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Academic Library System

Notes should include those goals related to personal growth or the development of employees.
Dividing goal setting into categories often helps employees think about their jobs in new ways
and acts to release them from the tendency to create activity-based goals.
Another requirement for any successful MBO program is that it provide for a regular review
of employee progress toward meeting goals. This review can take place either monthly or
quarterly. When the review uncovers employee performance that is below expectations, managers
should try to identify the problem, assign responsibility for correcting it, and make a note in
the MBO files.

4.4 Planning of Library Building and its Interior

Addressing collection preservation as part of library building design helps to protect the
collection against catastrophic loss and to reduce library expenses by extending the collection’s
service life. The purpose of collection preservation is to manage risk to an acceptable level,
while acknowledging that avoiding risk altogether is impossible.
The collection is the library’s single largest asset; designing the building that houses it to
maximize protection against major losses, including earthquake, fire, water damage, and theft,
is responsible management of public resources. Designing an indoor environment (including
temperature, humidity, air quality, and light levels) conducive to preservation extends the
collection’s service life by slowing down its rate of physical deterioration. Books and documents
intended to be kept in the collection permanently will not need to be replaced as often, saving
the library money.

Preservation costs money to save money; it requires an initial investment in building features
and systems to increase protection and reduce deterioration. The library’s return on its investment
comes as cost avoidance in the years that follow: fewer losses and longer service life. To
minimize up front costs, actions to protect the collection and actions to optimize the collection
environment should be addressed separately. All library collections represent a large investment
of library funds. Consequently, all library building projects should optimize their design to
protect the collections against earthquake, fire, water, and theft. Addressing the preservation
needs discussed in the sections below will help minimize the risk of catastrophic loss. Some
collections have to last forever; many libraries have “special” and “local history” collections
they want to last centuries, if possible. These collections largely are irreplaceable and therefore
need additional features from the building design to maximize their service lives. However,
most collection materials in most publicly funded libraries are not added to the collection with
the expectation that they will continue to be part of the collection indefinitely. These “general”
collection materials are expected to be serviceable enough to meet current and anticipated
future needs; they will be discarded when they no longer are needed or have been succeeded
by more current works.
Opportunities to minimize preservation-related construction and operating costs accrue from
distinguishing between the needs of general and special collections. If the two types of collections
can be segregated for storage and use, the higher cost solutions needed for special collections
can be addressed without incurring the cost of applying the same solutions to the general
collections. For example, irreplaceable special collection materials might be stored in a very
secure part of the building where there are no emergency exits from the building decreasing
the risk of theft, and without water lines or other utilities, decreasing the risk of water damage.
Special collection materials could be used in reading areas where sight lines from service
desks is unobstructed, providing a sense of vigilance and security for the collection. The
relatively challenging environmental conditions needed for storage of special collections might

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