It is fairly well known that the field of business management can be susceptible to fads. Organizational scientists have studied the adoption of business approaches like management-by-objectives, total quality management (TQM), business process re-engineering, just-in-time manufacturing, scorecard methods, and others. Their work has led to an interesting body of literature about management innovations and organizational change.
One idea from this literature is that management innovations can morph from 
the original ideas of their founders. Over time TQM began to promote practices that quality gurus like W. Edwards Deming warned against, for instance, bestowing individual rewards for quality objectives accomplished. And sometimes organizations take liberties with the specifics of an innovation. They might
Dr. Deming decide to use only the components they’re most comfortable with or add their own idiosyncratic twists.
Recently, the business profession came up with yet another data-driven bandwagon known as evidence-based management. And some in the library profession have become enamored with this new technique, in the variety I just named or in the form of “evidence-based practice.” Both varieties have been inspired by “evidence-based medicine,” an idea that surfaced in the early 1990’s in the field of medicine. (See Trinder, S. Reynolds (eds.) 2000. Evidence-Based Practice: A Critical Appraisal.)
Evidence-based medicine began with a specific objective: to systematically collect clinical research studies, assess their validity, reliability, and relevance, and synthesize study conclusions for physicians to use in making individual clinical decisions. Because one of the system’s main tenets is the need for objectivity, its practitioners have instituted strict procedures to make sure review summaries are impartial. Preferably, several studies on each medical topic should be reviewed and compared. (This is because single research studies cannot necessarily be trusted. Their findings can easily be subject to measurement, sampling, or design errors. Plus, studies can contradict each other, leaving it to the profession at large to sort things out.)
Despite its complexities, evidence-based medicine is an application of the common sense notion that verifiable data should be a part of any decision-making process. In the arena of management this has simply been thought of as sound decision-making. And the basic managerial idea has been around at least since the late 19th century. (Some of the earliest data-intensive management practices came from the railroad industry, where accurate tracking of cars, freight, rates, and schedules was essential.) Use of valid data for decision-making has been the foundation of scientific management, financial accounting, managerial control, and performance measurement as taught in business schools for decades.
Last year School Library Journal ran an article with the intriguing title The Evidence-Based Library Manifesto. I am not sure whether the title means that the Manifesto was supported by evidence or that this is a clarion call for evidence as a desirable thing. In any case, the title happens to perfectly express (sorry, I’m getting philosophical here…) a basic paradox that government and not-for-profit organizations face. Evidence is objective, empirical, and systematic while a manifesto is pure subjective belief and opinion. This is the dilemma of rationality versus commitment that Aaron Wildavsky explored in his classic article which I cited in a prior post.
Anyway, the gist of the SLJ article is that school libraries need to mobilize to justify their existences and that the libraries should capitalize on empirical studies that prove their effectiveness. In a 2009 article the same author, Ross Todd, wrote more about this:
At a local school level, evidence based practice of school librarianship seeks to demonstrate the value-added role of a school library to the life and work of a school—outcomes that center on learning, literacy and living… Todd, R. 2009. School Librarianship and Evidence-Based Practice, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 4(2), p. 88.
So let’s see. If we translate this quote into the terms of evidence-based medicine, we get:
At the level of the individual physician/practitioner, evidence based medicine seeks to demonstrate the positive effects of the physician’s overall professional practice on the patient–effects that center on good health, healthy life-styles and living…
To which I respectfully respond (excuse my French), “Au contraire!” The function of evidence-based medicine is not to promote or commend physicians’ decisions, but rather to inform them.
The practice has no agenda other than to help improve clinical decisions and patient health. Todd’s 2009 article even mentions this point in a description of a “gold standard” for evidence-based education which frowns on use of advocacy studies due to their inherent biases. Yet, the school libraries Manifesto aims to rally support for this use. WebJunction’s new model of “library management competencies” also urges librarians to “use evidence-based management to demonstrate the value of the library” (Gutshe, B. ed., 2009. Competency Index for the Library Field, p. 2). And the title of an editorial in Evidence Based Library and Information Practice promotes this stance.
I am all for our profession conducting advocacy and action research, outcome studies, and return-on-investment and cost-benefit analyses. But I believe we ought to name these what they really are. This is a truth-in-advertising thing for me—I admit it. Gathering information or devising studies to confirm the benefits, value, or impacts of libraries is not evidence-based practice or management. I don’t think we’re helping things by mis-applying these new buzzwords. Their definitions tend to mutate, sometimes to the point that they are just plain wrong. And this fuzziness can lead libraries to believe they are using one tool when in fact they are using quite another.
materials, he finds that hearts of cactus fruit are unavailable, so he substitutes chunks of cantaloupe; where the recipe calls for vermicelli he uses shredded wheat; and he substitutes green garment die for curry, ping-pong balls for turtle’s eggs, and, for Chalifougnac vintage 1883, a can of turpentine.” 
issued by the Ohio Arts Council, a state agency that funds and promotes the arts statewide. The report is based on economic modeling software that uses a technique originally developed in the 1960’s known as “input/output analysis.” Economists enter various economic data from federal and other sources into the modeling software. And—presto!—the model formulas produce a detailed breakdown of economic impacts that occur within the region of interest (in this case, Ohio). Extrapolating from whatever data the researchers feed it, the software identifies both “direct” and “indirect” impacts a given industrial sector is likely to have on other sectors. These figures indicate how the invisible hand of the market magically multiplies dollars and spreads them around.
When cultural and library organizations are viewed as mere stimulants to the economy, they are no longer distinguishable from rival public or private economic “engines”—daycare programs, E-Check, gambling, amusement parks, tattoo parlors, and so on.
