Coordinating Report Functions from Online Systems: A Philosophic Essay

A pragmatic design-analysis philosophy of online management report features and functions is articulated for the efficient and useful compilation of all kinds of synoptic and detail-oriented online reports. Principles, practices, and possibilities are expounded for acquiring, assembling, analyzing, and appraising online management report features and functions. A variety of the many reports which library managers could acquire from various online library systems and applications are considered. The twin indexing and cataloging concepts of precoordination and postcoordination are used here to characterize a methodology of designing, utilizing, and comparing management report features from online sources. This subdiscipline of library-information science is defined by the author as "reportology." This essay is not a comprehensive survey of the particulars of downloading information into microcomputer applications, of mainframe "plumbing" report specifications, or a compendium of management report features found in various ILSs. (Some INNOPAC examples are featured, however.) Rather it is a sort of "philosophical primer" utilizing some analyzed cases-in-point of management reports, which are examined from the perspectives of hybrid information media, complex library organizations, and increasingly powerful technical-functional capabilities.