A multiple-objective planning methodology for information service managers

The problem of allocation of scarce resources in an organization is frequently complicated by the presence of multiple, often conflicting, managerial objectives and a high degree of ambiguity in the definition of the organization's purpose. This is particularly true within the operating environment of many public and privately operated information centers and special libraries. In recent years, the managers of such centers have been pressed by both the funders and the users of their services to improve the efficiency of their operations. Although techniques are available for determining and evaluating various measures of the performance of these centers, relatively little has been accomplished with respect to the more fundamental decision making problem of allocating resources in order to optimize the achievement level of the various objectives of the decision maker. The problem addressed in this research is the extension of existing techniques to more adequately deal with the resource allocation problem in an ambiguous environment. The technique known as goal programming is extended and a new methodology, termed goal-range programming, is presented. The goal-range programming methodology is related to the information center planning environment through examples derived from the interaction of the authors with several centers.