INLS 131: MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION AGENCIES Assignment 1: ORGANIZATIONAL PAPER fALL 1999

Assignment Due: September 1.

Purpose. The purpose of this assignment is to help you think about an organization in management terms. Your response will give me useful feedback and help me plan a course tailored as much as possible to your needs and interests.

Overview. You are to select a library or information agency that you are somewhat familiar with and to describe it in 3-5 double-spaced pages. Some questions to prompt your description are provided below. You do not have to answer each question!

Questions..

1. Provide the full name of the organization. If it is a part of a larger organization, provide the name of the larger organization and describe how the smaller unit fits within the larger one.

2. How large is the organization you selected? You can describe the size of an organization by the amount of space it occupies, by the number of staff it has, by the amount of its budget, by the number of clientele it serves. Some measures are more useful for particular purposes. For this exercise, choose any measure you like. You will probably have to estimate size. Be as accurate as you can.

3. How old approximately is your organization? Does it have a long history and tradition or is it a relatively young organization?

4. What services and/or products does it offer? Are these products/services offered for a fee or free to everyone or only to a certain class of clients?

5. Is the organization a public or a private agency, or does it have elements of both?

6. Who are the consumers or users of the organization's products and services? Often clients (users, patrons, customers, whatever term you choose) can be separated into various categories. For example in a university environment, clientele are often separated into faculty, students, and staff. Sometimes each of these categories are further separated as well. Some organizations think of primary and secondary client groups. You may wish to comment about this aspect for your organization.

7. Who are the organization's competitors? How do you think competition should be defined for the orgnization? Would you describe the environment as stable or rapidly changing? responsive and supportive or hostile?

8. Where is the organization located? Where is work performed? Sometimes the answer to these two questions is different, sometimes the same.

9. Would you describe your organization's technical system (how work gets done) as "craft-like" so that responses are individualized and unique to each client, or is it more "mass market oriented" and machine-like so that each client is treated the same and services and products are relatively uniform, or would you charaterize the technical system as a process in which items (or people) flow through the organization and are acted upon as they move through (for example, like a university)?

10. What is unique or distinctive about this organization? Does it have a mission statement or a statement of purpose? If so, what is it?

11. What kind of people work in the organization? What skills, knowledge, educational credentials, or experience do people need in order to work in the organization? Are there a lot of different categories of people or do most of the people in the organization have a similar knowledge and skill set? Would you characterize the dominant group as professionals, technicians, scientists, humanists, managers, or how?

12. Does the organization offer training to its human resources? How are newly hired people introduced to the agency?

13. Is the organization hierarchical in nature so that it is clear who works for whom? Or is it flatter and more collegial so that people work together in teams?

14. Are the rules and policies of the organization written down and publicly avilable? Or is the atmosphere more informal?

15. Are people paid a salary, or on an hourly basis? Are there contract employees? Are hours of work flexible or fixed?

16. What kind of reward system is there? Is the morale within the organization high? Are people who work there generally satisfied?

17. Why did you choose this organization? Is it one you have worked in? Do you plan (or hope) to work in a similar organization some day?