yesterday, all my troubles seemed so . . . . tomorrow

RE: Electronic archives class yesterday recently

while discussing records management recently I questioned the abundance of gubment websites, i. e., the national archives (archives.com), digitalpreservation.com, National Records Administration (NARA), etc. I was reminded of 1970 at Chevrolet Motors Division, and all the jumping through hoops we all did under the direction of John DeLorean, who was instituting OSHA for the first time. OSHA wanted this, OSHA wanted that, but the gubment enforcers didnt know what the gubment "intelligentsia" wanted enforced. SOOOOO John D would tell us just make it "good enough for the gubment, and leave it at that." Teacher ensured me upon questioning that these gubment sites were, in deed, legitimate, and not just a big joke like OSHA was when it first began 37 years ago. I'm still scared.

NEW! IMPROVED!

Welcome back my friends to the blog that I thought had ended. But alas, "LIS7040 Library Administration and Management" has come along to save it.

January 27, 2007
Challenges. I find it diffucult to visualize tables and figures in articles, when those tables and figures are not included in the text article.
Any other comments. I think it is a sad national state of affairs that the management fashion of choice has become intervention. Its so easy to blame a person or group of people because management is a collective group of idiots (based on personal past experience). Oh well. When the earth goes, they'll all go. I sort of feel sorry for the youth, but I'm glad I wont be here to see them grow old. Maybe they'll get wise before their government destroys their lives. But I seriously doubt it. SOciety looks to me like a big roundup being sent to slaughter. Soilant green, anyone?

I would like to add my recent paper, unedited, uncut, long version, opinionated, and not sterile to fit the 1000 word limit. Here goes, maybe it will work:

IT WORKED!!!

