Managing Media Services: Theory and Practice (2nd ed.)

Citation

Intner, S. (2002), "Managing Media Services: Theory and Practice (2nd ed.)", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 115-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd.2002.58.1.115.6

This new, second edition of Managing Media Services improves on its predecessor in many ways, while still retaining the “look and feel” of the earlier work (Vlcek and Wiman, 1989) along with much of its text. The new work is, first of all, as complete as any book this reviewer has seen in its coverage of nitty‐gritty management topics, including such often ignored matters as how to motivate the staff, how to write informative memoranda, how to interact effectively with members of the public and how to re‐design the media facility. Its authors say, “We hope that we have achieved a blend of the accepted knowledge of the past with … the vibrant, ever‐changing rush of new methods and technologies” (p. xxiii). Without wishing to leap to conclusions, this reviewer believes they have struck the balance quite well.

Seventeen chapters comprise the main body of the text: “Managing media services: an overview”; “Philosophical perspectives”; ‘Planning media service programs”; “Management basics”; “Managing media materials services”; “Managing media equipment services”; “Managing media development services”; “Computers and the media center”; “Managing technological change”; “Managing personnel”; “Managing budgets”; “Communicating”; “Evaluating media service programs”; “Designing media service facilities”; “Reaching distant learners”; “Professionalism”; and “The future”. The authors take the task of teaching management seriously. Not only do the words “managing” and “management” between them appear eight times in the chapter titles, but several more chapters cover management topics without using the words, e.g. the three chapters on “Planning …”, “Communicating” and “Evaluating …”. One could make the case that the chapters on philosophy, computers, facility design and professionalism also are clear‐cut management topics, but there is no need to belabour the matter.

It is testimony to Vlcek and Wiman’s original work that the conceptual structure they created has withstood the passage of time, even though these 11 years have been a particularly turbulent period for media services. All but one of the 17 chapters in the current book appeared in the first edition. Schmidt and Rieck have dropped the first edition’s separate chapter on copyright, subsuming this material in the appropriate places with discussions of media collection policies and services. They also have changed the title of the first edition’s chapter on production services from “Managing media production services” to “Managing media development services” (emphasis added). Given the large amount of choices available in the marketplace for professionally prepared, produced and distributed offerings, in‐house production is less critical than it once was.

The chapter on media services to students in distance learning programmes is more important today than ever before in the world of higher education. On the new lists from other professional publishers are titles that deal with this issue, e.g. Slade and Kascus (2000) and Goodson (2001). The chapter begins with a one‐page review of earlier technologies used to provide instruction to students located far from the classroom, and goes on to describe ten media strategies for current services in greater detail: videotaped courses; broadcast television; cable television; narrowcast television; microwave; satellite; compressed video; electronic text; Web‐based delivery; and desktop videoconferencing. Two more sections in this chapter cover how several strategies can be used together, and the support services needed for successful provision of distance learning media services.

Following the main text is a brief epilogue in which the authors suggest adding other practical learning experiences to the reading of this book, such as taking field trips to working media centres, attending conference sessions on innovative programmes, etc. In an ideal world, this would be possible. In the absence of achieving the ideal, they offer a selection of books and Web sites they believe can be particularly helpful to a student seeking more information from the “real world”. The epilogue is followed by six appendices covering needs assessment, organisational plans, selection policies, standards promulgated by organisations representing librarians at all grade levels from kindergarten through university, patron evaluations and a case history illustrating the design of a videotape production executed by Schmidt. The case history is new to the second edition and, perhaps, makes up to some degree for the changed focus of the chapter on media development. An appendix that appeared in the first edition titled “Survey of school library media centers” has been dropped from the new book. Two explanations are possible – the original survey is now too old to be of interest and may not have been updated recently; and, more importantly, the approach of the new authors is much broader than the elementary and secondary school media centre, aiming at college and university media facilities and librarians as well.

Changes in nomenclature between the editions are evident throughout the text, with the most essential one being the acceptance of multiple terms to identify the agency on which this book focuses. Interestingly, “library” does not appear as an entry word in the second edition’s topical index; but then neither does “school”. The book has extensive bibliographies following the text of each chapter rather than a unified bibliography at the end. Three indexes complete the book: author, title and subject. The first edition had one integrated index and the difference will be seen as good or bad depending on a reader’s individual preference.

Moving beneath all these surface and structural issues, the real question is how has the text itself evolved? Have Schmidt and Rieck, in fact, balanced the best of the first edition with their own new material? For one thing, their text reflects that the media themselves have changed. CD‐ROM is more important (this, despite the knowledge that the computer world considers it an obsolete technology); films and filmstrips are less important; and Internet resources and Web sites are discussed only in the new text, as one would have expected. Dependence on in‐house production is less prominent and detailed, while use of local equipment to capture, adapt or access offerings from outside sources (publishers, Web sites, vendors) is much expanded. Another shift in emphasis is heavier reliance on the general business management literature and generally accepted business practices in recommended budgeting, personnel and strategic planning segments of the book. Topics such as structured decision making, planning, trainer development, proposal creation and presentation, and workplace safety, which were not covered previously, are consistent with the authors’ attention to the larger management environment.

The authors’ approach is highly organised, with step‐by‐step procedures clearly spelled out. If one were faced with having to use this textbook in place of a class with directed guidance in how to do something such as tape a simple instructional programme or develop an annual budget, it would go far in helping one cope by walking one through the steps. If one is enrolled in a class, however, this book would be an ideal textbook. Valuable techniques retained from the first edition include starting each chapter with a clear statement of objectives, which lay out the scope of the chapter, and closing with a list of suggested activities and bibliographies. The second edition does more with these last two elements, offering expanded lists of non‐print resources for some chapters. It is both alarming and amusing to think that a textbook on media resources would fail to have a preponderance of non‐print citations to offer its readers.

Technically, the book is more attractive than its predecessor, with wider margins and more readable print. Although the second edition has fewer pages (a total of 418, in contrast to 426 in 1989), figures are larger in some instances and the page layouts seem more spacious. A lot of polishing has been done on the text, on both how it looks on the page and the expression of ideas, making this more usable, but not necessarily altering the lessons being taught. The new material is largely, though not solely, in the treatment of media options, strategies and resources based on computers.

Managing Media Services, while an expensive hard‐cover book, is well worth its price as a textbook for students learning how to manage a media facility as well as for practitioners seeking help with some or all of the activities they are expected to perform in all types of media centres. The book can be used as a training tool for new staff or as a guide to veteran staff in initiating new projects and programmes. It can also be of use to public librarians and special library practitioners whose collections include varieties of materials in nonprint or nonbook formats. This book is highly recommended.