Date of Award

Summer 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

7-29-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Public Administration and Policy

Program

Public Administration and Policy

First Advisor

Ellen V. Rubin

Committee Members

Mila Gasco Hernandez, Edmund C. Stazyk

Keywords

Organizational Responsiveness, Social Equity

Subject Categories

Public Administration

Abstract

Public libraries are public service organizations, playing a critical role in ensuring equitable access to education and information for the community. Despite their growing importance, there is limited empirical evidence on how local libraries respond to the needs of diverse socioeconomic populations within their communities. This study examines the collection management decisions of local public libraries to assess whether they make differentiated service decisions and what factors influence their responsiveness. Using the concept of organizational responsiveness, it explores organizational responsiveness through the lens of equitable distribution of public service benefits and considers the role of public administrators in shaping those service decisions.

This study tests five hypotheses for each of two outcomes, the proportion of digital collections and digital collection expenditures, to address three research questions: (1) Do the collection management decisions of local public libraries respond to the unarticulated needs of socially vulnerable populations? (2) What are the organizational and managerial factors that influence the libraries’ responsiveness to the needs of socially vulnerable populations? (3) Does deliberation with the local government positively influence the libraries’ responsiveness to the needs of socially vulnerable populations?

To test these hypotheses, I use a nine-year panel dataset compiled from three different sources: (1) the Public Library Survey (PLS) administered by the American Library Association (ALA) for FY 2011 to 2019; (2) the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) using select items from the American Community Survey (ACS) administered by the U.S. Census Bureau for FY 2011 to 2019; and (3) the Local Libraries Advancing Community Goals 2016 survey administered by the ASPEN Institute and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) for FY 2016. Empirical analyses for all three research questions are conducted using high-dimensional fixed effects models, which is a linear regression designed to control for a large number of groups by absorbing group-specific heterogeneity to obtain the estimates from efficient estimation. To further unpack the overall effect, this study further provides the estimates from extensive margin and intensive margin model.

The findings provide mixed support for the hypotheses and highlight several key insights. First, public libraries adjust their digital holdings in response to the needs of socially vulnerable population, but this responsiveness does not extend to digital collection spending. Second, public professionalism acquired through accredited LIS programs is associated with reduced responsiveness in digital collections, though its effect on expenditure is not significant. Third, among libraries that have any digital collection, libraries with organizational autonomy demonstrate higher responsiveness in digital holdings. Lastly, organizational performance gaps and deliberation levels do not significantly influence organizational responsiveness.

This study makes theoretical contributions to the literature on organizational responsiveness and social equity and offers practical insights for public service organizations. First, it advances the conceptual understanding of responsiveness by (1) framing responsiveness as directed toward marginalized populations with limited political representation and engagement, and (2) emphasizing responsiveness as a means of improving public service accessibility, an area underexplored in public management research. Second, public libraries as public service organizations demonstrate responsiveness to the needs of socially vulnerable communities. Organizational characteristics such as public professionalism and, in part, organizational autonomy influence the degree of that responsiveness. Particularly, the findings highlight the importance of carefully managing public professionalism to better serve marginalized populations. This has meaningful implications for personnel management, particularly in organizations staffed by professionally trained administrators.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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