College and Research Libraries MICHAEL M. REYNOLDS Library Cooperation: The Ideal and the Reality Cooperation as a form of social, professional, and organizational be- havior is susceptible to analysis by a variety of conceptual constructs. In studying library cooperation as a process of exchange, it is possible to approximate its power to affect the ability of libraries to meet their professional obligations. wHEN SAMUEL s. GREEN UNFURLED THE BANNER of library cooperation in 1876, he was expressing two concerns: the need for a single library to provide a level of service which would satisfy its clients, and the concomitant need for a regularity in the means by which the librarian could increase the possibilities of service to a level nearer to the li- brarian's own expectations of what might be satisfactory service.1 I would like to look at cooperation as a social phenomenon by which libraries mutual- ly engage to increase the service capabil- ities of a single library and by which li- brarians extend their options to serve clients, including those for whom they aCtually have no direct responsibility. In addition, I would like to place the phenomenon of cooperation into a con- ceptual framework in order to relate it to other social phenomena and, conse- quently, the better to analyze it as it ap- Michael M. Reynolds is professor, Col- lege of Library and Information Seroices, University of Maryland. This paper is based on a presentation made at the ACRL Uni- versity Libraries Section institute on "The University Library's Role in Information Networks;' Las Vegas, Nevada, June 1973. Proceedings of this institute are scheduled for publication in faU 1974. 424/ plies specifically to library cooperation. Finally, I would like to point out the limitations in the use of library cooper- ation as a means by which a library can expand services or through which it can achieve economies in its operation. THE IDEA oF CooPERATION AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO LmRARIANS:mP Central to a profession is a "collec- tivity or service" orientation which is unique to that profession and which its practitioners accept as contributing to a purpose essential to society and to man.2 The formalization of this pur- pose or function, in the case of the pro- fession of librarianship, is to preserve the record of man's accomplishments- even perhaps to make it available and to assist in increasing man's body of knowledge. The purpose has been ex- pressed institutionally in the concept of the library, by means of which a set of complex behaviors are organized so as to carry out its social function; formal- ized instrumentally in the library as an organization; and actualized in the role of the librarian. While the library may express in its priorities the imperatives of a particular historical period and emphasize one of its major functions-preservation, ac- J J quisition, or dissemination-and, conse- quently, may require varying interests and skills from librarians, the constants for all libraries are three: recorded dis- course, a current or potential client, and an intermediary who is responsible for facilitating the client's use of the rec- ord-the librarian. While institutions, e.g., libraries, are often transformed to achieve greater compatability with changes in the character and the social urgencies of the society in which they are embedded, nevertheless as institu- tions they continue to provide society with relative certainty about the nature of their purpose. In addition to a client, a profession also requires an exclusive body of knowledge (or the possession of the skills necessary to utilize a spe- cialized technology) and an ethic (or a learned set of social rules ) . It is this ethic which provides clients and col- leagues with the expectation that the professional will perform in a positive manner those activities which are insti- tutionally relevant at that particular time. This ethic represents a norm of professional behavior, and actions which are outside this norm are likely to produce negative consequences in the client relationship. The professional ethic is not only ex- pressed in the manner in which librari- ans carry out those tasks necessary to fulfilling the major functions of the library, but since the practitioner places a high value on such ideas as the need for the library, the purpose of the li- brary, and the contribution that its functions make to society, these ideas are also intrinsic to the professional eth- ic. In fact, one can expect that the pow- er of the professional to influence the total of the profession will increase as the level of abstraction of the profes- sion's value to society or the nature of its contribution increases. There is, for example, more power in the abstract idea that libraries should provide ser- Library Cooperation I 425 vices which will be of the most value to their clients than there is in the service objective of increasing the annual cir- culation by 2 percent or 150 books in a particular rural library. On the other hand, as the degree of abstraction in- creases, the profession's ability to achieve absolute success decreases. In- stead it must accept relative failure for, even setting natural biological and phys- ical constraints aside, the profession represents only an aspect of a larger social system consisting of a multitude of differentiated behavioral and organi- zational subsystems. The social worker cannot at any one point place each indi- vidual within a society in that society's mainstream of normalcy; the physician cannot anticipate or cure each person's illness or postpone indefinitely his death; the librarian cannot have avail- able and effectively organized for im- mediate access that body of literature or of information that will best meet the articulated and unarticulated cur- rent and future needs of a diverse cli- entele or even the various needs of a single client. 