College and Research Libraries


By T. D. MORRIS 

Techniques of Appraising the 
Administrative Strength of 
an Organization! 

Mr. Morris is a member of the firm of . 
Cresap, McCormick and Paget, manage-
ment engineers, which surveyed the opera-
tions of the Acquisitions Division, of the 
New York Public Library Reference De-
partment. 

M OST OF us in our own special. field of endeavor are preoccupied with the 
professional or technical content of our 
work. That is to say, we are essentially 
craftsmen in our approach to and per-
formance of our tasks. I have recently seen 
a vivid illustration of this fact in an in-
dustrial plant which overhauls and repairs 
ships. With but few exceptions the jobs 
done aboard a ship are highly specialized-
the disassembly, repair and reinstallation of 
engines, valves and pumps; the installati n 
of electrical and communication devices, etc. 
The quality of the product produced in this 
plant was superior. The machines and 
equipment of the vessels repaired func-
tioned to perfection after the craftsmen 
finished their work. But the management 
of the plant was not satisfied because the 
cost of this excellent performance exceeded 
that of its competition. A management 
survey revealed the reasons for the high 
cost performance: the plant lacked a degree 
of administrative management commensu-
rate with its high standards of professional 

1 Revision of a paper presented at the meeting of the 
Acquisition Department Heads of Research Libraries 
Round Table, ALA Conference, January 30, 1951, 
Chicago. 

APRIL, 1952 · 

management. As a consequence, cost con-
trols were neglected as evidenced by the 
following conditions: ( I ) There were too 
many people. The supervisors were aware 
of this, but justified the situation on the 
grounds that it guaranteed high quality 
work. By having an excess of 'talent avail-
able, no job was subjected to inferior . 
workmanship. But because no one in man-
agement had determined precisely how 
many people were actually needed on a 
year-round basis, there was a wasteful sur-
plus rather than an intelligent reserve of 
man power. ( 2) Excessive staffing led to 
high costs due to idle time and to the fail-
ure to conserve and utilize fully the talent 
of skilled employees, ( 3) Service to the 
customer was actually reduced because the 
number of days required to repair the ship 
and return it to its operator was greater 
than necessary if the work had been care-

. fully planned and scheduled in advance, 
and ( 4) There was a disregard of materials 
utilization in this plant just as there was of 
the utilization of skilled man power. 

This example illustrates in an extreme 
situation, the undesirable consequences 
which can occur when management does 
not counterbalance professional zeal with 
a strong emphasis on administrative com-
petence. 

The Meaning of Administrative Com-
petence 

Let us define the meaning and scope of 

111 



administrative competence m an orgamza-
tion: 

Administrative competence is that charac-
teristic which causes management to seek the 
accomplishment of its primary technical or 
professional tasks in the most expeditious and 
economical manner consistent with quality 
workmanship, but without stifling initiative 
or overburdening its skilled man power. 

The techniques of competent administrators 
are threefold: 

I. Sound organization of personnel. This 
technique places each person in a job that 
makes the most continuous use of his highest 
sk'ills, which compensates each person equi-
tably, a11d which places in positions of author-
ity those who will receive the best response 
from their subordinates and their superiors. 

2. Simple procedures. This technique has 
as its purpose the conservation of time and 
energy of professional personnel in the paper 
work phases of an activity, and the provision 
of accurate and useful records and communi-
cations. 

3. Effective controls. This technique seeks 
out the most direct means of obviating loss of 
time and waste of materials and of assuring 
expeditious processing of work in accordance 
with predetermined standards of quality. 

The steps by which administrative 
strength can be added to an organization 
may be described by referring specifically 
to a library acquisition activity. Discus-
sion of some of the techniques which were 
useful in a recent study of the New York 
Public Library's Acquisition Division may 
suggest ways and means of improving the 
admi-nistration in other libraries and of 
other library activities. Although these are 
the techniques of professional management 
engineers, they may well be explored by 
the individual administrator who cannot 
afford to employ professional surveyors. 

Testing the Soundness of the Organization 

Organizational analysis is the most diffi-
cult, but frequently the most productive, 
. Phase of an industrial management survey. 
To many the word organization implies a 

formidable chart composed of boxes, author-
ity lines, echelon~ of responsibility and job 
titles-often artificial, stilted, unrealistic, 
and designed to justify the prestige and 
compensation of certain staff members. 
Unfortunately, this tool of administration 
has been subject to just such misuse. 

