Abstract
The public library service in Western Australia is unlike any British service in that while the books are provided, owned and distributed, by a State agency, The Library Board of Western Australia, the service points are independent libraries controlled by local authorities. Due in part to this inter-governmental relationship but mainly in the interests of efficiency, it has been necessary to analyse and formalize the procedures involved in financial estimation, processing and allocation of books to libraries.
The paper discusses the methods adopted to plan and control these three activities and indicates the principles upon which the methods are based. It is possible that the principles might have some application in other systems, both unitary as in Britain and State-aided as found in many overseas countries.
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