Library organizations as loosely-coupled systems

Abstract:

Libraries are made of up people who must coordinate their work in order to use resources and manage tasks efficiently. Like all organizations, libraries use coordination tools to get this done. Coordination tools include policies, budgets, organizational culture and participation rules. As a library's outcomes are not directly connected to resources, processes are not directly related, and user interactions vary greatly, libraries operate as loosely-coupled systems. As loosely-coupled systems, libraries enjoy a flexibility and an ability to innovate, but also must account for weaknesses such as inefficiencies and a difficulty in instituting change.

Key words

social media

libraries

loosely-coupled systems

policies

budgets

participation rules

organizational culture

coordination tools

Introduction

It is easy for us to talk about our "library" as if it is alive. I catch myself doing this all the time in meetings: "the library will take responsibility for planning the speakers series" or "the library made 10 000 periodicals available through a new database." Perhaps it is healthy to think of our libraries as living, breathing entities that take action and assert themselves into the lives of our community. If we don't believe that libraries are alive, then who will?

Yet, as managers and leaders, we must recognize that our libraries do not really exist. Sure, we have buildings, we have information sources, we have technology infrastructures, and we have people. But, our library really never does anything. When action is taken, it is taken by a person. When a patron calls a reference desk, the library does not answer the phone-a librarian does. When the library purchases a book or subscribes to a new database, a person (or people) makes the selection, other people sign the checks, and others process the new resource. In our minds, we envision a single entity that must evolve and grow to remain relevant to those whom we serve. But, in reality, we should picture a group of people who sometimes step forward together and sometimes step sideways right into each other. In fact, many times we are bumbling and bumping our way forward. And, yes, sometimes we are bumbling and bumping our way backward.

Coordination tools

This begs the question, how does this group of individuals work together to reduce the bumbling and bumping? The difference between a group of people just milling about looking up information and a group of people who are actually organized is the ability to coordinate their actions. The reason we coordinate is to divide up tasks effectively and allow individuals to accomplish pieces of the task. In a practical sense, coordination revolves around the use of coordination tools. There are four basic types of coordination tool that should be familiar to all of us in modern organizations: policies, participation rules, budgets and culture. Coordination tools allow people to work toward goals. Ideally, they allow us to work efficiently.

All of us are regularly affected by these tools, but we rarely think about what they do for us. Without coordination tools, each morning we would have to sit down with our staff members and decide not only who would do each job, but also what jobs needed to be done, the rules around accomplishing all of our work, and methods for reporting on our work. We would be starting at step one every day. It would be inefficient, and most likely nothing would be accomplished.

Presidio of San Francisco Coast Guard Station

In the late 1990s, I was lucky enough to start a brand new library for the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, California (Figure 2.1). There were two of us working for a new government entity that managed the buildings of the former army base right on the Golden Gate. It was one of the world's most scenic spots, with the Pacific on one side, the San Francisco Bay on the other, and the city of San Francisco right out the door. Of course, we spent most of our time inside with boxes of books, land use assessments and environmental impact studies. We started at ground zero, writing policy, ordering software, putting items on shelves, organizing furniture, and generally figuring out what it actually meant to coordinate our actions with the goals of the larger organization. Most days literally started with trying to figure out what needed to be done next. In the early days, we accomplished very few substantive tasks because we had to spend so much time figuring out what the substantive tasks were. This was a necessarily slow and difficult process, but we had little choice. In most libraries, the person who opens in the morning has a well-defined opening procedure. When additional employees show up for work, they step right in and start their daily tasks. It is rare that much conversation needs to happen in order to figure out what should happen next. We have schedules, job assignments and rules that allow us to get work done. We have coordination tools to allow us to understand our work and know how to do it.

Figure 2.1 Presidio of San Francisco Coast Guard Station

In fact, one absolutely vital part of coordination tools is to make work predictable in two ways. First, employees need predictability in their work so that they can plan their work in both the short and long term, understand how their role relates to others, recognize how they will be evaluated so that they can improve, and retain a degree of sanity in their lives. Different jobs include different degrees of certainty and uncertainty. We rarely want jobs to be too predictable because we grow bored with them. However, we also do not necessarily want an erratic work life where the possibilities of success are constantly shifting beneath us.

The second reason that we need coordination tools to make work predictable is because we are offering a service that we hope has some degree of quality. Managers and leaders have a general goal that when presented with similar situations, different employees will take similar actions. We want our employees to understand the goals of the organization and how to act toward those goals. Our libraries are open days, nights and weekends. Our goal should be that our users will be treated and given access to our services in a similar way no matter the time of day or the person sitting behind the service desk. While we recognize that our librarians are not robots programmed to take exact action in specific situations, we also have expectations for quality of service. Coordination tools act as the mechanism within in the organization to maintain service levels and organize work.

What are coordination tools?

The coordination tools that we think of most often probably come in the form of policies. Policies come in all sizes and flavors, but they are generally written. They also tend to be more formal. Policies attempt to codify action, values and approach. They are the most clear attempt to make the implicit something more explicit. Policies include strategic plans, missions, core values, operational policies and written procedures. Ideally, they offer staff members guidance when faced with particular problems. What is your library's policy on food and drink? What is your library's policy on children using computers in the adult services area? What is your policy on materials selection? They might not admit it, but most staff members actually like policies. Policies offer clarity. If there is a problem, let's just write a new policy and fix it. Of course, most of us would rather have a hot poker stabbed into our eye socket than read a policy handbook. Most managers and leaders know that policies are rarely read and that policies alone solve few problems. Nonetheless, they are often necessary, and when implemented in the right ways, can have impact.

Budgets, on the other hand, almost always have impact. Budgets are the essential allocation of resources across the organization. We generally think about money when we think about budgets, but budgets are really about numbers of people, furniture and physical space. If you want to understand the priorities of organizational leaders, take a look at the budget. Money doesn't solve all problems, but it sure doesn't hurt. Budgets are an essential coordination tool because they formalize resources distribution between areas and try to balance needs. Often, they are a big part of deciding what gets done.

Perhaps the most overarching coordination tool is culture. It is so big that we may debate whether or not it actually counts as a "tool." Culture includes the informal rules and human interactions that fill in the gaps between the formal tools. As soon as the first human joins the organization, culture takes shape. The organizational culture defines how people interact with each other. It includes values, purpose and informal rules of interaction. New employees begin being indoctrinated into the culture on day one. Policies may outline formal rewards and reprimands, but culture defines the informal rewards and reprimands, which often turn out to be more motivating. Library managers may not have written a formal policy about parking in the very first parking spot right next to...