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Toward Public Led Innovation
Quotes from the Original Sources
[In one of the books quoted here, we read that "Change occurs onlywhen there is a confluence of changing values and economic necessity."(Naisbitt and Auburdene, 1985) The values changed long ago, as theseexcerpts attest. But until now most public libraries haven't changed. Theyhaven't had to face a financial threat to their existence, apart fromgovernmental budget-cutting strictures. Public libraries have enjoyed amonopoly in their field -- the field of making "information" (words, sounds,and images) available to anyone -- with the cost borne by the citizens asa whole through taxes. But now the internet has broken the monopoly,with its relatively low cost of entry. In fact, the public library is rapidlybecoming an internet enterprise itself, now in competition with other internet enterprises offering much of the same material to the localcitizenry. Not everyone can afford a personal computer and an internetservice provider account, and those who cannot are being servedappropriately by their public library. But by and large those in the middleclass can afford to pay the price. In droves, they are going to their PCs athome and at work to access information they used to go to the library for.As of this writing (2001) fiction and film have yet to fall to the invader,though further developments in e-books and broadband will no doubtcomplete the conquest. The message to public libraries is clear: your monopoly has come to an end. You must fight for your life. You mustlearn the same management practices that the successful knowledgeenterprises have learned.]
Contents
Henri Fayol, "Speech at the Closing Session," 1900.Frederick Winslow Taylor,
The Principles of Scientific Management 
,1911.Mary Parker Follett,
Dynamic Administration
, 1925.Elton Mayo,
The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization
, 1933.Chester I. Barnard,
The Functions of the Executive
, 1938.Peter F. Drucker,
Concept of the Corporation
, 1946.Peter F. Drucker,
The Practice of Management 
, 1954.Peter F. Drucker,
Landmarks of Tomorrow 
, 1959.Douglas McGregor,
The Human Side of Enterprise
, 1960.Peter F. Drucker,
The Effective Executive
, 1967.Peter F. Drucker,
The Age of Discontinuity 
, 1968-1969.
 
[Before the 20th Century the in-depth study of organizationalmanagement was practically unknown, aside from some texts on politicaland military administration. The first person to systematize the acceptedknowledge of the day on the subject was Henri Fayol, a French miningengineer and director. When he retired he started building his theory of "administrative science." His mature work emphasized five elements of management: planning, organizing, command, coordination, and control.Among his 14 principles were division of labor; each worker reporting toonly one supervisor; centralization and chain of command; initiative andteam spirit. These elements and principles are recognizable as the basesof today's classical management practices. Fayol's detractors tend to boildown his theory into the term "command and control." There's no doubthe had great respect for disciplined hierarchy. But he was no fanatic. Hismind was capable of understanding the subtleties that any manager mustdeal with in order to carry forth the organization's purpose. He knew thatcentralization must be combined with decentralization. The shortexcerpts that follow are taken from the speech in which he announcedhis intention to begin formulating an analysis of administration in all itsaspects.]80.Every employee in an organization ... takes a larger or smaller role inthe work of administration, and has, therefore, to use and display hisadministrative faculties.80.The proper utilization of the physical, moral, and intellectual gifts of menis just as essential for the good of mankind as the proper utilization of mineral wealth. While we are trying to master matter ... we must try tomaster ourselves, to discover and apply the laws which will make theorganization and running of administrative machinery as perfect aspossible.81.Administration, which calls for the application of wide knowledge andmany personal qualities, is above all the art of handling men, and in thisart, as in many others, it is practice that makes perfect.
Taylor, Frederick Winslow,
The Principles of Scientific Management 
,New York, Harper & Row, 1911.
(page numbers from the 1998 Engineering & Management Press edition)[Taylor's methods had an enormous influence on industrial managementthroughout the Twentieth Century. Who hasn't heard of time study andmotion study analysis of the work of factory employees? The myth of theefficiency expert with a stopwatch reducing human beings to robots hasenergized anti-business forces for almost a hundred years. The image of Charlie Chaplin caught in the cogs haunts us still. By the time Taylor wrote this book, he was aware of the abuses to which his system hadbeen put. So he took pains to amplify upon his personal motivations for devising it. In doing so, he introduced principles that other managementconsultants would later claim credit for, while denouncing Taylor.
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