3 Yet, in our time, the pro- fessional ethic suggests to the librarian that he attempt to do just this-give the absolute in service-and the client has come to expect that the librarian ought to succeed in his attempt. In the sense that success cannot be achieved absolutely, much that is im- plied in library cooperation has only a symbolic value. This is true even though there are significant activities which are associated with cooperation and which may be seen as capable of satisfying a demand and furthering an interest that an individual library or group of li- braries could not separately meet under prevailing conditions. In his role as an active intermediary between recorded discourse and the client, the librarian finds in the professional ethic the basis for developing, as in the case of library cooperation, organizational responses 426 I College & Research L,ibraries • November 1974 which may result in making additional resources available. However, for the librarian to be com- mitted to increasing client satisfaction is not in itself sufficient to produce suc- cess since success would require, at mini- mum, the utilization of the resources of other libraries over which he does not have direct control. Nonetheless, it may be just as well for the profession to be- lieve that if outside resources were made available, the client could, at least, be served in his need for material, and for the client to believe that, in fact, he has access to library resources beyond the immediate library serving him and that he can be satisfied in this way. To the extent that this notion-that li- braries share in the responsibility of satisfying all clients of libraries-is per- vasive and accepted by the profession and is supported by the particular en- vironment to which the library is re- sponsible, it will be a determinant in the amount of mutually beneficial interac- tion that will take place. 4 Yet because there is a need, it does not follow that a group of libraries with the same need will agree upon and develop the means to accommodate to their separate but mutual need or that the need will gen- erate any particular action. Nor does it follow that all those participants who are mutually engaged in satisfying their individual needs through a collective will have a common interest in return- ing to the collective an amount propor- tional to what they receive. CooPERATION APART FROM LmRARY COOPERATION The idea of cooperation has, in it- self, an extremely low specificity. Al- though cooperation is not a goal in it- self, whenever it is presented as a goal a change in a social state is nonetheless always implied. Cooperation is both a process and a means through which two or more separate entities accommodate to each other to approach a mutually satisfactory condition. As a process it is an ongoing activity involving interac- tions; as a means it is intended to pro- duce an outcome or product. Further, cooperation is a voluntary association in which each of the participants re- tains the right to determine the extent of its own accommodation, the appro- priateness of the accommodation of those others involved, and the option to dissociate from the collective without direct penalty. Coordination is also a process and a means by which partici- pants are associated. Here, however, a directing mechanism is explicit as are the possibilities that penalties or sanc- tions for non-compliance or dissociation can be invoked. When cooperation is so defined as to be a process/means involv- ing a dynamic set of interrelationships, it can then be variously studied as to its significance as a means toward achiev- ing discrete ends or purposes, in terms of its efficiency and/ or effectiveness in achieving those ends or purposes, or as systems of behavior. Different analytical or conc'eptual con- structs-call them paradigms or propo- sitions or strategies-for explaining co- operation have been developed to ex- plain · its nature, to understand the forces which generate it, to characterize the behaviors of the participants, and to anticipate the outcomes and conse- quences. For example, one can explain cooperation intuitively and declare that since the natural state of man is to live together in harmony, cooperation is the expression of the means by which this is done; one can hbld that disharmony is the natural state of man and since men must, of necessity, live in proximi- ty to each other and depend on each other to survive, cooperation is the means by which conflict is mitigated and life is sustained; one can hypothesize that cooperation is, in actuality, compli- ance or the means by which a greater ... .... [~ c / ). and a lesser magnitude of power co- exist;5 or one can show that cooperation as an interaction is a form of exchange of goods, be these goods either material or nonmaterial. 6 For the purpose of examining cooper- ation among libraries, there are consid- erable advantages in regarding coopera- tion as a form of exchange which not only can be expressed in real or finan- cial terms but also can have a social/ psychological dimension which includes such intangibles as prestige, respect, and friendship. It therefore follows that in- dividuals or groups would not engage in any cooperative activity resulting in a negative outcome for them, in terms of such things as goods, energy, free- dom, or self, unless a commensurate or greater quantity were received in return. In further analyzing cooperation as a process of exchange, one can discern differences in the exchanges of goods and of services, as well as variables in behavior among the total of the partici- pants and between discrete sets of par- ticipants, which in turn are predicated upon the variations in reciprocity. For example, the large public university li- braries generally accommodate libraries of the same size and kind and those smaller borrowing libraries for which they have an overt obligation, i.e., those located in the same state, since they are reciprocated in kind or in social-profes- sional benefits. If the cost goes beyond what is essentially an equal exchange, it can be expected that