In the correct sense, organization plan-
ning is the development of specifications, 
setting out the performance which top man-
agement desires from a group of individuals 
assigned to a single major function. The 
organization plan, which is far more than 
a chart, starts with a precise delineation of 
the objectives of the group, the qualifica-
tions required of those who are appointed to 
carry out the objectives, the type and vol 
ume of the specific tasks to be performed, 
the number of positions to ~e established, 
and finally the manner in which the tasks 
are to be distributed among all positions 
from the most responsible to the most rou-
tine. 

The evaluation of the organization of 
the NYPL Acquisition Division was ac-
complished through a series of four steps : 

I. In Step I~ the elements of the com-
plete acquisition function of the Reference / 
Department were defined. 2 This definition 
revealed that the acquisition function in-
volves almost every executive and depart-
ment since it is one of the fundamental 
reasons for the existence of a reference li-
brary. It was thus necessary to examine 
carefully the relationships between the Ac-
quisition Division and other divisions of 
the Reference Department. Immediately 
uncertainties with re~pect to the precise 
scope of the Acquisition Division's responsi-
bilities were revealed. This led to Step 2 
in testing the soundness of the organization. 

2. In Step 2 ~ all instances of potential 

2 The survey described by Mr. Morris was limited to 
tha t part of the NYPL supported by endowed fund s . 
The acquisition agency of the city-supported Circulation 
Department was not included, except incidentally, in t!Ie 
over·all study. 

112 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



overlap or duplication with other parts of J 
the library were analyzed. It was found 
that the principal areas of potential overlap 
existed with the Preparation Division in 
connection with the recording of holdings, 
of annuals and nonperiodical serials, and 
with the various subject divisions in con-
nection with recording and following-up 
receipt of current periodicals. The latter 
instance of overlap was found to involve 
considerable duplication of effort. A care-
ful appraisal of the records required in each . 
division was then made in order to reach a 
practical decision as to the most appropriate 
division of responsibilities. It is hoped that 
the result will secure more complete con-
trol over current periodicals with less cost 
in man power. These benefits, it should be 
noted, will result from a more logical or-
ganization rather than from changes in 
basic p~ocedures. 

3· Step 3 in the study of organization 
dealt with the assignment of duties, respon-
sibilities and workload within the Acquisi-
,tion Division itself. This step required a 
careful scrutiny of each position, first by a 
personal interview with each assistant, and 
secondly by asking each assistant to pre-
pare a daily diary for one week of the duties 
performed and the time spent on each. 
These studies revealed the existence of 
problems which often develop in a large 
organization which performs a variety of 
tasks: 

Key supervisors were so burdened with the 
performance of the immediate technical tasks 
of processing procurement requests that a 
minimum of time was available for reviewing 
the quality and cost of performance. 

There were also instances in which senior 
assistants were performing a mixture of duties 
requiring distinctly different levels of skill. 
This condition militated against low costs and 
served to depress the responsibility level, and 
thus the earnings opportunity, of senior as-
sistants. 

The volume of work assigned to each desk 

APRIL, 1952 

was not equitable since some employees had 
only one to two days work ahead , while others 
had a work-load which was several weeks in 
arrears. 

These findings led to a reevaluation of 
the basis for supervisory and work assign-
ments and the resultant development of a 
new pattern of organization in which need 
for two types of supervision was recog-
nized: that concerned primarily with the 
technical or professional aspects of procure-
.ment (such as, selecting sources, editing 
orders, etc.) and that concerned with ad-
ministration, including the utilization of 
personnel, the distribution of work assign-
ments and the expeditious performance of 
work. Further discrimination was pro-
posed to specialize between procurement 
duties and receiving-distribution duties so 
as to minimize the mixing of distinctly dif-
ferent skill levels in the same position. Such 
revisions may be expected to achieve the 
highest use of the talents of all members of 
the staff. 

4· Step 4 consisted of defining pre-
cisely the duties and responsibilities of each 
position showing ( 1) to whom the incum-
bent reports, ( 2) a statement of the objec-
tives of the position, ( 3) a description of 
the .principal duties performed, classified by 
procurement, receiving and distribution, 
and general administration, and ( 4) an 
enumeration of the subordinate positions 
supervised. 

Simplifying Procedures 

Organizational analysis is the foundation 
of a thorough-going industrial management 
study in any activity regardless of its size 
or the nature of its work, In fact, a com-
prehensive organization study requires as 
a prerequisite full knowledge of procedures, 
work methods and control techniques. ; 
Given this knowledge, work simplification 
becomes a matter of selecting for more in-

113 



tensive study those phases of the work 
which pose problems of high cost, inac-
curacy, tardy processing, arrearages of 
work, etc. It was evident in this study that 
the acquisition staff at NYPL had been 
hard at work on the simplification of its 
major procedures for several years. As a 
consequence, the chief contributions of the 
survey included suggesting refinements and 
alternative solutions. 