Assignment #1: 12 Angry Men
Nobody except the government wastes hard-earned money without a good reason. Who would produce a motion picture about twelve men sequestered in a hot jury room, and expect that enterprise to be a money-making one? Perhaps education motivated the director to show the present state of twelve, of the sometimes darker shades, of “modern man.” Maybe this food for thought would feed the masses, whether it poisoned them or not.
Times change quickly; people less quickly. What began as an exercise in communication, continues to this day as a study in communication. The 1950’s had their experts; the millennium has its experts. Have they transgressed, or progressed. Do we study this film to educate the naïve among us, or to educate those of us who have not had a taste of the real world? Something is better than nothing, right? Maybe attitude adjustments through the use of this mass media impelled the writers. Now educators attempt to instill ancient values into modern society through innocent victims. By looking at the theories, realities, and changes of perception, from the 1950’s, to the 2000’s, lessons reveal themselves and the transgressions avoided- with a little perseverance.
Working in Organizations
Group membership studies milked the subject dry in the 1950’s, and studies continue to this day. The man who emerged as faux foreman either knew, or learned quickly, how to work a small group. Active participation must take place for anything to happen (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953, p. 218). As often happened in the 1950’s, leadership and organizational models grew out of military molds. Perhaps that accounts for all the hostility experienced in small groups in small spaces. The small group, as an independent organization, exhibits, albeit on a small scale, the same effects affected on larger organizations. Direct pressure, a constructive philosophy, delegation of authority, and other supervisory attitudes all brought about results (Likert & Katz, 1951, pp. 89-95).
Within modern library organizations, team-building innovations exist as a neat, little package. Want to know how to succeed? With no trial and error, go to the index, and look it up! Find “characteristics of effective teams,” “stages of team development,” “basic steps in team building,” “team communication,” and “the future of work teams in libraries” (Stuert & Moran, 2002, pp. 399-404). What more could you ask for?
Communication
In 1951, having saved the world from evil with an increasingly technical military, America returned to the production of consumer goods, and post-war prosperity. Communication took on technical characteristics (Ruesch & Bateson, 1951, pp. 283-286), and “the study of interaction is concerned with the effect of communication upon the behavior of the two or more interacting entities” (Ruesch & Bateson, p. 286). Furthermore, “at the intrapersonal level . . . the organism can somewhat predict its own reactions” (Ruesch & Bateson, pp. 287-288). Yet twelve organisms became tasked with determining the future of another organism’ life! With human life belittled to the size of an organism for society’ sake, what could result when these organisms began deliberating, when they took powerful liberties bestowed upon them by the society? Destructive interaction, self-destruction, and breaking down of the system occurred.
Communication in the new millennium library has become “a key ingredient in effective leadership” (Stuert & Moran, p. 379). Just a spoonful of sugar . . . . Do you believe in evolution? Organisms of the 1950’s have evolved into living, loving beings, with needs, wants, and desires! List after list tell you who, what, when, where, why, and how to communicate- just absorb it into your system. Is there a problem? Check the conflict checklist, and proceed to make yours a functional team. It’s all too beautiful!
Leadership
“The danger of assuming any leadership—even of any form of self-assertion—is that it provokes resistance and hostility, retaliation and punishment” (Meerloo, 1956, p. 221). A credible communicator with a persuasive message influenced group conformity, and worked individual personality factors, i. e., fear, tension, acceptability, motivation, commitment, self-consistency, etc( Hovland et al., pp. 13-14). The twelve represented these factors, and more. A leader came forth to lead, however haphazardly, the jury. He probably realized the value of membership in a group, and appealed to members’ self-worth, salience, resistance to change, susceptibilities to persuasion, personal differences, intellect, prejudices, inadequacy, aggression, withdrawal, etc, to effect a result- maybe not the desired result, but a result just the same. Experimentations, and variations thereof, effected the desired results.
Leadership continues in a big way today. Studies seem to have found all the needed answers, i. e., those that will suffice for the majority. Results may come through opinion change, or through dictatorial edict. Currently identified styles, which reflect leadership through the ages, continue to fine tune the art of leading people to do what you want them to do. Ethics helps smooth over gray areas, or at least creates a morass in which to drown dissonant feelings, while the work at hand continues. As servants of the customer, librarians must self-lead sometimes to get the product delivered.
Decision-making
“The administrative mind is born, often dominating man’s social behavior and man’s manifold contacts, leading him into complicated actions and compulsions far beyond spontaneous behavior” (Meerloo, p. 218). Maier (1952) published his findings from Ann Arbor, Michigan. “The examples and applications are pointed toward industry, but the principles apply to all situations where leaders must deal with groups or individuals” (p. vii). Try and try again, till you get what you want. Keep records, and do not make the same mistakes twice. Of course, in the jury room, the choices numbered only two, and a mistake meant death to a innocent person, or freedom to the guilty.
Contemporary decision theory attempts to divine the next solution from databases of possibilities, cataloging mankind’s successes and failures. Even if the theory fails, new data equates to a infinitesimal morsel of the sum total of knowledge. Librarians using the group decision making approach have group judgment, group authority, and communication to support any decision. Disadvantages of this approach include cost, compromise, indecision, power, and authority issues (Stuert & Moran, pp. 85-88).
Methods
One program of experimental modification of attitudes and opinions through communication published its research in 1953 (Hovland et al). Persuasion of one sort of another took hold of the twelve men, either through domination, or under submission. Let it be known: psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, and others, do have motivations to form and modify values of populations. The judicial system of America in the 1950’s, along with its unwitting, and sometimes unwilling, participants, needing shoving down the peoples’ collective throat. America 2000 has become a police state, policing the world with military might, while passing legislation that the government can break all the laws it creates in the name of government. At least half of the television shows display police or courtroom situations, and prison construction leads all other business growth in America. Did twelve angry men unwittingly bring all this on back in the day? Methodological problems often break down into personality factors, for the sake of the group (Hovland et al., p. 179).
Communicative methods in modern organizations facilitates everything and everyone, from the Chief Executive Officer to the friend of the library. Write, speak, or look to the subordinate, peer, or superior, officially, or unofficially, and watch things happen. Conflict begets team solutions through goals, objectives and strategies, activities, tasks, and initiatives (Stuert & Moran, pp. 108-112). Technology helps, but can hinder, efforts to conclude efforts.
Equality, Inclusion, Diversity
The director of 12 Angry Men obviously made an effort to include minority members of the population, as jurors and victims. Jurors played on fears and prejudices of other jurors in their efforts to persuade still more jurors to change their decision, or not. However, literature from the 1950’s discussing equal opportunity, inclusion, and diversity, does not exist in abundance.
Legal protections for employees, and unions, help enforce modern equal opportunity, which seeks to include and diversify. Sometimes one group suffers at the hands of another because of the law. Then bigger organizations step in to resolve conflict through any number of methods, some of which surfaced here. Ethics training provides a framework for employees to handle routine dilemmas that occur routinely in an organization. Where the law leaves off, personal courtesies may resolve troublesome situations.
Conclusion
“The burning . . . question is whether man will eventually master his institutions so that these will serve him and not rule him” (Meerloo, p. 228). Problems festered fifty years ago, as problems persist today. Experience has provided a solid basis for civilized nations to nurture and grow, when they desire to. Should a society become fixated for too long on an icon, or movie, and not understand the issues presented therein, internal conflicts arise, and impose themselves upon society as a whole. Then, organizations, large and small, may use all the tools at their disposal to fix what may not be broken. New lessons learned will fine tune the great computer, and a fine time will be had by all.

References
Hovland, D. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion: psychological studies of opinion change. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Likert, R. & Katz, D. (1951). Supervisory practices and organizational structures as they affect employee productivity and morale. In Hoslet, S. D. (Ed.), Human factors in management (Rev. ed., pp. 89-101). New York: Harper & Brothers.
Lumet, S (Director). (1957). 12 angry men [Motion picture]. United States: United Artists.
Maier, N. R. F. (1952). Principles of human relations: applications to management. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Meerloo, J. A. M. (1956). The rape of the mind: the psychology of thought control, menticide, and brainwashing. Cleveland: World Publishing Company.
Reusch, J., & Bateson, G. (1951). Communication: the social matrix of psychiatry. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Stueart, R. D., and Moran, B. B. (2002). Library and information center management (6th ed.). Westport: Libraries Unlimited.

Thats enough for now. Sleep tight. Johnny