To promote greater accountability, supervisors in mental health facilities will be required to monitor activities of their organizations. The Outpatient Division of the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences has developed an administrative accounting based on management by objectives. Presents the evolution, philosophy, and format of the…

Discusses the role of the library administrator as library manager and the utility of various currently available management systems and techniques, such as PPBS and MBO. (JVP)

Summarizes the advantages for schools of contracting a food service management company, and lists the questions to ask when evaluating a food service management contract bid. (Author/MLF)

Ohio's Handicapped Education Learners Planning System, a computer based information management system, is discussed in terms of its development and use in special education settings. (CL)

The article discusses the importance of continuous organizational change and renewal and presents ten conditions that must be met before renewal or change can come about. (MF)

A description of Iowa's new accounting procedure that has the capability to accommodate the smallest as well as the largest schools in the state. (Author/MLF)

Looks at a few of the basic underlying premises of business management theory and the possible misconceptions which exist concerning the application of this theory to higher education instruction. (Author/RK)

The DELTA Chart acts as a communication device by displaying project needs in flow-chart form. Its five elements are: Decision box, Event box, Logic box, Time Arrow, and Activity box. It can also provide the administrator with better planning and monitoring capabilities. For journal availability see HE 509 147. (LBH)

Educational administrators should recognize both the usefulness of the analytical techniques available, and also their limitations. Administrators must begin to recognize the existence of the ethics or values that underlie all decisions. (Author/IRT)

Outlines what zero base budgeting is and how it can be applied to the educational system. (MLF)

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are automated information systems designed to aid administrative decision making. A literature review on the design, implementation, and evaluation of DSS, suggests that evaluators act as liasons between designers and managers, identify and collect data for DSS, and evaluate DSS. (Author/EGS)

The potential that exists for expanding services and automating routine procedures via the microcomputer has been greatly increased by the advances in database managers. A database manager is described as a collection of programs that perform many data manipulation functions that would have required elaborate programming work in the past. (MLW)

Four articles discuss library uses of dBase III: (1) an interlibrary loan journal request file; (2) an acquisitions system; (3) customized multi-column output for reports; and (4) a circulation system. Program listings are included. (EM)

Problem solving and decision making are considered to be keys to successful management. A normative method for problem solving is presented, suggesting that the analysis of the problem be structured along a five-step procedure: problem identification, analysis, decision alternatives, decision making, and decision implementation. Follow-up…

Offers models of three message design logics--expressive, conventional, and rhetorical--as alternatives to the premises and beliefs of ends to means reasoning. Describes a general method of message analysis based on these models, which is exemplified in a study of messages used in addressing a regulative communication task. (MM)