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Letter to the Editor 
I’d like to comment on Scott Walter ’s 
review of my book Streamlining Library 
Services.  I concur with the reviewer ’s 
comments regarding the importance of 
qualitative techniques in assessing the 
effectiveness of libraries. Based on my 
experiences, however, libraries that seek 
to assess their contributions should also 
employ analytical tools help build their 
cases to officials. We are not talking 
about an either/or situation, but one that 
is complementary.  Let me explain. 

In his review Walters cites a project at the 
University of Rochester Library designed 
to learn more about how undergraduate 
students actually gather information and 
write papers. The project’s investigators 
employed a variety of qualitative method-
ologies to collect information about their 
students. Walters noted that the project as 
reported by Foster and Gibbons illustrates 
“…how qualitative approaches to inquiry, 
equal in rigor to the quantitative approach-
es favored by earlier generations…can 
guide library approaches to assessment 
and accountability.” While the Rochester 
project is an assessment study in the sense 
that it “assesses” how students actually 
use libraries and information, the project 
wasn’t designed to document for campus 
officials how the library contributes to the 
undergraduate educational experience of 
students. Hopefully the campus adminis-
tration has been willing to give the library 
kudos for making efforts to become more 
student focused. It is also possible that 
the data gathered in this project can be 
used to develop metrics that will reveal 
how the library is contributing to students’ 
experience. 

What concerned me as I read Walters’s 
review was that some readers might reach 
the conclusion that the tools, techniques, 
and strategies presented in Streamlining 
Library Services are intended to be as-
sessment tools. That is not the case. The 
book’s objective is to provide techniques 
and tools that can be used to analyze key 
library activities to ensure that resources 

such as staff time and dollar 
resources are used eff ectively. 
For example, a library decides 
to emphasize its document 
delivery and ILL services 
because it believes that en-
hanced access to publications 
will improve the quality of 
student term papers. To validate this con-
viction the library subsequently conducts 
a series of interviews with student users in 
order to assess the service. This I would 
term assessment project. Where the tools 
and techniques presented in Streamlining 
Library Services can contribute is in analyz-
ing the effectiveness of the procedures 
that undergird the document delivery/ILL 
service. If the procedures can be stream-
lined and made more effi  cient, the library 
and the campus will get a “bigger bang 
for their buck” because productivity is 
increased and/or dollars are saved.  In 
this scenario qualitative and quantitative 
techniques are complementary. 

I confess that this is only a minor 
quibble, but it worries me that when 
Walters refers to the “tools of scientific 
management,” he seems to be discounting 
them because their origins reach back to 
the era of Scientific Management. While 
such techniques, such as time study, and 
tools, such as the flow process chart, and 
the Gantt chart were indeed developed by 
practitioners many years ago, versions of 
these and other tools are actively used by 
all types of organizations today.  

It seems to me in this period of budget 
stringency when assessment and account-
ability have become so important; I hope 
that LIS programs will find some place 
in their curricula to introduce students 
to both qualitative and quantitative as-
sessment techniques and techniques that 
analyze efficiency and productivity.  

Richard M. Dougherty 
Professor Emeritus 

School of Information 
University of Michigan 

107