stress will be in- troduced into the relationship, as when the volume of requestS from these bor- rowing libraries progressively increases, or if the requests for materials are not adequately identified or they represent a run on one topic. At that point it can be anticipated that the supplier library will adapt in such a way as to modify the relationship-usually by introducing inhibitory conditions-and thereby pro- vide for a return to reciprocity. Though Library C ooperat.ion I 427 it would be possible to develop a classi- fication of orders of exchange, involv- ing obligations, rights, and duties, 7 one can generally assume that "in small groups with common interests there is a surprising incidence of the exploita- tion of the great by the small"; 8 but it also follows that the borrower libraries must and will observe the mores and conditions that supplier libraries impose in order that they may maintain what they perceive to be an appropriate level of accommodation. The idea of reci- procity is integral to the idea of ex- change and social equilibrium, 9 and so- cial cohesion may be dependent to a considerable degree on "the reciprocity of service and return service. . . ."10 In its purest form, cooperation would be .a voluntary form of association in which each participant would contrib- ute an equal amount, and in exchange for this contribution a consequence or an event would result from which each would derive an equal benefit. At this point, I would like to establish another convention about library coop- eration. Though it necessitates a person- to-person interaction, library coopera- tion actually takes place ·only within the context of formal organizations, sipce individuals do not themselves own ei- ther the resources or, since they contract to exchange them for wages, those ser- vices involved in the exchanges. In sum- mary then, library cooperation may be defined as a voluntary exchange of goods and services between individuals employed in formal organizations. THE REALITY OF LIBRARY CooPERATION Librarians are not libraries, nor is the library merely the sum of its buildings, materials, and staff; rather, it represents a social concern with preserving and ac- cessing recorded discourse. On the other hand the library, with its buildings, ma- terials, and staff, is an organization. To 428 I College & Research Libraries • November 1974 a certain extent Esterquest articulated the organizational difficulties associated with library cooperation.11 These, how- ever, are more than difficulties which can be transcended through good-will or careful planning and rna y instead represent inherent limitations in the ability of libraries to affect the success of their programs through cooperation. A library is not like a private corpora- tion nor even one of the separate units in a conglomerate. Instead it represents a special type of organization in that it is not self-supporting or self-directing. Each library derives its goals and its per- formance objectives from the orienta- tion of the larger organization of which it is a part, whether the larger organiza- tion is a governmental or educational body, a municipality, or a business firm. At the most fundamental level, those resources the library obtains from the larger organization are given with the expectation that the library will utilize them to produce goods and services that will further the well-being of that larg- er unit. Libraries are independent only from each other and can be interde- pendent only to the extent that it is to the advantage of the larger units-or not to their disadvantage-to act in a mutually beneficial manner. Interlibrary loan, for example, is not only an alter- native for the library; it is also an effi- cient alternative for the larger unit, per- mitting it to meet at a lower cost those obligations required of the library. Not only does interlibrary loan obviate the need to acquire particular items, it also has the potential of reducing the obli- gation of the larger unit to have imme- diately available in the library large stocks of materials in anticipation of future need. To some degree libraries have had the autonomy to engage in certain kinds of cooperation, especially those which are of an "in-house" character involving li- brary technology such as cataloging or classification. This may represent pri- marily a lack of concern on the part of the superior organizational unit for the technical internal operation of a sub- ordinate; however, cooperation in such areas does offer the library a real means of reducing the relative cost of its sup- port by the larger organization. A librarian will most likely fail the larger unit if he does not participate in these extended relationships as modes of economizing and limiting costs, just as he may fail the larger unit if he pro- vides goods and services to other li- braries or to the clients of other libraries that are not reciprocated de- monstrably for his own clients. In the first instance, self-help through interor- ganizational exchange is understood as essential to the idea of achieving pur- pose; the second instance may be regard- ed as an inability to discriminate among priorities and may well represent pro- fessional malpractice against the fund- ing agency, which in turn can justifiably question the legitimacy of a profession- al claim upon its resources. Attempts by libraries to cooperate beyond "in-house" arrangements or the occasional interli- brary loan become progressively more difficult. First, such attempts involve greater complexity, as in specialized ac- quisitions programs or in sharing stored resources, and impact upon the library's primary client group and the library's primary organization in a more tangible way in terms of the availability of re- sources, the proprietorship of the ma- terials, and even the domain of the larg- er unit. Second, the costs of additional units of the collective good must be shared in proportion to the additional benefits, 12 and there are no concrete formulations by