College and Research Libraries


about other information services (names, 
addresses, phone numbers, etc.) for refer-
ral purposes, but not recommended to any-
one in need of an encyclopedia of informa-
tion systems and services.-Pauline Ather-
ton, Syracuse University. 

Kemper, Robert E. Library Management; 
Behavior-Based Personnel Systems 
(BBPS): A Framework for Analysis. 
(Research Studies in Library Science, no. 
5) . Littleton, Colorado: Libraries U n-
limited, Inc. 1971. 104p. $8.00. 
This slender volume is interesting despite 

its formidable title which might better have 
been stated as "The Concept of Behavioral-
Based Personnel Systems and the Theory 
of Their Library Applications." Assistant 
professor of librarianship at the School of 
Librarianship at the University of Oregon, 
Mr. Kemper's purpose is to improve library 
personnel practice. He hopes this theory 
"will be useful to librarians who do research 
on personnel systems, to those who design 
them, to those who use them, and to stu-
dents." The book does not present methods 
for personnel administration but rather "a 
perspective on personnel systems and hu-
man organizations." 

Once the reader has adjusted to the be-
havioral language, the volume is clear and 
well organized. One can obtain a reason-
able comprehension of the entire text by 
reading the first half of the preface, Chap-
ter 2 (three pages of text), Chapter 3 (five 
pages of text), and Chapter 6 (four pages 
of text) . The volume includes some 
"thought questions" which may help the 
volume be used in a classroom situation. A 
very lengthy set of case studies constitutes 
Chapter 5. 

There are some very good statements 
and thoughts. For example, "An organiza-
tion as a social system . . . involves recogni-
tion of such elements as formal and infor-
mal organization within a total integrated 
system." On page twenty-three a paragraph 
on "emergent behavior" is well stated and 
stimulating. And later: "Information on 
emergent behavior is meaningful only if it 
can be regarded as making an incremental 
contribution to some explicitly stated long-
range desired goal." 

Recent Publications I 413 

Then again there are some debatable 
statements. "The library organization re-
flects the motives and aspirations of library 
personnel as modified extensively by socio-
cultural factors." In describing the BBPS po-
sition, the author states as one of his posi-
tions that "Men require majority opinions 
as men carry clubs-for security." Among 
environmental constraints determining be-
havior is the fact that "the image of the li-
brary is determined to a large extent by fa-
cility and resource planning." Or finally, 
"although the BBPS model has limited val-
ue for strategic long-range planning, cause-
and-effect analysis based on this model can 
be applied fruitfully in a library to several 
kinds of operational planning decisions. For 
instance . . . administrators could measure 
the effects of requiring professional librari-
ans to type sets of catalog cards as a result 
of the institution's decision to decrease 
money allocated for clerical typists." 

The statement of the theory seems to 
overlook the fact that organizational goals 
are in constant flux, personnel aspirations 
keep shifting, procedural factors are altered 
continuously, and thus the apparently ideal-
istic nature of BBPS seems naive as here 
presented. Nevertheless the "perspective" 
is a useful challenge to anyone in person-
nel administration. 

The volume is interesting and easy to 
read despite such curious statements noted 
above; it can be useful for those who are 
going into a review of personnel manage-
ment in a serious way. The author is to be 
applauded for his conclusion that "justice, 
decency, managerial behavior, and effective 
conflict resolution cannot be written in . . . 
personnel manuals. They must be written 
in the mind and the heart of the library ad-
ministrator or supervisor." To this one 
might add that other essentials are judg-
ment, a sound ethical basis for action, sym-
pathy, tolerance, and flexibility-partly in-
born and partly based on experience. This 
volume may help to that encl.-David C. 
Weber, Stanford University. 

Salton, Gerard, ed. The Smart Retrieval 
System. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice 
Hall, 1971. 556p. $15.00. 
The editor is honest in his introduction