College and Research Libraries Coping with Information Load: User Strategies and Implications for Librarians Joel Rudd and Mary Jo Rudd The major purpose of this paper is to describe i~portant tec~niques _by wh~ch library users avoid information overload. The paper also clarifies the termmology m the mformatwn load literature and reviews its major findings. The paper applies these findings to a library context and discusses their implications for users and librarians. ow are library users handling the increasing amounts of in- formation available to them in college and research libraries? This question has drawn the attention of numerous commentators in recent years. 1-5 While some have expressed con- cern that the increased amount of infor- mation in libraries may have a negative impact on users, i.e., may "overload" them, 6 others believe that users do quite well through use of any of several ''coping mechanisms. " 7 The question remains an open one, in part because so little empiri- cal library research has been conducted in this area. Instead, we must rely mainly on the findings from information load re- search performed in fields other than li- brary science, e.g., clinical psychology and consumer behavior. In addition, there is considerable conceptual and defini- tional ambiguity apparent in the use of im- portant terms. After clarifying these ambi- guities and reviewing what empirical researchers have discovered about the im- pact of increasing amounts of information on users, the present paper applies these findings to a library context and discusses the implications of these findings for users and librarians. CONCEPTUAL AND DEFINITIONAL AMBIGUITIES Terms such as information explosion and information overload (less frequently used terms include information glut, communica- tion explosion, and communications overload) are too often used ambiguously. s-lo Some- times these terms are used interchange- ably when they should be used to denote quite separate concepts. The term information explosion should be used only to describe an extreme increase in the supply of information available to li- brary users. While there is agreement that the amount of information stored in li- braries has been growing very rapidl~ (perhaps even at an explosive rate), 11' there is some disagreement over the effect on library users of this increased informa- tion supply. 13' 14 In order to clarify the possible effects of an increase in information supply on li- . brary users, two additional terms, informa- tion load and overload, must be consensu- ally defined. The term information load should be reserved for that amount of in- formation actually acquired by a process- ing system, e.g., a library user. An in- crease in the supply of information Joel Rudd is associate professor at the School of Family and Consumer Resources, ll_nive~sity ?f A~zona, _Tuc- son, Arizona 85721. Mary ]o Rudd is formerly assistant librarian and cataloger, U~zverszty Lzbranes, Anzona State University. The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of the edztor and two anonymous re- viewers on an earlier draft. 315 316 College & Research Libraries available in libraries does not necessarily produce an increase in the information load carried by library users. 15 When an in- crease in information supply does result in an increased information load for library users, three effects are possible. First, such an increase in load may produce an overload effect in users, with resultant confusion, tuning out of some informa- tion, decreased quantity and/ or quality of output, or in extreme cases, system shut- down. Second, an increase in information load may result, through a variety of cop- ing mechanisms, in the user processing the increased information in such a way as to enhance the quantity and/ or quality of output. Third, an increase in information load may result, again through a variety of mechanisms, in no discernible effect on the library user. It is clear that to be useful, theoretical and policy statements must distinguish between the effects expected to result from an increase in (1) the amount of infor- mation available to users, and (2) the amount (load) users process or attempt to process. It appears likely that the effect of the latter is largely independent of change in the former. Further, virtually the only way users can be affected by changes in in- formation available is when (or if) these changes effect a change in users' informa- tion load. INFORMATION LOAD RESEARCH In this section we briefly review the in- formation load literature to ascertain what researchers have learned about the effect of increased information load on users. As will become apparent, research findings vary considerably. Some studies report that increased information loads produce information overload, while others indi- cate that more information has positive ef- fects on users. Among the earliest systematic studies of the effects of increased information loads were psychological experiments per- formed by James Miller and colleagues. 