which equity can be maintained in these exchanges without the use of currency. Third, librarians are not prepared to act as brokers be- tween the agency, the library organiza- tion, and the collective. Fourth, and pos- sibly most important, the larger organi- zation, which is performing in an en- I J ~! trepreneurial mode and is subject to po- litical, economic, and legal constraints itself, does not provide an ambience for furthering interorganizational coopera- tion among such subordinate units as li- braries. These limitations, if tacit, are never- theless real and are generally accepted by librarians as they discuss and negoti- ate with each other.13 It may also be so- cially imprudent for librarians, their cli- ents, and the administrators of the larg- er units to analyze and discuss the in- hibitory consequences of this organiza- tional relationship, since it is to the ben- efit of all concerned, especially the pro- fession, both to maintain the image of a forward thrust and to identify with cooperation, reflecting .as it does a ra- tionalization in a society which places a high value on orderliness and efficien- cy. In this sense much in library cooper- ation as a means has only a symbolic purpose. In a study of cooperation among community health organizations, Levine and White perceive this com- plex of separate agencies as a health sys- tem.14 In a similar manner a complex of libraries, also not formally related, can be viewed as a library material and information service system. An image of libraries as agencies of organizations which are seeking advantages for their particular client groups-the organiza- tions within which they exist-can pro- duce different insights and findings than if the libraries are perceived as coali- tions of autonomous professional orga- nizations engaging in broadly based in- terorganizational cooperation devoted to the greater social good. In the former, success would be a function of how ef- fectively a library met the requirements for library services of the larger organi- zation; as a coalition of professional or- ganizations, the question would be how well they met society's archival require- ments and its need for materials and in- formation. Causing further discrepancy between Library Cooperation I 429 the ethic and its actualization through cooperation is the lack of rigid controls over the professional library staff. Inso- far as each individual librarian approxi- mately conforms to the group's expecta- tions, especially in performing profes- sionally desirable work, probably nei- ther the library organization, the library administrator, nor the client will at- tempt to make precise judgment on the quality of the unit of work. This ac- ceptance may be especially significant when it involves the work of those en- gaged in cooperative library activities, which tend to be outside the rational- ized tasks and procedures by which the library typically generates its products. As Knight demonstrated, pro£essional efforts not in this mainstream of work, interlibrary loan for example, tend to take on the character of individualized negotiations outside the formal library structures.15 Here the controls over the interaction, whether with a client or with another library, are inexact and every decision or action, be it appropri- ate or inappropriate for the client, can be justified by the staff member if he claims that the action was necessary to maintain the primacy of the organiza- tion. For underlying the professional basis for the librarian's efforts in acting cooperatively is the sense that, regardless of the professional identification, ap- probation for the practitioner ultimate- ly rests within the library_ organization with which he is associated. In fact, since neither the professional nor the organizational objectives of library co- operation have been clearly stated, and consequently the criteria for evaluative measurement cannot be derived, it may well be that a judgment of failure or success in a transaction is no more than an intellectual exercise or a function of personality. A major advantage in viewing cooper- ation as exchange is that it may lead to more rational explanations of individu- al and group behavior and, hopefully, 430 I College & Research Libraries • November 1974 result in realistic expectations. Too fre- quently, theorists and planners do not simulate the social environment or truly represent the participants engaged in an exchange. It is as if they assume a fric- tionless society of non-people who have arrived at an identical system of val- ues,16 and that all similar groups of these non-people have defined the same roles for themselves and that each, in turn, is familiar with the diversity of roles and fully accepts the self-defini- tion of role which each has developed. What exists is actually far from this. In exchange each participant will tend to seek an accommodation that will be advantageous to himself; and there probably will be as many value con- structs, role definitions, and interpreta- tions of how these roles are expressed in tasks as there are individuals in- volved. Consequently, distinctions must be made between decisions in policies for cooperative efforts and the imple- mentation of these decisions, just as one must differentiate between the profes- sional abstractions with which librarians identify and the organizational environ- ment which determines what might ac- tually take place after the choice is made. When a service need is frustrated or the library organization is under great pressure, it can be expected that librar- ians will have unrealistic expectations and attach exaggerated hopes to a pro- posed solution or a program, regardless of how nebulous-as in cooperation- the solution or the program may be. In- terlibrary loan may be such an example, as are the union list and catalog, the bibliographic center,17 and the central- ized card production facility. If librarians as professionals within organizations are not able to achieve the unrealistic