A few of the techniques which were used 
to guide thinking respecting revisions m 
forms, records and . equipment may be 
noted: 

I. Analyzing the Condition of Non-
,j periodical Serial Records 

The immediate problems which attracted 
attention at New York were; a serial 
record file so congested by the presence of 
inactive and inaccurate records that refer-
ence was made tedious and costly; and a 
sense of despair among serial assistants who 
could see no practical means of accomplish-
ing a complete revision of the serial records 
within a reasonable period of time. A 
random sample of about three per cent of 
. the 200,000 cards in file provided a useful 
and reasonably reliable picture of the prob-
lem and confirmed the wide-spread belief 
that over half of the records in the file 
were dead for all practical purposes. · 32 
per cent of the holdings records showed 
no receipts for ten years or longer, and 5 I 
per cent showed no receipts for five years 
or longer. 

The conclusion from this study was to 
create a new active serial records file to 
contain only the records for those titles 
which showed activity within the past five 
years, thus to concentrate the full effort of 
the serial assistants on controlling these. 
The remaining records were left in an in-
active file. Thus a well-edited active file 
could be obtained in approximately one 
year, whereas revision of the entire file 

. might have required four or more years, 

for which man hours were not available. · 
2. Selecting the Card Filing Equip-

- ment for the Active Serial Records 
Existing serial records were housed in 

conventional 3 x 5 card files which had been 
located necessarily some distance away from 
the desks of those who had frequent access 
to them. A usage study was made covering 
an entire week by having each person who 
referred to the file record his use of it. 
Thus, the principal users of the file were 
identified. Since users not only had to 
leave their desks to consult the file, but 
often found it necessary to withdraw cards 
for further reference and posting at their 
desks, many cards were out of file at all 
times, and the costs of refiling these records 
were excessive. By locating the active file 
immediately adjacent to the desk of those 
having the most constant reference to the 
records and by substituting open top tub 
files for enclosed file cabinets much time can 
be saved and refiling largely eliminated 
since each card can be returned immediately 
after posting. 

3· Designing the Order Form 
The single most important form m an 

acquisition division is the purchase order. 
Obviously the design of this form should . 
contribute to speed in typing, filing, dis-
tribution and receiving. Studies at New 
York revealed that such factors as the fol-
lowing must be analyzed before an order 
form is designed : 

a. How many titles are ordered at one time 
from the same source? Six months' ex-
perience at NYPL revealed that 46 per 
cent of all orders called for but one title. 

b. In the case of multiple title orders, how 
frequently are part shipments made by 
the supplier? At NYPL it was found 
that part shipments occurred in a high 
per cent of the cases, thus causing mul-
tiple title orders to remain in the open 
order file for many months. 

c. How often must additional typing of 
cards or manual addition of numbers, 

' 114 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



dates and notations be made after the 
order form has been typed? . These were 
found to be serious wasters of time under 
the order form system in use. 

Answers to these and related questions 
led to the conclusion at New York that in 
most cases a "slip order" form (one title 
per order) would prove the simplest and 
most flexible. Also, a carbon in'ter-leaved 
snapout form set seemed to afford the great-
est speed in preparation and eliminated re-
typing and manual addition of information. 
Since a number of copies of each order were 
required the use of electric typewriters was 
indicated. 

4· Designing Gift Request and Fol-
low-up Letters 

In the year ending June 30, I 9 50 the 
Acquisition Division prepared and mailed 
over 20,000 letters soliciting samples and 
gifts or following up delinquent numbers of 
periodicals. Letter requests were found to 
be of three types: printed post cards, 
printed form letters, and individually typed 
letters. In order to secure a knowledge of 
the types of requests being made by letter 
and post card, a study of all pieces issued 
during one month was conducted. 

The most important finding of this study 
was the need to design request forms which 
would stimulate and facilitate prompt re-
sponse. Conventional letters calling for 
replies are often inconvenient and time-con-
suming when the recipient must draft those 
replies. Such requests from libraries seem 
often to be set aside for later attention 
when more urgent mail has been attended 
to . This may result in delay and possibly 
loss of the request. A more productive 
request: letter would seem to be a letter (not 
a post card) arranged in three parts: 

Part 1-Subject: Author , Title, Volume, 
Number, Date, etc. 

Part 2-The request: Succinctly stated and, 
if possible, .indicated by a check .mark beside 
one of a series of multiple choice statements, 
such as "Please place our name on your com-

APRIL, 1952 

plimentary mailing list" or "Please help us 
complete our file" or "Please furnish us a 
sample copy," etc. 