16 In these experiments information load was conceptualized as the amount of in- formation input into a system (a human subject) in a given period of time. In gen- July 1986 eral, as information load increased, the amount of information output at first in- creased and then, at quite high levels of in- put, decreased. In a few instances, infor- mation out~ut did not decline at high input levels. 7 Another series of psychological experi- ments concerned the effects of increased information load on small decision- making groups. Once again, information load was defined as the amount of infor- mation presented per unit of time. In some of these experiments, increased in- formation load produced an overload ef- fect; i.e., the quality of group decisions de- clined at higher input levels. 18 In others, increased information load resulted in in- creased group decision accuracy .19 Still others found that as input increased, group output increased, and then at high input, leveled off. 20 Early studies of the effects on consumer decision making of various information loads reported that at high input levels, consumer decision quality declined. 21 However, statistical reanalyses of these early data and later research have indi- cated that, in general, increased informa- tion loads produce higher-quality con- sumer decision making. 22-24 It should be noted that, in these studies, consumers were not under explicit time constraints: they could take as much time as they wished to process the information. A number of studies have been con- ducted on the effects of various amounts of information on diagnostic judgment made by clinical psychologists. Only one study in this research paradigm has re- ported an overload effect. 25 The majority of studies indicate that as information loads increase, predictive accuracy either increases or remains level. 26' 27 Again, there were no explicit time constraints. The management literature contains several information load studies. Here, too, the results are mixed. Several studies report that increased information pro- duces an overload effect, 28' 29 while others found su~erior management performance to result. The library/information science litera- ture contains one piece of empirical re- search on the effect of increased informa- tion load on library users. Susan Emerson and Linda Cooper present three case stud- ies of decision making by users under high information input levels. 31 In all three cases, users refined their decision-making processes (i.e., employed coping mecha- nisms) in the face of high levels of infor- mation. Neither the quality of the decision nor the quality of the decision-making process were measured in these case stud- ies. USER STRATEGIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR LIBRARIANS In those instances when increased infor- mation load does not produce overload ef- fects, users may be engaging (intention- ally or not) in actions to prevent overload from occurring. It seems clear that infor- mation users are doing much more than merely reacting to overload in a post hoc fashion. Instead, they frequently appear to be avoiding overload in the first place. Processes and techniques for avoiding overload are legion. In this section, we will discuss the most common ones, con- centrating on those most applicable in ali- brary context. The implications of these user strategies for librarians are also dis- cussed. One of the most common methods by which users avoid overload is through use of various decision heuristics or rules of thumb. 32 As tools employed by users tore- duce complex tasks to simpler operations, heuristics frequently involve limitations on information acquisition. Many heuris- tics follow Herbert Simon's "satisficing")J principle: rather than maximizing infor- mation acquisition, users acquire only a ''satisfactory'' subset of the amount of in- formation available. 33 In part, the use of satisficing heuristics reflects the operation of the law of diminishing returns: users frequently recognize that the amount of new information acquired diminishes as additional information sources are ac- cessed. As an example of a satisficing heu- ristic, library users may limit their infor- mation acquisition by following a rule of thumb stating that they will acquire and process only topical information pub- lished since 1980. Most bibliographic tools · Coping with Information 317 are designed to allow for the operation of a satisficing heuristic based on date, key- word, and a number of other characteris- tics. Another common rule of thumb consis- tent with the satisficing ~inciple is called ''skimming off the top.'' '35 This heuristic states: ''Process only the first few pieces of information accessed, then stop." In some instances, various characteristics of the library collection may serve to define those "first few pieces of information." For example, the set of information ac- quired under this heuristic might be de- limited as ''all topical items in the library collection cataloged under a particular heading and currently accessible.'' In other instances, this heuristic operates to limit not the amount of information ac- quired but rather how thoroughly the in- formation sources are processed. For ex- ample, relatively large amounts of information may be acquired in broad sweeps, but the detail contained therein may be ignored. The widespread use of satisficing heuristics by library users helps us to understand why so little of most li- brary collections is ever used. Most infor- mation in libraries goes unaccessed sim- ply because users are satisfied to acquire far less than the maximum. There is a special sort of user activity that is related to the use of heuristics. Us- ers frequently employ '' chunking'' to ac- quire and store relatively large amounts of information without risking overload. Chunking refers to a cognitive process of categorizing or organizing otherwise dis- crete pieces of information into "chunks" that are readily held in memory. 