Application of Systems Analysis in Designing a New System

MODERNSYSTEMS ANALYSIS was conceived and born in the computer field. All computers depend on detailed instructions at the elementary level. Machines built before the mid-1950s had no internal programming aids, so the programmer was forced to think and work at this same elementary level. Even the simplest problem was prone to error as it was being planned and coded. Programmers naturally looked for tools and techniques that would reduce this error rate; they called this collection of tools and techniques “systems analysis.” Others, particularly industrial engineers, saw the similarity between their own “efficiency” tools and systems analysis, which they adopted and expanded into noncomputer areas. Systems analysis evolved into the analysis, design, evaluation, and control of complex systems. However, engineers restricted its development to the scientific method. By the early 1960s it had become an engineering discipline. During this period, the library profession began to feel the need for new tools and techniques to control its growth. This was especially true in the universities. Dix’s description1 of university libraries during the two decades following 1950 clearly shows the need for new management tools. The newness of systems analysis and the special nature of librarianship provided a unique opportunity for material enrichment as the two fields began to come together. Librarianship cuts across many fields, but it saw itself as a humanistic or behavioral science. Systems analysis as developed by engineers was a natural science. The library profession had a choice: it could have accepted systems analysis simply as an engineering discipline and applied it to that narrow range of engineering-oriented library problems; or it could