service objectives that they may impose upon themselves· or which are imposed on them from the orienta- tion of the larger organization, it is not likely that they will do so when joined with other librarians in a self-help asso- ciation. Patently, it would not be possible for weak libraries to become strong libraries unless strong libraries were prepared and permitted to carry a disproportion- ate share of the cost of the exchange. A library limited by its resources cannot meet unqualified client expectations. Since their power to effect fundamen- tal change through cooperation is limit- ed, librarians would be better advised to explore functional and structural al- ternatives, perhaps within coordinated systems; or they should seek associations with those organizations which perform the functions previously assumed by the individual library and which for a fee provide these as services to the library. It is questionable whether librarians are merely performing a professional or or- ganizational disservice by fostering false hope and projecting and perpetu- ating the illusion to their clients that through the metaphysical or sentimental wonder of cooperation they can nullify the consequences of fundamental de- ficiencies and constraints, or whether as professionals they are attempting to im- prove the status of their calling by rais- ing or inducing upward the level of the client's expectation for ~ervice. CONCLUSION As policy makers and practitioners, li- brarians should, of necessity, explore those alternatives which reduce client dissatisfaction and organizational ten- sion. Among the alternatives is library cooperation, which is not only an ex- pression of the professional ethic but is a valid mechanism for broadening the base of library services. They should at- tempt to define and calculate the ad- vantages and limitations of cooperation as the only means of meeting service obligations, being sensitive to the li- brary's existence as a part of a larger social/ professional system as well as the total of the organizational and personal factors implicit in cooperation as a pro- cess I means. In this paper I have explored some of those factors which are fundamental to an understanding of cooperation among libraries as a means of attaining unarticulated professional goals as well as organizational objectives. Library co- operation can be defined as a voluntary exchange of goods and ·services between individuals employed in formal organi- zations, by means of which the potential for service might be increased. I have suggested a conceptual construct for the analysis of this exchange within the or- ganizational context in which the li- brary performs. By using this concept of cooperation as exchange l have indi- cated that the environment in which the Library Cooperation I 431 library operates may narrow t;he number of organizational alternatives available to it through cooperation. No less criti- cal to the power of cooperation in achieving a satisfactory level of profes- sional and organizational service is the normative behavior of the librarian, within his institutionalized and organi- zational role . . Efforts to promote cooperation should continue because of the social value for libraries, regardless . of the operant facts, since the consequences of the idea of cooperation not being present will be detrimental to the library as an in- stitution and as an organization, and will inhibit the possibilities for develop- ing other alternatives to achieve profes- sionally desirable goals-goals which frequently do not lend themselves easily to operational definitions. REFERENCES 1. Samuel S. Green, "The Lending of Books to One Another by Libraries," Library Journal!: 15 (Sept. 1876). 2. William J. Goode, "Encroachment, Charla- tanism, and the Emerging Profession; Psy- chology, Sociology, and Medicine," Ameri- can Sociological Review 25:902-14 ( 1960), p.903. 3. Philip H. Ennis, "The Study of Use and the Users of Recorded Knowledge," Library Quarterly 34:305-14 (Oct. 1964). 4. Michael M. Reynolds, ed., Reader in Li- brary Cooperation (Washington: Micro- card Editions, 1973), p.3. 5. Amitai Etzioni, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations; On Power Involve- ment and Their Correlates (New York: Free Pr., 1961). 6. See, respectively, George Homans, "Social Behavior as Exchange," American Journal of Sociology 63: 597-606 ( May 1958) ; and Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action; Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1965). 7. Alvin W. Gouldner, "The Norm of Reci- procity: A Preliminary Statement," Ameri- can Sociological Review 25:161-78 (April 1960). 8. Olson, Logic of Collective Action, p.35. 9. Gouldner, "Norm of Reciprocity,'' p.l68. 10. Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Pr., 1950), p.387. 11. Ralph T. Esterquest, "Co-operative Control of Library Resources; The Realities of Co- operation," Medical Library Association Bulletin 4 7: 369'-7 4 ( Oct. 1959) . 12. Olson, Logic of Collective Action, p.27. 13. R. D. Laing, "Rules and Metarules," in his The Politics of the Family and Other Es- says (New York: Pantheon, 1969 ), p.l03- 16. 14. Sol Levine and Paul E. White, "Exchange as a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Interorganizational Relationships," Ad- ministrative Science Quarterly 5:583-601 (1961). 15. Kenneth E. Knight, "Ill-Structured Problem Solving in a Natural Situation: A Model of the Decision Behavior of a Librarian," in C. Edward Weber and Gerald A. Peters, eds., Management Actions: Models of Ad- ministrative Decisions (Scranton, Pa.: In- ternational Textbook Co., 1969), p.246-68. 16. Robert Boguslaw, The New Utopians, A Study of System Design and Social Change (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-~all, 1965). 17. See, respectively, Robert B. Downs, ed., Union Catalogs in the United States (Chi- cago: American Library Assn., 1942); and Michael M. Reynolds, "Interlibrary Loan: A Reference Service," Library Trends 12: 425-36 (Jan. 1964).