36' 37 Chunking allows library users to scan a piece of material and categorize it in a use- ful shorthand. The use of such shorthand enables users to process much larger amounts of information than would other- wise be possible and to do so without risk- ing the negative effects of information overload. Thus the reader of this paper may chunk the paragraph just read as "the chunking section." To some extent, avoiding or minimizing time constraints can help users avoid overload. On a pragmatic level, this sim- ply means that users should allow them- 318 College & Research Libraries selves (or demand that they be allowed) sufficient time to deal with the informa- tion task at hand. Novice users often have little idea of how much time the informa- tion task facing them will take. Further, it is likely that many users tend to underesti- mate the amount of time a particular task will take. To help avoid or minimize time constraints, both users and librarians should strive to minimize the amount of user time spent on "extraneous" activi- ties. For example, the practice of many in- stitutions of building numerous satellite li- braries housing particular collections forces both users and librarians to engage in extraneous activities. For users, a pri- mary extraneous activity occurs when, while in the main library, they discover that the item needed is in a satellite li- brary. For librarians, additional catalog- ing, as well as physically transporting items from library to library, provides sig- nificant extraneous activities. Further, it sometimes appears to users that librarians' development, use, and continued refinement of classification and storage systems within a particular library building only make the users' information acquisition tasks more inefficient. 38 Stephen Stoan discusses several library classification and storage policies that have unintended consequences for user information, information acquisition, and processing efficiency. 39 The classification of journals, for example, makes browsing related journals for information a much more time-consuming task. Further, stor- ing journals or other material on microfilm makes acquisition of endnote information very inefficient because of the need to con- tinually reel back and forth. Regardless of classification, storage, or other factors, users must also avail them- selves of and refine their abilities to select and evaluate information efficiently and effectively. The ability and willingness l (sometimes with great ruthlessness) to ac- quire selectively only a subset of available information are valuable means to avoid overload. Empirical evidence of this pro- cess is found in Emerson and Cooper's case studies of library users. 40 Emerson and Cooper reported that users screened July 1986 information and zeroed in on a small as- pect of the problem to avoid overload. This technique of selective acquisition can be applied by collectives as well as by individuals. The increased specialization among professionals, especially in re- search and development, provides a good example of selective acquisition. Part of the training of modern researchers and scholars includes explicit rejection of mas- sive amounts of related information ''out- side one's literature." This process, called ''twigging,'' . describes a technique whereby people deal with increased infor- mation availability by ''branching off'' or ''selecting a turf'' and explorin§ informa- tion only within those bounds. Early experiments on the psychology of information load frequently did not find these kinds of screening activities because they were not looked for. These studies borrowed an extremely mechanical view of information and information process- ing from the classic information theory of electrical engineering. 42 In this view, infor- mation processing systems (e.g., people) are passive receivers of information with "limited channel capacity," unable to control or affect input levels. 43 Operation- ally, thishasmeantthatmany, if not most, information load experiments have notal- lowed people to acquire information ad lib, nor have they allowed them to screen the information they were to process. Rather, users have been forced to input and process a given quantity and quality of information in a given period of time. A~ a number of critics have pointed out, 44 these conditions are simply not represen- tative of most human information proc- essing: people are not passive sponges, soaking up information. Rather, they ac- tively select and evaluate available infor- mation in fairly Sophisticated ways. As Karl Weick notes, people balance their "need for knowledge with [their] capacity to absorb it'' and may selectively acquire information on this basis. 