Writing library policies and procedures can often be a thankless task. Rulemaking often arises in reaction to a specific situation. Someone says, “We need a policy,” then whatever is drafted has to be acceptable to and enforceable with library staff and users. How many of us have participated in passionate staff debates over a proposed library policy that is put in place, then quickly forgotten or not enforced uniformly? (Think food and drink policies.) Yet we cannot get away from the need for rules to effectively run library operations. Into this arena steps Rebecca Brumley. After writing a similar book for public libraries, she has turned her attention to academic institutions with the Academic Library Manager's Forms, Policies, and Procedures Handbook with CD-ROM. Brumley draws on documents from a full range of academic institutions, from community colleges to large research universities. As she states in the preface, Brumley reviewed thousands of documents to publish more than 600 policies, procedures, and forms on more than 300 different topics (p. xix). Brumley has organized the documents into twelve sections and further subdivided them into forty-four chapters covering almost every library operational area. The sections headings are: administrative policies and guidelines, facilities and equipment, collection development, traditional reference service, virtual reference service, circulation, government documents, legal and ethical concerns, information literacy and library instruction, interlibrary loan and document delivery, Internet and electronic resources, and university repositories. The table of contents and detailed index facilitate access to the content. Brumley also provides a list of web links to documents from contributing libraries. The main utility of the book is found in the accompanying CD, which provides all the content of the printed text, plus additional documents that were not printed. The table of contents provides the primary means of navigation, with each chapter a searchable portable document format (PDF) file. Another benefit of the CD is that readers can easily use the web links provided in the list of contributing libraries. Opening the CD is accomplished without difficulty using a PC laptop or MacBook. Chapters can be easily downloaded, the text cut and pasted into Microsoft Word, and then formatted and edited accordingly. As noted, the book covers all the obvious operational areas, along with some more unusual ones. The policy on “fragrance use” is of interest, and the sentence, “The Library Staff has the responsibility to intervene courteously, but firmly, when the use of chemical scents interferes with the rights of others” is amusing (p. 47). The policy does not state how library staff are supposed to handle those who may be “naturally” odoriferous. While this publication certainly provides plenty for the reader to review and consider, its usefulness can be debated. The closest similar publications are the MLA DocKits 〈http://www.mlanet.org/publications/dockits/〉. One might consider Brumley's work a super DocKit. Documents from only two academic health sciences libraries are included, although that is not necessarily a disadvantage, as the book provides a larger context for managers at academic health sciences and larger hospital libraries to pull ideas and wording for their documentation. It would have been useful if Brumley had provided more specifics on the criteria she used to select documents. Also, if the book were more of a handbook, with information and commentary on how to successfully identify, draft, implement, and review procedures, policies, and forms in an academic context, it might have more relevance. All that said, it is a book worth noting. If you find yourself often trolling online for policies and procedures to use at your institution, and no DocKit covers the topic, you may find the documents or operational areas addressed by the book of interest.
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Open Access
Jun 1, 2023
Antonia Nicoleta Ivan + 3
