In this article, the author discusses her personal experience of coming up with a mission statement for her library. A significant part of that goal was to identify what a best-practice library looked like so that she could emulate the model in her library. The entire process is described in this article.

This Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) kit, an update of a 1975 kit, considers trends in the development and use of goals and objectives statements in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions, as illustrated in documents received in response to an August 1979 SPEC survey. The kit comprises: documents on developing…

Arguing that complaints are inevitable and that complaint handling should be an integral part of the library's public service program, this paper identifies and discusses the components of such a program. Concerns discussed are those that should be of general interest to all types of libraries, and the primary focus is on external complaints,…

This collection of statements of goals and objectives from member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) contains: (1) sections from management review and analysis program reports from the University of Washington Libraries and the University of Rochester Library; (2) a detailed organization description from the Columbia…

This report summarizes activities conducted from fall 1984 through spring 1985, under a planning grant from the Council on Library Resources for Innovation and Improvement of Basic and Supplementary Education for Academic and Research Libraries. The report includes a review of selected literature related to educational programs for academic…

This paper reports a self-study undertaken at Cornell University's Albert R. Mann Library to explore appropriate public services for an agricultural research faculty. The study took place over a 22-month period and involved a literature review, development of a questionnaire, administration of the questionnaire, an experimental period of…