College and Research Libraries BEVERLY P. LYNCH The Academic Library and Its Environment* The organizational environment of the library deserves greater at- tention by librarians and Ubrary administrators concerned with inter- nal changes taking place within their organizations. Few systematic approaches to the impact of the environment upon the functioning of the individual library have been offered. This paper examines four approaches to assessing library I environmental impacts and iden- tifies those areas for which an analytical model could be developed and applied by librarians and administrators. THE PRACTICAL ART OF LIBRARY ORGA- NIZATION AND MANAGEMENT is far ahead of its corresponding theory. The litera- ture of librarianship reflects a preoccu- pation with the search for the one best way to organize the library, whereas practice encompasses a variety of orga- nizational and managerial styles and configurations. Librarians know that an organizational structure suitable for a library of a liberal arts college in a rural setting probably is inappropriate for the library of a major urban col- lege. They know that the management style and structure of the local college library differs from that of the local public library, although both libraries are in the same town. The thoughtful library manager recognizes individual differences in each library and structures his library accordingly. Although many library schools, asso- ciations, and much library literature consider library problems by the type of library in which those problems occur, there has been no exploration of the Beverly P. Lynch is executive secretary of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Li- brary Association. 126 I differences ansmg from the environ- mental settings of libraries. It has been assumed that libraries are affected by their varying environments and that factors external to the library influence its internal operations. Although it has been recognized that external factors vary according to whether the library is a college, a public, or a school library, little is known about the impact of the environment upon the library. Some of the classics in librarianship describe the library in its environmental context, but the more recent investiga- tions of the library as an organization focus on intraorganizational phenome- na.1 Marchant studies the characteristics of the library's decision-making process and the impact of that process upon staff satisfaction. 2 Spence correlates mea- sures of library size with various dimen- sions of library structure. 3 Lynch mea- sures the variability in the work of li- brary departments before making pre- dictions as to variations in the library's structure.4 Each of these studies exam- ines only internal characteristics of the library. 0 A revision of a paper presented to the Mid- west Academic Librarians Conference, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, May 19, 1973. This preoccupation with internal fac- tors has led to the relative neglect of in- terorganizational relationships within li- brarianship. Libraries "are embedded in an environment of other organizations as well as in a complex of norms, val- ues, and collectivities of the society at large."5 Librarians do recognize that the library is dependent to some degree up- on its environment. Environmental fac- tors within the university and the socie- ty at large have been identified as hav- ing an influence upon the library's struc- ture.6 In the provocative article "The Changing Role of Directors of Univer- sity Libraries," Arthur McAnally and Robert Downs describe characteristics of the university and society at large that affect the university library.7 They suggest that the recent turnover in uni- versity library directors occurred in re- sponse to the changing environment in which the university library is embed- ded: the library could not cope with the enormous expansion that took place within the university during the 1960s; the role of the library was reduced and its power diminished as the management patterns within the university changed; the expansion and fragmentation of knowledge influenced university curric- ula and design, and these patterns di- rectly influenced the university library in terms of staffing patterns, responsi- bilities, decision making, and so forth. The library can be viewed as an open system, affected by contingencies placed upon it by its environment. An open system is one in which some kind of ex- change takes place between the system and its environment. The general per- spective of the open system is that the organization obtains its resources and energy from its environment, trans- forms these resources into products, a:nd exports the finished products or services back into the environment.8 With the open system, the organization is capable of bringing in resources to modify its . Academic Library I 127 own internal workflows, structures, and procedures. If the library is studied as a system interacting with its environment and bringing resources (human, financial, and material) into the library, the dy- namic aspects of the library's internal organization, design, and structure can be better understood. Because the en- vironment can influence internal work- flows, structures, and procedures, a study of the library and its environment can help identify changing aspects of li- brary organization and varying organiza- tional patterns as well as lead to devel- opment of predictive models for library organization. APPROACHES TO THE LmRARY's ENVIRONMENT Several approaches can be used to ex- amine the library's environment. The following four areas are covered in this study: ( 1) The nature of the environment itself. ( 2) The relationships among the li- braries within a set of organiza- tions. ( 3) The characteristics of the ex- changes that take place among li- braries. ( 4) The impact that the environ- ment has upon the library's in- ternal structures and operations. THE NATURE OF THE ENVIRONMENT ITSELF A consideration of the nature of the environment itself is a contextual ap- proach that describes the organizational effects produced by larger social process- es surrounding the organization. Al- though the Public Library Inquiry and the more recent study conducted by Al- lie Beth Martin explore certain societal- library relationships, and although sev- eral societal trends that affect the uni- versity library directly or indirectly have been identified, few library studies have 128 I College & Research Libraries • March 1974 explored the cha:rmels and types of in- fluence exerted by the external environ- ment upon interorganizational rela- tions.9 There is no systematic, empirical evi- dence to confirm or deny the hypothesis that organizational change is increasing- ly externally induced.10 Librarians gen- erally assume that organizational change in the library is internally generated. It is frequently said that if the manageri- al style of the library director would change, or if the staff had broader par- ticipation in the decision making, the library's performance would change. Environmental factors leading to less participation in decision making have not been considered, nor have factors that could reduce the decision-making autonomy of the library itself been identified. A second hypothesis derives from the contextual nature of the organizational environment: "the organization's ability to adapt is a function of its ability to learn and to perform according to changing environmental contingen- cies.''11 Most library literature calling for library application of computer technology or acquisition of current audiovisual materials supports the no- tion that the library must adapt or it will be replaced by different organiza- tions. It may be impossible to determine whether organizational change is inter- nally or externally generated. An inter- nal change may have external antece- dents, and external events may have been initiated by internal sources. The point is that organizational change is influenced not only by internal factors. Librarians should be sensitive to these relationships. RELATIONSIDPS· AMONG ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN A SET OF ORGANIZATIONS Another approach to the study of li- braries and their environments is to ex- amine the interactions of organizations within a network of organizations. This approach uses one organization as a re- ferent and analyzes that organization's relationships with elements in its orga- nizational set.12 There are several aspects of the or- ganizational set that can be used in the analysis of the interactions. 1. Those organizations in the set up- on which the focal organization de- pends can be identified and their inter- actions characterized. The environment of any organization consists of a set of input organizations and a set of output organizations. The input organizations are those upon which the organization depends for its resources. In the library environment, input organizations would include such organizations as publishers, whose materials are inputs into the li- brary's resources; library schools, whose students are inputs into the library's staff; and state libraries, whose funds may partially support the library. The output organizations are those for whom the organization produces a prod- uct or service. Within the library's en- vironment output organizations would include other libraries, industrial firms, and other organizations. (As this analy- sis is an organizational one, the individ- ual client is excluded.) 2. The reliance on input from vari- ous organizational resources can be as- sessed. An organization may depend up- on few or many input sources. Whether the concentration of library input re- sources is high or low probably affects the structure and functioning of the li- brary. Use of a single jobber, hiring students from the same library school, receiving monies from relatively few sources will have some impact upon the library. 3. Certain organizations within the same network are used by the focal or- ganization for reference purposes. In addition to input and output sets, the library environment also includes a set of comparative reference organizations. ' These organizations are used by the li- brary as a standard of comparison in evaluating its own performance. A set of normative reference organizations is also included in the library environment in order to incorporate the values and goals of this set into the focal organi- zation. Comparative reference groups and normative reference groups of most ac- ademic libraries can be specifically iden- tified. For example, the comparative ref- erence group of the library of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin probably contains the other Big Ten university libraries. Its normative reference group probably includes the Social Science Data and Program Library Service of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, which houses the col- lection of machine-readable data files in the social sciences, and the Bureau of Audio-Visual Instruction, which services all films used in the university. 4. A fourth dimension of the orga- nization set is its size. Although the size .of the organization set is to be distin- guished from the size of the focal or- ganization, it is likely that the two are correlated; the larger the library, the larger the set of organizations with which it interacts. Although the size of the library does influence many internal characteristics, little attention has been paid to the size of the organization set interacting with the library. It is likely that the library's internal structure and processes are significantly influenced by the number of organizations with which the library interacts. An analysis of the organization sets for various types of libraries may pro- vide new insights into understanding variations in internal structures and pat- terns of decision making. Such analyses could lead to new categories of library problems and to an identification of un- recognized organization sets. By compar- ing organization sets with the library as a focal point with organization sets of economic, political, educational, or oth- Academic Library I 129 er organizations, the structural arrange- ments for other types of organizations might be found inappropriate for aca- demic libraries. CHARACTERISTICS OF EXCHANGES