ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS

STATEMENT OF COMPETENCY

Upon considering the missions, organizational structures, funding methods, personnel, and user bases inherent to public libraries, academic libraries, and archives, one can observe overarching similarities and differences between these types of information centers.

Public Libraries

The prevailing mission of public libraries is to provide “facilities, resources, and services” which encourage personal, social, and educational enrichment for children, teens, adults, and elders across all demographics within a given community, through organized programming and guidance, as well as unstructured exploration (Clubb, 2017, p. 3781). According to IFLA-UNESCO (2022), public libraries routinely fulfill this mission by offering culturally relevant collections of physical and digital resources which resist censorship, initiatives which promote reading and various information literacies across all age groups and comprehension levels, programming which nurtures and advances social, emotional, creative, and cultural awareness and competence, and equitable access for users of marginalized statuses, identities, and backgrounds, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, multilingual, recently immigrated, and homeless patrons (p. 2).

Befitting their commitment to community service, public libraries are largely funded via local tax revenues. Clubb (2017) finds that public libraries often supplement local, public funding with contributions at the state and federal level, private donations, internal development efforts, user fees, book sales, and “friends of the library” advocacy groups (p. 3796). Local governmental bodies and election measures typically determine public funding for libraries, as well as personnel within boards and commissions which oversee their administration (p. 3783). Public library directors, who manage a workforce of MLIS-holding librarians, uncredentialled paraprofessionals, and other support staff, typically report to the elected or appointed board (De La Peña McCook & Bossaller, 2018, p. 143). In addition to administration, management, and operations, public library staff commonly oversee reference services, programming, circulation, collection development, cataloging, digital and IT services, children’s and teen services, volunteer coordination, and outreach, among other responsibilities (p. 165).

Academic Libraries

As extensions of universities, four-year colleges, community colleges, and other higher learning institutions, academic libraries are tasked with serving students, faculty, and staff alike, with resources, services, and instructional initiatives which facilitate education and research activity (Curzon & Quiñónez-Skinner, 2017, p. 1). According to the Association of College & Research Libraries, (ACRL) (2018) academic libraries fulfill this mission by providing collections of physical and digital resources which address relevant academic disciplines and reflect ideological differences surrounding given issues, instructional sessions, materials, and resource guides which promote information, media, and digital literacies according to established pedagogical methods, coordination with teaching faculty for course support, scholarly communications advisement and maintenance of institutional repositories for the facilitation of faculty research, programming which supports educational efforts in addition to fostering social connection and creating a scholarly atmosphere, and continuous assessment of collections, services, resources, and policies, in addition to equitability and accessibility (pp. 10-14).

Evans and Greenwell (2018) note that academic library funds are typically appropriated from their parent institutions via campus budget committees (p. 124). While private universities largely fund their libraries through tuition revenues, public university libraries are additionally funded by local and state tax revenues. Common supplementary sources of funding for public and private academic libraries include research grants, endowments, and internal development efforts (pp. 121-124). In addition to deciding the budgets and funding structures of academic libraries, their parent institutions determine the nature of their governance (Curzon & Quiñónez-Skinner, 2017, pp. 3-4). 

Depending on the layout of a given institution’s organizational chart, an academic library’s chief administrator—often known as a “dean” or “director”—may report to one or more academic deans, an academic officer, a vice-chancellor, or a vice-provost, or other administrators, who in turn typically report to the president or chancellor (p. 4). Traditionally, academic library heads oversee other library administrators, as well as MLIS-holding librarians, subject specialists and liaison librarians holding an MLIS in addition to secondary graduate or doctoral degrees, uncredentialed paraprofessionals, and support staff. Higa, et al. (2005) observe that within alternatively “flat”, collegial organizational structures, academic libraries delegate a certain degree of decision-making power to “teams” of librarians and paraprofessionals who oversee given aspects of library operations and governance. 

Depending on institutional policies, librarians may be eligible for tenure-track faculty status; Walters (2016) notes that a given standard of seniority or research activity may be required for attaining faculty status. In addition to filling administrative and operational roles, Curzon & Quiñónez-Skinner (2017) note that academic library faculty and staff often oversee reference services, circulation, collection development, cataloging, instructional design, scholarly communications, digital content management, web and IT services, copyright and fair use standards, fundraising, and outreach (pp. 5-10).

 Archives

In their service to government agencies, public organizations, cultural institutions, corporations, and other entities to which they belong, archives assume the evaluation, selection, and safekeeping of manuscripts, personal papers, financial and administrative records, ephemera, and other primary source materials, for purposes of creating and preserving historical narratives, cultural memory, and institutional value (Hunter, 2020, p. 4). Through formal processes of acquisition, accessioning, preservation, description, and reference, archivists procure materials of interest from their custodians and donors, separate relevant materials from “chaff”, organize materials linearly, create user-facing finding aids for the navigation of resulting collections, generate community interest via outreach and promotion, and facilitate appropriate standards of access to materials for stakeholders, researchers, historians, and the public (p. 3).

Considering the wide variety of institutions which operate archives, organizational models and funding structures vary accordingly. Williams (2006) notes that archives belonging to private businesses are often funded by profits, while archives serving public and nonprofit organizations often receive the bulk of their funding from tax revenues and grants (p. 28). Hunter (2020) adds that institutional development departments often raise funds for archival purposes (p. 225). Archival staffs typically contain far fewer members than those of other information centers, such as public or academic libraries, and often just a few employees (p. 217); given small archival staffs, and a broad range of applicable parent institutions, models of governance largely lack standardization. Often, a credentialed archivist—who reports to an administrator within their home institution—will oversee the work of interns, contractors, or volunteers (p. 219). Curzon & Quiñónez-Skinner (2017) note that archivists serving the special collections department of an academic library typically report to a library dean, director, or other administrator (p. 5).

In contrast to public and academic libraries, which promote full user access to virtually all materials and services, archives are typified by collections which do not circulate, and which often require clearance and close supervision for access (p. 5). Additionally, due to the challenges and impracticalities of cataloging individual primary source materials, Heslin (2021) notes that archival collections are typically cataloged as files, boxes, and series, and described within finding aids for efficient navigation (p. 167). While this practice is mostly unreflective of library settings, the routine creation of finding aids serves the user-facing obligation of reference service, which many information professions hold in common.

COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT

Several courses have contributed to my gradual understanding of organizational principles and common practices within public libraries, academic libraries, and archives, and in turn, my ability to compare and contrast their differences and similarities. INFO 204 (Information Professions) presented a valuable introduction to these principles within public library settings, largely on the administrative level. INFO 210 (Reference & Information Services) offered insight into the public library’s organizational structure, from the standpoint of user-facing reference librarians.

Given my intention to work as an academic librarian, INFO 230 (Issues in Academic Libraries) presented a comprehensive overview of administrative, organizational, financial and occupational themes within multiple types of academic libraries, alongside parallel issues including outreach and emerging trends. Additionally, INFO 256 (Archives & Manuscripts) increased my understanding of core organizational issues and themes within archival professions and settings. While my Summer 2022 internship at Portland State University Library afforded few opportunities to observe the full organizational scope of an academic library, reporting to my advisor—Kimberly Pendell, a research and instruction librarian—offered me the valuable experience of working practically within an existing organizational structure, and learning the procedures inherent to working under, and collaborating with, one’s superior.

CONCLUSION

Contrasting organizational settings, missions, and other characteristics inherent to specific types of information institutions is an instructive practice, when evaluating the factors which make these spaces distinct, as well as those which are consistent throughout information service applications. For example, while principles of access certainly differ between archives and libraries, principles of reference service remain largely the same. And, while public libraries serve a larger, inherently less exclusive constituency than academic libraries, both settings prioritize similar values of ethical, equitable, technologically progressive service, in addition to promoting ideals of social connectedness which transcend notions of libraries as knowledge repositories. Naming and defining these key organizational aspects yields an improved understanding of libraries and information centers within their relevant political, economic, and social contexts.

REFERENCES

Association of College & Research Libraries (2018). Standards for libraries in higher education. https://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/slhe.pdf 

Clubb, B. H. (2017). Public libraries. In J. D. McDonald & M. Levine-Clark (Eds.), Encyclopedia of library and information sciences (4th ed., pp. 3781-3800). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS4 

Curzon, S., & Quiñónez-Skinner, J. (2017). Academic libraries. In J. D. McDonald & M. Levine-Clark (Eds.), Encyclopedia of library and information sciences (4th ed., pp. 1-13). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS4 

De La Peña McCook, K., & Bossaller, J. S. (2018). Introduction to public librarianship (3rd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

Evans, G. E., & Greenwell, S. (2018). Academic librarianship (2nd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

Heslin, K. M. (2021). Finding aid. In P. C. Franks (Ed.), The handbook of archival practice (pp. 167-169). Rowman & Littlefield.

Higa, M. L., Bunnett, B., Maina, B., Perkins, J., Ramos, T., Thompson, L., & Wayne, R. (2005). Redesigning a library’s organizational structure. College & Research Libraries, 66(1), 41-58. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.66.1.41 

Hunter, G. S. (2020). Developing and maintaining practical archives (3rd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

IFLA-UNESCO (2022). IFLA-UNESCO public library manifesto 2022. https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/2006/1/IFLA-UNESCO%20Public%20Library%20Manifesto%202022.pdf 

Walters, W. H. (2016). Faculty status of librarians at U.S. research universities. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(2), 161-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.11.002 

Williams, C. (2006). Managing archives: Foundations, principles, and practice. Chandos.