Assertion (A): The Browne charging system provides a permanent record of who borrowed a book in the past. Reason (R): In the Browne system the book card is placed in the reader's pocket-ticket at issue and nothing is written on it. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Which statement best distinguishes preservation from conservation?

Preservation is the whole set of policies and managerial measures; conservation is the specific treatment of items

Conservation includes budgeting and disaster planning, which preservation does not

Preservation applies only to digital materials and conservation only to print

In the systems approach, a library is viewed as:

An open system that converts inputs into outputs and interacts with its environment

A closed hierarchy governed only by rules

A social group whose morale alone determines output

A set of time-and-motion standards

Library Management I: Principles, Functions and Schools of Management; Book Selection, Acquisition, Technical Processing, Circulation, Serial Control, Maintenance and Stock Verification; and Preservation, Conservation and the Hazards to Library Materials

Unit VI is the management of libraries and information centres, and this course gives it three chapters because its second item alone is the whole daily work of a library. This chapter covers items 1 and 2: the principles, functions and schools of management, taught briefly and as they apply to libraries, since NET Management and Commerce teach management theory in depth; and then library operations in sequence, from book selection tools and principles, through acquisition, technical processing, circulation and serial control, to maintenance and stock verification, ending with preservation and conservation and the hazards that threaten library materials, with their control measures.

1. Management: principles, functions and schools of thought

Management is getting things done through people and resources to achieve an organisation's objectives efficiently and effectively. Henri Fayol (1916) set out five functions, planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling, and fourteen principles, among them division of work, authority and responsibility, unity of command, unity of direction, scalar chain, centralisation, equity and esprit de corps. Luther Gulick's acronym POSDCORB (1937), planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting, is the most quoted list of administrative functions in library management texts, and each maps onto library work: a library plans its collection and services, organises departments, staffs them, directs and coordinates their work, reports to its authority through annual reports and statistics, and budgets its funds.

School of thought	Key figures	Central idea and library application
Classical: scientific management	F. W. Taylor (1911)	Work study and standard methods; used in library work studies and time-and-motion analyses of processing
Classical: administrative and bureaucratic	Henri Fayol; Max Weber	Principles of administration; hierarchy, rules and impersonal authority, visible in large library systems
Human relations	Elton Mayo, the Hawthorne studies (1924-32)	Social and psychological factors drive productivity; staff morale and participation
Behavioural	Maslow, McGregor, Herzberg	Motivation and leadership (see the next chapter)
Quantitative and systems	Operations research; von Bertalanffy's systems theory	The library as an open system of inputs, processes and outputs; queuing and inventory models
Contingency	Fiedler, Lawrence and Lorsch	No one best way; structure and style depend on the situation

2. Book selection tools and principles; acquisition

Book selection, now called collection development, decides what the library adds. Its classic principles are Melvil Dewey's motto "the best reading for the largest number at the least cost"; F. K. W. Drury's "the right book for the right reader at the right time" (Book Selection, 1930); Lionel McColvin's demand and supply theory (The Theory of Book Selection for Public Libraries, 1925), which holds that selection must balance users' demand against the supply of books worth having; and Ranganathan's five laws, particularly the second and third. Selection is guided by a written collection development policy covering the community's needs, subjects and levels, formats, languages, budget allocation, gifts, weeding and the handling of complaints.

Selection tool	Use
Trade bibliographies: Books in Print, Indian Books in Print, Whitaker's lists	What is available, with publisher and price
National bibliographies: INB, BNB	Comprehensive record of a country's output
Reviewing sources: Choice (ALA), Booklist, review sections of journals and newspapers	Evaluation of quality
Publishers' and vendors' catalogues and databases	New titles, prices, approval slips
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory	Selecting and verifying serials
Users' suggestions, circulation and ILL data	Evidence of demand

Acquisition carries selection decisions into the collection. Methods include firm orders for individual titles, standing orders for series and continuations, approval plans (a vendor sends books matching a profile, returnable if unsuitable), blanket orders, gifts and exchange, legal deposit (for national libraries) and, for e-resources, licensing individually or through consortia, often after a trial. The procedure is: check against catalogue and orders to avoid duplicates; verify bibliographic details; place the order with a vendor; receive and check the item against the order and invoice; pay; and accession it. The accession register records each item with a unique running accession number, date, author, title, source, price and later withdrawal, and it is the library's basic stock record.

3. Technical processing, circulation and serial control

Technical processing makes an acquired item ready for use: accessioning, classification (call number: class number plus book number, such as a Cutter or Ranganathan's book number), cataloguing, and physical preparation: ownership stamps, accession number, spine label, barcode or RFID tag, date-due slip and, in older systems, book pocket and book card. Circulation lends material and controls its return: registration of members, issue, return, renewal, reservation (holds), overdue notices and fines, and statistics. Charging systems evolved from the ledger (register) system, through the Browne charging system (Nina E. Browne, 1895), in which each reader holds pocket-tickets and each book carries a card that is placed in the ticket when issued, and the Newark system (1900), which records the reader's number and date on the book card, to photo-charging, computerised circulation with barcodes, and RFID self-check and automated returns.

Serial control manages periodicals, whose issues arrive over time: selection and ordering (usually through subscription agents), renewal, check-in of each issue on arrival (traditionally on Kardex visible-index cards, now in the library system), claiming issues that fail to arrive, routing to readers, binding of completed volumes, recording holdings, and cancellation. E-journals add licence management, access and authentication (IP ranges, proxy, single sign-on), usage statistics (COUNTER reports) and link resolvers, handled in electronic resource management (ERM) systems.

⚠️ Browne versus Newark

In the Browne system nothing is written: the book card goes into the reader's pocket-ticket, and the pair is filed by date and call number. In the Newark system the reader's number and the due date are written on the book card, and the reader keeps a card too. Browne is quick but gives no record of past loans; Newark keeps a history on the book card.

4. Maintenance and stock verification

Maintenance keeps the collection usable and findable: correct shelving in call-number order, regular shelf-reading (shelf rectification) to put misplaced items right, shifting to create space, dusting, minor repairs and binding, and weeding. Weeding removes outdated, worn, duplicate or unused items; the CREW method (Continuous Review, Evaluation and Weeding), developed at the Texas State Library, uses the mnemonic MUSTIE: misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, irrelevant, and available elsewhere. Weeding applies the fifth law: a growing organism must also shed.

Stock verification (stock-taking) checks the collection against the library's records to find what is missing, misplaced or damaged, and to account for public property. Methods include checking against the accession register, against the shelf list (one entry per copy in shelf order, the most efficient manual method), using numbered sheets or registers in which accession numbers are ticked off, and scanning barcodes or reading RFID tags with handheld devices, which allows verification without closing the library. Government and university rules, such as India's General Financial Rules for central institutions, provide for periodic verification and for writing off losses within limits the competent authority accepts as reasonable, provided negligence or dishonesty is not involved. Worked example: a verification of 50,000 volumes finds 150 missing; the loss is 150 / 50,000 × 1,000 = 3 volumes per thousand.

5. Preservation and conservation; hazards and control measures

Preservation covers all the managerial and financial activities, policies and methods that protect library materials and their information content, including storage, staffing, disaster planning and reformatting. Conservation is the specific treatment of items to slow deterioration or stabilise them. Restoration returns damaged items as nearly as possible to their original condition. Prevention is cheaper than cure, so preservation begins with the environment: a stable temperature around 20 °C and relative humidity around 45 to 55 per cent are common targets, and stability matters more than the exact figure, because fluctuation makes paper and bindings swell and shrink.

Hazard	Examples and effects	Control measures
Environmental	Light (especially ultraviolet) fades and embrittles; heat speeds chemical decay; high humidity breeds mould; dust and air pollutants (sulphur dioxide) acidify paper	UV filters, controlled lighting, air-conditioning and dehumidifiers, monitoring with data loggers, filtered air, regular cleaning
Biological	Fungi (mould, foxing); insects such as silverfish, cockroaches, booklice, termites and book-boring beetle larvae ("bookworms"); rodents	Integrated pest management: housekeeping, no food in stacks, sealing entry points, monitoring traps, humidity control; freezing or anoxic treatment of infested items; chemical fumigation only by specialists
Chemical	Acid in paper, from alum-rosin sizing and lignin in wood-pulp paper, causes yellowing and embrittlement; iron-gall ink corrodes	Deacidification (aqueous, non-aqueous and mass methods) to neutralise acid and leave an alkaline reserve; acid-free enclosures; permanent paper (ISO 9706)
Human	Rough handling, photocopying pressure, poor repairs with adhesive tape, theft, mutilation, vandalism	User education, book supports and cradles, surrogates for fragile items, security systems, trained repair staff
Disasters	Fire, flood, leaks, earthquakes, cyclones	A written disaster plan, fire detection and suppression, off-site copies, salvage priorities (see Unit VI, disaster management)

Conservation treatments: surface cleaning; mending tears with Japanese tissue and reversible wheat-starch paste; encapsulation in inert polyester film; rebinding; boxing in acid-free enclosures. Old cellulose acetate lamination is now discouraged because it is hard to reverse and can itself degrade.
Reformatting preserves content when the original cannot be saved or must be protected from use: microfilming (long-lived and standard for preservation) and digitisation (for access, with digital preservation as a separate challenge, treated in Unit VIII).
Acidity is measured on the pH scale, which is logarithmic: paper at pH 5 is 100 times more acidic than neutral paper at pH 7, because each unit is a factor of ten.

Key takeaways

Fayol (1916) gave five functions and fourteen principles; Gulick's POSDCORB (1937) is the standard list of administrative functions; schools run from scientific management (Taylor) and bureaucracy (Weber) through human relations (Mayo) to systems and contingency approaches.
Book selection principles: Dewey (best reading, largest number, least cost), Drury (right book, right reader, right time; 1930) and McColvin's demand and supply theory (1925); acquisition uses firm and standing orders, approval plans, gifts and exchange, and the accession register.
Processing adds call numbers, catalogue records and physical preparation; circulation moved from ledgers through Browne (1895) and Newark (1900) to computerised and RFID systems; serial control covers check-in (Kardex), claiming, binding and e-journal management.
Maintenance includes shelf-reading and weeding (CREW, MUSTIE); stock verification uses the accession register, shelf list, numbered sheets or barcode and RFID scanning; 150 missing of 50,000 is 3 per thousand.
Preservation is the whole policy, conservation the treatment, restoration the repair; hazards are environmental, biological, chemical, human and disasters, controlled by stable climate, IPM, deacidification, acid-free storage, careful handling and reformatting.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The acronym POSDCORB for the functions of management was coined by:
1. F. W. Taylor
2. Henri Fayol
3. Luther Gulick
4. Elton Mayo
Show answer
Answer: C — Luther Gulick
Luther Gulick coined POSDCORB in 1937. Fayol set out five functions and fourteen principles, Taylor founded scientific management, and Mayo led the Hawthorne studies.
"The right book for the right reader at the right time" is a principle of book selection associated with:
1. Charles Ammi Cutter
2. Lionel McColvin
3. F. K. W. Drury
4. Melvil Dewey
Show answer
Answer: C — F. K. W. Drury
Drury stated this principle in Book Selection (1930). McColvin gave the demand and supply theory (1925), Dewey the motto of the best reading for the largest number at the least cost, and Cutter the objects of the catalogue.
A stock verification of 50,000 volumes finds 150 volumes missing. What is the loss, in volumes per thousand? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 3
Loss per thousand = 150 / 50,000 × 1,000 = 3. Expressing losses per thousand volumes lets a library compare years and judge them against the limits its rules treat as reasonable.
The pH scale is logarithmic. How many times more acidic is paper at pH 5 than neutral paper at pH 7? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 100
Each pH unit is a factor of ten in hydrogen-ion concentration, so two units is 10 × 10 = 100 times. This is why even mildly acidic-looking readings signal serious deterioration and why deacidification leaves an alkaline reserve.
Which of the following are biological hazards to library materials? Select all that apply.
1. Mould
2. Ultraviolet light
3. Lignin in wood-pulp paper
4. Silverfish
Show answer
Answer: A — Mould; D — Silverfish
Silverfish (insects) and mould (fungi) are biological agents. Ultraviolet light is an environmental hazard, and lignin, which acidifies paper, is a chemical one.
Assertion (A): The Browne charging system provides a permanent record of who borrowed a book in the past. Reason (R): In the Browne system the book card is placed in the reader's pocket-ticket at issue and nothing is written on it. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: D — A is false, but R is true
A is false and R is true. Because nothing is written in the Browne system and the ticket returns to the reader when the book comes back, no history of past loans remains; the Newark system, which writes the reader's number on the book card, keeps such a record.
An arrangement in which a vendor supplies new books matching a library's subject profile, with the right to return unsuitable titles, is:
1. Legal deposit
2. A standing order
3. A firm order
4. An approval plan
Show answer
Answer: D — An approval plan
An approval plan sends books on a profile, returnable if unsuitable. A standing order automatically supplies each part of a series, a firm order is for a named title, and legal deposit is a statutory obligation on publishers.
In the CREW method of weeding, which of the following are among the MUSTIE criteria? Select all that apply.
1. Available elsewhere
2. Misleading
3. Superseded
4. Recently purchased
Show answer
Answer: A — Available elsewhere; B — Misleading; C — Superseded
MUSTIE stands for misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, irrelevant and available elsewhere. Being recently purchased is not a reason to weed.
Which statement best distinguishes preservation from conservation?
1. They are exact synonyms
2. Preservation is the whole set of policies and managerial measures; conservation is the specific treatment of items
3. Conservation includes budgeting and disaster planning, which preservation does not
4. Preservation applies only to digital materials and conservation only to print
Show answer
Answer: B — Preservation is the whole set of policies and managerial measures; conservation is the specific treatment of items
Preservation is the broader umbrella of policies, planning, storage and resources; conservation is the hands-on treatment that stabilises or slows the deterioration of individual items. Both apply to all formats, and budgeting belongs to preservation.
In the systems approach, a library is viewed as:
1. An open system that converts inputs into outputs and interacts with its environment
2. A closed hierarchy governed only by rules
3. A social group whose morale alone determines output
4. A set of time-and-motion standards
Show answer
Answer: A — An open system that converts inputs into outputs and interacts with its environment
Systems theory treats the library as an open system: inputs (staff, money, documents) are processed into outputs (services, information) with feedback from its environment. The other options describe bureaucracy, scientific management and a narrow reading of human relations.