AMONG ORGANIZATIONS Organizational exchange is defined ccas any voluntary activity between two organizations which has consequences, actual or anticipated, for the realiza- tion of the [organization's] respective goals or objectives."13 Analysis of orga- nizational exchange considers the con- tent of the exchange itself and the or- ganizational forces acting in the ex- change. The analysis might examine the degree to which the exchange is formal- ized or given official sanction by the participating organization; the extent to which a coordinating mechanism has been established to operate the ex- change; the degree of intensity or in- volvement demanded of the interacting organizations (the intensity can be mea- sured by the size of the invested re- sources-staff activity, money, equip- ment, services-and by the frequency of interaction); and the extent of rec- iprocity, a critical dimension in the as- sessment of the relationships among autonomous organizations. No doubt most librarians occasionally have asked a friend in another library to copy an article, answer a question, or help a patron. These activities can be described as informal exchanges be- tween libraries. The librarian, as an agent of his library, in combination with others in his library doing the same thing, develops a system of informal ex- change. This activity is quite different from a formal exchange arrangement sanctioned by the library to provide in- terlibrary loan, reference service, and other services. The new system of inter- library loan in Wisconsin, WILS (Wis- consin Interlibrary Loan System), pro- vides a coordinating mechanism differ- ent from the loan system previously op- 130 I College & Research Libraries • March 1974 erating in Wisconsin. Although there is no empirical evidence to describe the in- fluence of the WILS system upon the individual libraries subscribing to it, many librarians working in those li- braries are able to compare the two sys- tems and identify differences in the characteristics of the exchange and in organizational patterns required to op- erate the exchange. Organizations desiring to maintain autonomy might understandably show reluctance for exchanges where sacri- fices exceed rewards. If library A enters into an exchange relationship with li- brary B, A may assume that B will make demands on it. One of the norms of reciprocity implies that the exchange should be mutually beneficial and roughly equivalent.14 The voluntary sys- tem of interlibrary loan, an example of a library exchange, was developed so that libraries would share resources in order to achieve the common goal of service to readers. If reciprocity is to oc- cur, the needs of both participating li- braries must be fulfilled by the ex- change. In most cases of interlibrary loan, however, the loans are beneficial only to the receiving library; the general professional goal of service, which pre- viously sustained the voluntary interli- brary loan system, now appears to be in- adequate. Two additional factors inhibit the sharing of library resources: money has not been widely used to facilitate the How of resources, and each autonomous library is accountable to its own major source of legitimacy (which is usually also its source of direct financial sup- port) and is evaluated in terms of spe- cific kinds of services rendered to se- lected users. As more money is acquired for circulation and as library autonomy decreases, library cooperation may in- crease. Analysis of exchange in terms of these organizational characteristics should lead to the development of models for library exchange, which could be used to identify constraints that may be im- posed upon certain types of library ex- change. THE IMPACI' OF THE ENVIRONMENT UPON INTRAORGANIZATIONAL PRoPERTIEs The impact of the environment upon internal organizational design may pro- vide the most immediate concern to li- brarians interested in the influence en- vironmental factors might have upon library functions. It has been suggested that complex, heterogeneous, and unstable environ- ments impose more constraints and con- tingencies upon the organization and create greater decision-making uncer- tainty than environments that are sim- ple, homogeneous, and stable.15 In a study of industrial firms, those depart- ments with more uncertain environ- ments relied less on formal rules and procedures, had fewer reviews of job performance, and were generally less formal than those departments in orga- nizations with more certain environ- ments.16 In a study of health and wel- fare agencies, those organizations that had more formal exchanges with other organizations reported more decentral- ized decision-making structures, were more innovative, and provided more formal mechanisms of communica- tion.17 Not much is known about the impact of the environment upon the library's internal structure. When the influence of the environment is studied in a sys- tematic manner, the many complexities of the library as an organization will be better understood. ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE RoLE oF THE BoUNDARY SPANNER The study of the library in its en- vironmental context is not an easy task. Before any investigation is undertaken of library-environment relationships, the boundaries of the library must be identified. Organizational boundaries do vary. Whereas one library may include a catalog deparbnent, another may use cataloging data provided by an outside processing center. One library may oper- ate its own bindery, most will not. An organization tends to expand its boundaries in order to reduce or elimi- nate major constraints and contingen- cies imposed upon it. For example, the single, statewide library network strives to include all libraries within its bound- aries. If the state's major university li- brary were not included, the network would be unable to control the coopera- tion of that library. A constraint would be placed upon the voluntary network system because the university library could reduce or remove its participation at any time. Such a constraint is elimi- nated by including the university library formally within the boundaries of the network. The open-system approach