The Application of Operations Research to Librarianship : Some Research Directions (운영연구(OR)의 도서관응용 -그 몇가지 잠재적응용분야에 대하여-)
- Choi Sung Jin
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- Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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- v.4
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- pp.43-71
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- 1975
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Operations research has developed rapidly since its origins in World War II. Practitioners of O. R. have contributed to almost every aspect of government and business. More recently, a number of operations researchers have turned their attention to library and information systems, and the author believes that significant research has resulted. It is the purpose of this essay to introduce the library audience to some of these accomplishments, to present some of the author's hypotheses on the subject of library management to which he belives O. R. has great potential, and to suggest some future research directions. Some problem areas in librianship where O. R. may play a part have been discussed and are summarized below. (1) Library location. It is usually necessary to make balance between accessibility and cost In location problems. Many mathematical methods are available for identifying the optimal locations once the balance between these two criteria has been decided. The major difficulties lie in relating cost to size and in taking future change into account when discriminating possible solutions. (2) Planning new facilities. Standard approaches to using mathematical models for simple investment decisions are well established. If the problem is one of choosing the most economical way of achieving a certain objective, one may compare th althenatives by using one of the discounted cash flow techniques. In other situations it may be necessary to use of cost-benefit approach. (3) Allocating library resources. In order to allocate the resources to best advantage the librarian needs to know how the effectiveness of the services he offers depends on the way he puts his resources. The O. R. approach to the problems is to construct a model representing effectiveness as a mathematical function of levels of different inputs(e.g., numbers of people in different jobs, acquisitions of different types, physical resources). (4) Long term planning. Resource allocation problems are generally concerned with up to one and a half years ahead. The longer term certainly offers both greater freedom of action and greater uncertainty. Thus it is difficult to generalize about long term planning problems. In other fields, however, O. R. has made a significant contribution to long range planning and it is likely to have one to make in librarianship as well. (5) Public relations. It is generally accepted that actual and potential users are too ignorant both of the range of library services provided and of how to make use of them. How should services be brought to the attention of potential users? The answer seems to lie in obtaining empirical evidence by controlled experiments in which a group of libraries participated. (6) Acquisition policy. In comparing alternative policies for acquisition of materials one needs to know the implications of each service which depends on the stock. Second is the relative importance to be ascribed to each service for each class of user. By reducing the level of the first, formal models will allow the librarian to concentrate his attention upon the value judgements which will be necessary for the second. (7) Loan policy. The approach to choosing between loan policies is much the same as the previous approach. (8) Manpower planning. For large library systems one should consider constructing models which will permit the skills necessary in the future with predictions of the skills that will be available, so as to allow informed decisions. (9) Management information system for libraries. A great deal of data can be available in libraries as a by-product of all recording activities. It is particularly tempting when procedures are computerized to make summary statistics available as a management information system. The values of information to particular decisions that may have to be taken future is best assessed in terms of a model of the relevant problem. (10) Management gaming. One of the most common uses of a management game is as a means of developing staff's to take decisions. The value of such exercises depends upon the validity of the computerized model. If the model were sufficiently simple to take the form of a mathematical equation, decision-makers would probably able to learn adequately from a graph. More complex situations require simulation models. (11) Diagnostics tools. Libraries are sufficiently complex systems that it would be useful to have available simple means of telling whether performance could be regarded as satisfactory which, if it could not, would also provide pointers to what was wrong. (12) Data banks. It would appear to be worth considering establishing a bank for certain types of data. It certain items on questionnaires were to take a standard form, a greater pool of data would de available for various analysis. (13) Effectiveness measures. The meaning of a library performance measure is not readily interpreted. Each measure must itself be assessed in relation to the corresponding measures for earlier periods of time and a standard measure that may be a corresponding measure in another library, the 'norm', the 'best practice', or user expectations.