45 A fourth technique for avoiding over- load is conceptually related to the chunk- ing process. Craig Dudzak argues that us- ers may avoid overload by using ''generic frames of reference. " 46 These are analo- gous to a series of standard term paper outlines into which users can readily plug new information. Unlike the more freeform and emergent chunks, these pre- existing frames of reference have a stan- dard form. They allow users to process new information by fitting it to the outline and later to access it efficiently from the outline. Users may also avoid information over- load by perceiving the gestalt of the infor- mation they are acquiring. This largely noncognitive process is, as yet, not well understood. It appears to be one of many right-hemispheric brain activities that are image- rather than information oriented. The user somehow develops an overall image by perceiving information as large patterns. Preliminary evidence of this pro- cess among users is provided by Sally Power-Ross, who studied the information acquisition r,atterns of securities portfolio managers. 4 Despite the massive amount of information available, Power-Ross found no evidence of information over- load. Neither did she find evidence of any of the common cognitive techniques for avoiding overload. Power-Ross explains these findings in terms of brain hemi- spherics: the right brain, using images rather than words, acquires large amounts of information and processes it as pat- terns. Another avenue available to library us- ers that may help them avoid overload is enrollment in bibliographic and/or gen- eral library skills courses. Many courses covering such material are designed to help users avoid overload. Certainly these courses are explicitly designed to help make the collection more accessible to us- ers and to produce more efficient and ef- fective information gatherers. Thus, these courses may, for example, help users to minimize the amount of time they spend on extraneous activities. Bibliographic and library instruction have been controversial topics since their origin more than a century ago. 48 One of the debates in this area concerns the com- plex relationships between the intended audience for these courses (users) and their teachers (librarians). While evidence Coping with Information 319 exists that both students and faculty can be successfully taught bibliographic and other library skills, 49' 50 these audiences have not always been receptive to the idea. 51' 52 Anne Lipow notes that faculty had to be gently "tricked" into attending bibliographic instruction. The most com- mon incentive used to get students into such a course is to offer it for university credit. 53 Anecdotal evidence is widely available indicating that both students and faculty (prior to bibliographic/library instruction) avoid overload largely by either avoiding the library or, once in the library, spend- ing little time in the information search and giving up quickly. 54 This strategy of avoiding overload by avoiding the collec- tion is but one example of a more general technique for avoiding overload. This technique involves avoiding formal (e.g., bibliographic sources) information acqui- sition altogether and, instead, ac~uiring information from informal sources. '56 Ac- quisition of information from informal sources affords users a greater level of control over the amount of information to be acquired. Informal sources include footnotes and reference lists in journals and books, correspondence and conversa- tion with colleagues, and presented pa- pers. Use of such informal sources is par- ticularly common among mature scholars; those struggling to use the formal biblio- graphic sources are more likely to be grad- uate students and other "beginners. " 57 There is considerable debate about whether and/or to what extent librarians ought to be making material efforts to draw mature scholars into the library. As Stoan points out, such scholars bring with them considerable research skills, but of- ten lack the fundamentally different bib- liographic/library skills. Librarians must be cautious, Stoan warns, to avoid making changes in library policy that might hinder the research process; e.g., arranging jour- nals by classification largely eliminates browsing. A final technique for avoiding overload is to delegate some or all of the informa- tion acquisition and analysis tasks to oth- ers. The use of graduate students for such 320 College & Research Libraries purposes is well kno~n. 58 Some occ~pa­ tional categories consist of people tramed to acquire and analyze information for others, (e.g., travel agents and financial planners). Some librari~s serve. such a function; in other cases, information bro- kers serve to link information providers (e.g., online databases) with information · 59 users. The extent to which librarians can or should perform the function of informa- tion brokers is a topic of current debate. 