to organi- zational studies assumes that the ele- ments composing the organization can be further distinguished as to those ele- ments within the organization and those elements outside the organization. Such a separation, however, is sometimes dif- ficult and problematic. Some elements are engaged in transactions between the organization and its environment and hence are in both systems. ·Within the academic library, for example, the fac- ulty library committee may be inside or outside the boundaries of the library. The committee members form a part of another system, the faculty-a major component of the academic library's en- vironment. In the context of these two systems, library and faculty, the faculty library committee serves as an interacting link. An analysis of the interaction provided by the faculty library committee or other such "boundary-spanning" units can indicate the amount of informa- tion flowing across the library's bound- Academic Library I 131 aries. Furthermore, the amount of inter- action taking place between the systems may have great impact upon the library and the rate of change occurring within it,18 The importance of organizational roles or job functions that span the boundaries of the library is relatively neglected by the subject literature. Boundary-spanning roles are defined "as those roles which link the focal organi- zation with other organizations or social systems and are directly relevant for the goal attainment of the focal organiza- tion."19 The qualification of goal attain- ment is crucial, for without it most peo- ple working in the library could be de- fined as boundary spanners. Because the library's boundary-spanning roles are limited to those between the library and the elements in its task environment, it becomes necessary to define the bound- ary itself before the boundary spanners are identified and characterized. 2o SUMMARY Librarians know that the organiza- tional environment restricts what the li- brary can do and influences individual characteristics of libraries. Little sys- tem,atic investigation has been undertak- en of library environments and the im- pact of those environments upon the individual library. Four approaches to the study of li- brary environments were outlined in this paper: identification of external en- vironmental factors that may lead to some internal change within the library; measurement of environmental impact upon internal structural arrangements in libraries; investigation of relation- ships that exist between the library and other organizations with which it must deal; and analysis of the characteristics of exchanges that occur between the li- brary and other organizations. Organiza- tional boundaries and the role of the "boundary spanner" are two other im- portant areas of study. 132 I College & Research Libraries • March 1974 Such investigations will broaden our understanding of constraints upon the library and will enable us to classify li- brary environments and to develop an- alytical models that will provide the bases for assessing library I environmen- tal relationships. REFERENCES 1. Carleton B. J oeckel, The Government of the American Public Library ( Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1937). 2. Maurice P. Marchant, "The Effects of the Decision Making Process and Related Or- ganizational Factors on Alternative Mea- sures of Performance in University Li- braries" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Michigan, 1970). 3. Paul Herbert Spence, "A Comparative Study of University Library Organizational Structure" (unpublished Ph.D. disserta- tion, Univ. of Illinois, 1969). 4. Beverly P. Lynch, "Library Technology; a Comparison of the Work Functional De- partments in Academic Libraries" ( unpub- lished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Wiscon- sin, Madison, 1972). 5. William M. Evan, "The Organization-Set: Toward a Theory of Interorganizational Relations," in James D. Thompson, ed., Approaches to Organizational Design (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Pr., 1966), p.175-91. 6. Edward G. Holley, "Organization and Ad- ministration of Urban University Li- braries," CRL 33:175-89 (May 1972). 7. Arthur M. McAnally and Robert B. Downs, "The Changing Role of Directors of Uni- versity Libraries," CRL 34:103-25 (March 1973). 8. Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The So- cial Psychology of Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1966 ). 9. Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library in the United States (New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 1950); Allie Beth Martin, ed., A Strategy for Public Library Change ( Chi- cago: American Library Association, 1972 ) . 10. Shirley Terreberry, "The Evolution of Or- ganizational Environments," Administrative Science Quarterly 12:590-613 (March 1968). 11. Ibid. 12. Evan, "Organization-Set." 13. Sol Levine and Paul E. White, "Exchange as a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Interorganizational Relationships," Ad- ministrative Science Quarterly 5:583--601 (March 1961). 14. Anant R. Negandhi, ed., Organization The- ory in an Interorganizational Perspective (Kent: Kent State University, Comparative Administration Research Institute of the Center for Business and Economic Re- search, 1971). 15. James D. Thompson, Organization in Ac- tion (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967); Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch, Or- ganization and Environment (Boston: Har- vard University, 1967). 16. Lawrence and Lorsch, Organization and Environment. 17. Michael Aiken and Jerald Hage, "Organi- zational Interdependence and Inter-organi- zational Structure," American Sociological Review 33:912--30 (Dec. 1968). 18. Warren B. Brown, "Systems, Boundaries, and Information Flow," Academy of Man- agement ]ournal9:318- 21 (Dec. 1966). 19. Michael Aiken and Jerald Hage, "Organi- zational Permeability, Boundary Spanners, and Organizational Structure," mimeo- graphed (Madison: University of Wis- consin, Department of Sociology). 20. William R. Dill, "Environment as an Influ- ence on Managerial Autonomy," Adminis- trative Science Quarterly 2:409-43 (March 1958).