Part 3-The reply: Blank spaces in which 
the recipient can immediately hand- or type-
write his reply on the request form itself and 
insert in a return addressed envelope. A 
preprinted mailing slip provides an additional 
inducement and convenience. 

Strengthening Management Controls 

Organization and procedures are the rna- I 
chinery of administration. But no machine, 
no matter how well built or how new, can 
function for long without constant main-
tenance and lubrication. Factory managers 
provide a sizable part of their annual over-
head budget for plant maintenance. Every 
careful automobile owner follows a regular 
regimen of inspection, oil change and lubri-
cation . Administrative machinery requires 
just such constant attention and periodic 
adjustment to assure its proper functioning. 
This is the part which effective controls 
play in the management of an administra-
tive activity .like an acquisition division. 
Management controls may be defined as 
those techniques by which supervisors evalu-
ate the performance of their organization 
and its procedures. The number and types 
of controls which may be used are depend-
ent upon the size and complexity of the 
organization and the ingenuity of its man-
agers. Three types of controls which are 
especially pertinent in the acquisition ac-
tivity are (I) quality control , ( 2) cost 
control, and ( 3) morale control. 

I. Quality Control 
The promptness and accuracy with which 

the requirements of each division served are 
fulfilled by the Acquisition Division may 
be checked on a qualitative level. A prob-
lem in quality control exists when any ap-
preciable number of the divisions served 
are dissatisfied with the promptness and ac-
curacy of this service. A more serious 
problem exists when the supervisors of a 
service division are uninterested in the com-

115 



plaints of those whom they serve. 
Important quality control checks in an 

Acquisition Division include: I) a constant 
sound-out of the attitude of those being 
served to be obtained from frequent direct 
contacts with the chiefs of divisions served, 
2) periodic checks on the length of time in -
elapsed working days required to process a 
procurement request, 3) periodic surveys 
of the number of open orders on file to 
determine the length of time each has been 
outstanding, 4) periodic inventories of 
work on hand at each desk to reveal the 
volume and age of the backlog, and 5) 
periodic reviews of the performance of sup-
pliers, showing factors such as the number 
of titles ordered, the number furnished, the 
nu.mber of substitutions made, the number 
of follow-up requests which became neces-
sary, the average elapsed time between date 
of order and date of receipt, promptness in 
anwering locate and quote requests, coopera-
tion in marking packages, invoices, etc. 

2. Cost Control 
In an administrative organization cost 

control is concerned primarily with the pro-
ductivity of personnel and secondarily with 
,expenses for supplies and equipment. This 
is true since salaries represent 7 5 per cent 
or more of total operating costs. There is 
but one approach to the control of payroll 
costs-that is, the measurement of work 
produced from month to month and year 
to year in relation to the man hours ex-
pended. For example, how many orders 
were written this month, compared to last 
month, and how many man hours were al-
located in each period to accomplish this 
task. 

It is true that precise measurement of 
office work is difficult and time consuming, 
but there are many compromises with pre-
cision which still provide useful results. As 
a minimum every acquisition activity should 
maintain rough statistics to reflect the rela-

tive volume of work produced from month 
to month. Such statistics should be simple, 
such as number of orders issued, number of 
letters prepared, number of pieces received, 
number of invoices passed, etc. Through 
constant review of such data, an alert super-
visor will detect major changes in the 
work output of his group and determine 
what steps may be required to maintain 
economical performance, e.g., by decreasing 
personnel, rearranging assignments, smooth-
ing out fluctuations in workload, etc. 

3· Morale Control 
There is no gainsaying the fact that 

quality control and cost control are pre-
dominantly dependent upon the attitude, 

1
loyalty and enthusiasm of the staff, both 
~ndividually and as a group. The tests 
and checks mentioned in connection with 
quality and cost controls are the mechanical 
aspects of management control. These are 
factual, statistical controls for the most 
part. Development of sustained high 
morale constitutes a much less concise form 
of control and represents perhaps the great-
est challenge to supervisors in any type of 
act1v1ty. We can, however, isolate a few 
of the essential ingredients of morale con-
trol. These are: I) Equity in job evalua-
tion and salary classification, 2) Preserva-
tion and expansion of opportunities for em-
ployee development and participation in 
management improvement, and 3) Com-
fortable working conditions. 

Conclusion 

There are few enterprises, either in li-
braries or outside of them which will not 
benefit from continuing attention to the 
development of greater administrative com-

' petence. The techniques by which this 
competence is achieved are I ) sound or-
ganization of personnel, 2) maintenance of 
simple procedures and 3) the development 
of effective controls. 

116 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES