The organizational context of budgeting for collection development in academic libraries: A study of power and resource allocation in three universities.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which power and resource allocation as a theoretical construct can be applied to understanding budgetary decision making for collection development in academic libraries. The intent of the study was to investigate a dichotomy between rational choice as a model for effective library decision making and perspectives governance in higher education which emphasize loose structure, fragmentation, conflict and ambiguity.; Data were collected from three doctoral-granting universities to observe the interaction between four variables constituting a theoretical model of the power of academic departments and programs and resource allocation among funds in the library materials budget. The model, which was based upon the work of Pfeffer and Salancik (1974), Salancik and Pfeffer (1974), and Pfeffer and Moore (1980), related the power of departments as measured by reputational ratings and sources of departmental power, as measured by resource provision and departmental size, to allocations in the materials budget.; The findings indicated that: (1) allocations correlated with the reputations of individual academic departments in the context of collection development as judged by selector librarians, and (2) neither resource provision nor size were found to be sources of departmental power, although further analysis of patterns in the data suggested that resource provision as a determinant may vary by discipline and that size as a determinant may also be contingent upon distinctive characteristics of individual institutions. Therefore, the proposition inherent in the problem posed by the study, which argues that rational choice is difficult to achieve in the university, is not sustained by observations at three institutions.; The study provided evidence to support power as an alternative to the bureaucratic paradigm in research on libraries as organizations. Its conclusions also suggested that continued attention can be given to the library's environmental setting in research and in teaching management.