has been agonizingly slow for two reasons. First, the difficulty of obtaining support and resources has been a real hindrance; the work has been squeezed into overcrowded schedules and ever-straitening budgets. Second, many of the machine-readable data which one confidently felt would be available in the late 1970s or very early 1980s are still not available. Some years, at least, will pass before the work can be completed as we see it now. Who knows what new ideas and opportunities will emerge as new results become available? Nonetheless, enough has been achieved to justify this report. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1158 Beyond the numbers - A decision support system Dowlin, Kenneth E. Magrath, Lynn The degree of sophistication of an organization's information system is indicated by its placement in the stages of evolution of general information systems. The first stage is the automation of clerical tasks. The second stage is redesign of the system and subsystem integration. The third stage is support for middle management decisions, and the fourth stage is support for top level, decision-making. 1 The library community has progressed through the stage of automating clerical functions. There are computerized systems for almost all such systems in libraries. These systems are not in operation in every library, nor are all of the systems in operation in any single library but the pieces are there. Libraries are just starting into the second stage systems redesign and integration. There are a handful of libraries that have implemented major portions of an integrated system. There are even fewer libraries that have reached the third stage and almost no library that has reached the fourth stage. Library administration --Data processing Libraries --Automation Library science --Data processing Decision support systems