60 As information availability continues to grow with the increase in computer data- bases and catalogs, librarians may find themselves increasingly pressured to as- sume such a role. 61 On the other hand, it may be even more informationally ~ffi­ cient for users themselves to have direct access to the computer-based informa- tion. Our understanding of search theory and search processes is very limited: much work remains to be done in this area. Research that builds on the work of Marcia Bates62 and Peter Vigil63 would be a welcome addition to the literature. In the meantime, both information brokers and users appear likely to continue using a va- riety of available techniques to avoid infor- mation overload. July 1986 THE FUTURE The present paper has discussed some of the numerous techniques current among library users to avoid information overload. As the amount of information in libraries continues to increase, an aware- ness on the part of librarians of mecha- nisms for avoiding overload will become increasingly important. Librarians are in a unique position to act as inform~tion bro- kers and to train users in techruques for avoiding overload. For example, some commentators appear to view the comput- erization of databases and cataloging as part of the information ~)Ve~load pro~lem. In our view, computeriZation will, m the near future, be recognized as a major way library users can access larger amounts of information more efficiently than ever be- fore. Many of the basic techniques for avoiding overload will be enhance~ wh~n computers are available ~o users ( eit~~r m the library or at remote sites). In addition, future instruction in bibliographic and li- brary skills (perhaps including explicit at- tention to techniques for avoiding over- load) will be more efficient and effective when presented on computer. REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Susan Artandi, ''Man, Information, and Society: New Patterns of Interaction,'' Journal of the Amer- ican Society for Information Science 30:15-18 Oan. 1979). 2. Lester Asheim, "Ortega Revisited," Library Quarterly 52:215-26 Ouly !982~. , . , 3. Murray Bob, "The Information Age: Mis-, Dis- and Overload; One Libranan s VIew, Bookmark 41:61-64 (Winter 1983). 4. Evelyn Daniel, "Special Librarian to Information Manager," Special Libraries 7~:93-99 (A~~· ~982) . ,p. Herman H. Fussier and Karl Kocher, "Contemporary Issues in Bibliographic Control, Lzbrary Quarterly 47:237-52 Ouly 1977). 6. Asheim, "Ortega Revisited." . . 7. Ithiel de Sola Pool and Herbert I. Schiller, "Perspectives of Commurucahons Research: An Ex- change," Journal of Communication 31:15-23 (Summer 1981). 8. Asheim, "Ortega Revisited." . . . . 9. Robert Goehlert, "Information, Persuasion and Freedom: Implications of Commurucahon Tech- nology,'' Information Processing and M~nagement 16: 1~9~ 14 (1980). , , . . 10. Harry S. Havens, "Decision Information and the Decision-Maker, m Informatwn Technology Sero- ing Society, ed. Robert Lee Chartrand and James W. Morentz, Jr. (Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Pr., 1979), p.61-63. 11. Artandi "Man, Information and Society." · 12. Orrin E.' Klapp, Opening and Closing: Strategies of Information Adaptation in Society (Cambridge: Cam- bridge Univ. Pr., 1978). . . "13. C. Edward Wilson, "Information Discrimination: A Human Habit," Canadzan Journal ofinformatwn Science 1:59-64 (May 1976). Coping with Information 321 14. Jose Ortega y Gassett, "The Mission of the Librarian," Antioch-Review 21:133-54 (Spring 1961). 15. Richard L. Meier, "Communications Overload: Proposals from the Study of a University Li- brary," Administrative Science Quarterly 7:521-44 (Mar. 1963). 16. James Grier Miller, Living Systems (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978). 17. Ibid. 18. Harold M. Schroder, Michael J. Driver, and Siegfried Streufert, Human Information Processing (New York, N.Y.: Holt, 1967). 19. Avner M. Porat and John A. Haas, ''Information Effects on Decision Making,'' Behavioral Science 14:98-104 (1969). 20. James G. Miller, "Information Input Overload and Psychopathology," American Journal of Psychia- try 116:695-704 (1960). 21. Jacob Jacoby, Donald E. Speller, and Carol Kohn Berning, "Brand Choice Behavior as a Function oflnformation Load: Replication and Extension," Journal of Consumer Research 1:33-42 (June 197 4). 22. NareshK. Malhotra, Arun K. Jain, and Stephen W. Lagakos, "The Information Overload Contro- versy: An Alternative Viewpoint," Journal of Marketing 46:27-37 (Spring 1982). 23 . J. Edward Russo, "More Information Is Better: Reevaluation ofJacoby, Speller and Kohn," Journal of Consumer Research 1:68- 72 (Dec. 1974). 24. George B. Sproles, Loren V. Geistfeld, and Suzanne B. Badenhop, "Types and Amounts oflnfor- mation Used by Efficient Consumers," Journal of Consumer Affairs 14:37-48 (Summer 1980). 25. C. J. Bartlett and Calvin G. Green, "Clinical Prediction: Does One Sometimes Know Too Much?" Journal of Counseling Psychology 13:267-70 (1966). 26. Albert Kostlan, ''A Method for the Empirical Study of Psychodiagnosis,'' Journal of Consulting Psy- chology 18:83-88 (1954). 