educational, professional, business-based, etc.)
and a ''model for users and their needs for library materials and services.'' The model is expressed as a matrix in which we can find typical Strategic management issues for libraries have been around categories of users, needs, and materials/services used. Overall for several years now and one might just say ''not another this section on users is interesting but it lacks critical analysis. one?'' But this publication presents new avenues because it is
The theoretical framework should have been explained more, an overview of the different elements that should be taken into perhaps situated in relation to other important models such as account when a library manager wants to manage his organiza-Brenda Dervin's. One could also question the author's choice tion strategically. It is not, therefore, just another book on strateof the word ''user'' instead of ''client'' or ''customer'' which gic planning. According to the authors: ''Planning in this area are more strategic in the sense that they do not exclude de facto cannot keep pace with developments as they actually occur.
the portion of the clientele that does not use the library, i.e., . . . Something more than planning is needed. . . . We need to the non-users. We may also mention here that the authors could be concerned with strategic management, within which planning have relied more on some marketing theories such as the marmay play a role but at most a supportive one'' (p. x).
keting mix concept (controlable and uncontrolable variables in The authors are well known to the library profession and the exchange process between the organization and the clientheir names alone should guarantee the quality of this monoteles/environment), in order to provide the reader with a more graph. Virgina Walter had a long career in both practice and complete vision of what is strategy. academia. Robert Hayes is an eminent scholar who was at the In the third part, ''Techniques for Assessment,'' the authors University of California at Los Angeles before his retirement delve straight into the strategic management process itself, in and who has published several extremely valuable pieces of providing the tools by which it can be supported. Chapter Seven research, articles, and other books. This volume is indeed based deals with ''Assessing the Strategic Position.'' Firstly, they directly on his Strategic Management for Academic Libraries discuss questions of information gathering, the organization, which was published in 1993 with the same editor. In fact, the and the contents of electronic data files (an appendix gives a authors explain that ''rather than just producing a second edition list of programs that can be used to do so). Thereafter, they . . . it was felt that something more could be accomplished by successively examine the variables that should be taken into shifting the focus from academic to public libraries'' (p. vii).
account during an assessment: The management itself, the mar-The idea is not bad. Therefore, the structure of the book is ket and the position of the library within it, the operations, etc. exactly the same, including the names of most of the 10 chap-Chapter Eight presents briefly the means available to visualize ters. The changes do not lie really in an updating of the content the future. It includes an overview of quantitative as well as but in its adaptation to public libraries.
qualitative forecasting. Chapter Nine introduces the reader to The content is divided into three parts. Part one, entitled cost analysis and models. The fundamental approach used by ''Concepts,'' serves as an introduction to the rest of the book, the authors is ''ex post facto;'' they explain, ''cost data reported wherein the authors give definitions and examine the main ideas in a variety of ways are reduced to a common cost accounting about strategic management which they will develop in the structure. . . . The model uses a matrix of workload factors as other chapters. They compare strategic management to tactical the means for estimation of the staff required to handle a defined and operational management, and define it as: ''that part of workload, measured in appropriate units of work'' (pp. 164general management of organizations that emphasizes the rela-165). Evidently this technique is drawing mainly on Hayes' tionships to external environments, evaluates the current status previous book on strategic management for academic libraries, of them and the effects of future changes in them, and deteralthough efforts have been made to adapt the models to the mines the most appropriate response of the organization to specific case of public libraries. This section ends with a whole them.'' They also examine the questions of top management responsibilities and the strategic issues for the community. This series of matrices and figures with data that might not be easy last section is a very accurate summary of most of the important to understand for people who are not familiar with quantitative questions that public libraries are facing today. Unfortunately, methods. there is almost nothing on the impact of the Internet, which is
The final chapter of this third section serves as a conclusion certainly a strategic issue of considerable importance for public to the book. For the most part, it is conceived as a generic libraries.
extrapolation of all the ideas expressed from the beginning. It The second part is entitled ''Contexts.'' It examines, in more contains completely new material as compared to the 1993 edidepth, some of the issues presented in the first section, mainly tion. Starting from the hypothesis that ''One of the imperatives social and political ones. The authors present the context of of strategic public library management is that the library's ecocommunity problems in metropolitan regions, satellite cities, nomic role be both clarified and strengthened,'' the authors and rural communities. This section also contains an important present a ''model for describing the structure of community information economies as a tool for situating the public library in its strategic place in the community's information economy''