27. Melvin L. Schwartz, ''Validity and Reliability in Clinical Judgement of C-V -S Protocols as a Func- tion of Amount of Information and Diagnostic Category," Psychological Reports 20:767-74 (1967). 28. Norman L. Chervany and Gary W. Dickson,'' An Experimental Evaluation of Information Over- load in a Production Environment," Management Science 20:1335-44 (June 1974). 29. Charles A. O'Reilly, III, "Individuals and Information Overload in Organizations: Is More Neces- sarily Better?" Academy of Management Journal23:684-96 (1980). 30. Henry C. Lucas, Jr., and Norman R. Nielsen, "The Impact of the Mode of Information Presenta- tion on Learning and Performance," Management Science 26:982-93 (1980). 31. Susan V. Emerson and Linda E. Cooper, "The Stress Curve as a Representation of the Effect of Information Input on the User's Productivity,'' in Productivity in the Information Age; Proceeding of the ASIS Annual Meeting, ed. Raymond F. Vondran and others (White Plains, N.Y.: Knowledge Industry, 1983), p.14-18. v 32. Steven J. Sherman and Eric Corty, ''Cognitive Heuristics,'' in Handbook of Social Cognition, V .1, ed. Robert S. Wyer, Jr., and Thomas K. Srull (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1984), p.189-286. ~3. Herbert A. Simon, Models of Thought (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1979). 34. Emerson and Cooper, "The Stress Curve." 35. James G. Miller, "Living Systems: Structure and Process," Behavioral Science 10:337-99 (1965). 36. Emerson and Cooper, "The Stress Curve." 37. Miller, "Living Systems." 38. Asheim, "Ortega Revisited." 39. Stephen K. Stoan, ''Research and Library Skills: An Analysis and Interpretation,'' College & Re- search Libraries 45:99-109 (Mar. 1984). 40 . Emerson and Cooper, "The Stress Curve." 41. Karl E. Weick, "The Twigging of Overload," in People and Information, ed. Harold B. Pepinsky (New York: Pergamon Pr., 1970), p.67-129 . 42. C. E. Shannon and W. Weaver, A Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, Ill.: Univ. of Illi- nois Pr., 1949). 43. Miller, Living Systems. 44. Z. J. Lipowski, "Sensory and Information Inputs Overload: Behavioral Effects," Comprehensive Psychiatry 16:199-221 (May/June 1975). 45. Weick, "The Twigging of Overload." 46. Craig A. Dudzak, "Coping with Information Overload as Adaptive Behavior in Competitive De- bate,'' paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Speech Communication Associa- tion, ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 240 658, 1984. 47. Sally J. Power-Ross, "The Information Acquisition Style and Decision Making Mode of High- Level Managers in an Information Rich Environment,'' paper presented at the Annual Meeting of 322 College & Research Libraries July 1986 the Speech Communication Association, ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 249 552, 1984. 48. John Mark Tucker, "The Origins of Bibliographic Instruction in Academic Libraries, 1876-1914," New Horizons for Academic Librarians, ed . Robert D . Stueart and Richard D. Johnson (New York: K. G. Saur, 1979), p.268- 76. 49 . Anne Grodzins Lipow, "Teaching the Faculty to Use the Library: A Successful Program of In- Depth Seminars for University of California, Berkeley, Faculty," in New Horizons for Academic Li- brarians, ed. Robert D. Stueart and Richard D. Johnson (New York, K. G. Saur, 1979), p.262-67. 50. Richard J. Wood, "The Impact of a Library Research Course on Students at Slippery Rock Univer- sity," Journal of Academic Librarianship 10:278-84 (Nov. 1984). 51. Lipow, "Teaching the Faculty." 52. Constance McCarthy, "The Faculty Problem," Journal of Academic Librarianship 11:142-45 (July, 1985). 53. Wood, "The Impact of a Library Research Course." 54. Stoan, "Research and Library Skills." . 55. J. M. Brittain, "Pitfalls of User Research, and Some Neglected Areas," Social Science Information Studies 2:139-48 (July 1982). 56. Stoan, ''Research Library Skills.'' 57. Ibid . 58. Klapp, Opening and Closing. 59. Emerson and Cooper, "The Stress Curve ." 60. Daniel, "Special Librarian." 61. Norma Ruth Torkelson, "SDI as a Control of Information Overload," Innovative Developments in Information Systems: Their Benefits and Costs; Proceeding of the ASIS Annual Meeting, ed. Helen J. Waldron and F. Raymond Long (Washington, D.C.: American Society for Information Science, 1973), p .231-32. 62. Marcia J. Bates, "Search Techniques," in Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, ed. Martha E. Williams (V.16, 1981), p.139-69. 63. Peter J. Vigil, ''The Psychology of Online Searching,'' Journal of the American Society for Information Science 34:281-87 (July 1983). IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES OF COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES Selected Papers, Part II, from the ACRL Fourth National Conference, Baltimore, April 9-12, 1986 The Federal Information Controversy from an Economic Perspective by Thelma Freides Performance Appraisal: Is It Working? by Charles A. Schwartz The Managerial Roles of Academic Library Directors by Michael Ann Moskowitz Book Availability at the University of California-Santa Cruz by Terry Ellen Ferl and Mar- garet G. Robinson