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The purpose of this paper is to link crowdsourcing, operations management (OM) and project management (PM). The study demonstrates how crowdsourcing as an open innovation mechanism is operationalised within a complex PM context. Specifically, the study seeks to understand how crowdsourcing as a novel form of OM improves key outcomes.

The authors conducted exploratory research involving five pure-play crowdsourcing firms based in the USA and Australia.

The findings indicate that the firms practise a form of crowdsourcing that allows flexible, efficient and low risk operations and links to contemporary notions of PM such as projectification and project society. The crowd can be used in a new manner to boost success factors tied to PM through open innovation and operational novelty. In terms of OM, crowdsourcing offers flexibility, speed, dynamism and scalability to project processes.

This research is based on five case studies. Further fine-grained, longitudinal research is required to fully understand this phenomenon in a wider range of contexts.

The paper contributes to practices tied to open innovation and provides guidance on how organisations might use large crowds to enhance PM success.

The study represents early scholarship on crowdsourcing and project operations. It makes three contributions. First, the authors introduce a new theoretical framework linking PM and novel aspects of crowdsourcing to extend understandings of projectification, as well as open innovation frameworks. Second, the authors showcase the flexibility and fluidity of the crowdsourcing project process. Third, the authors examine crowdsourcing operations in terms of size, efficiency and scalability which results in timely and efficient output due to innovative technology, along with the element of trust among stakeholders.

As Illinois completes 30 years of library systems and 100 years of the Illinois Library Association, it is appropriate to review “recent” history as a harbinger of what may lie ahead for the Illinois Library and Information Network (ILLINET). The network of libraries in Illinois, formally named in 1975, recognizes the cooperative efforts of library staff members in over 2,700 libraries and the leadership of the Illinois State Library in bringing resources to bear on the needs of all citizens of the state. Libraries of all types (academic, public, school, and special) become members of ILLINET when they join their regional library systems.

AT intervals the rules and regulations of libraries should be scrutinized. They are not in themselves sacrosanct as is the constitution of the Realm, but many exist which no longer have serviceable qualities. Nevertheless, so long as a rule remains in force it should be operative and its application be general and impartial amongst readers; otherwise, favouritism and other ills will be charged against the library that makes variations. This being so, it is imperative that now and then revision should take place. There is to‐day a great dislike of discipline, which leads to attacks on all rules, but a few rules are necessary in order that books may be made to give the fullest service, be preserved as far as that is compatible with real use, and that equality of opportunity shall be given to all readers. What is wanted is not “no rules at all,” but good ones so constructed that they adapt themselves to the needs of readers. Anachronisms such as: the rule that in lending libraries forbids the exchange of a book on the day it is borrowed; the illegal charge for vouchers; insistence that readers shall return books for renewal; the rigid limiting of the number of readers' tickets; or a procrustean period of loan for books irrespective of their character—here are some which have gone in many places and should go in all. Our point, however, is that rules should be altered by the authority, not that the application of rules should be altered by staffs. The latter is sometimes done, and trouble usually ensues.

WHILE there is no doubt that the system of issuing books at “net” prices is of great benefit to booksellers, there is also no doubt that, unless care is taken, it is a serious drain upon a limited book‐purchasing income. A few years ago the position had become so serious that conferences were held with a view to securing the exemption of Public Libraries from the “net” price. The attempt, as was perhaps to be expected, failed. Since that time, the system has been growing until, at the present time, practically every non‐fictional book worth buying is issued at a “net price.”

MAY is an early month for a conference. Blackpool in May has perhaps not the ideal climatic conditions that might be hoped for, if not always realized, at Torquay. But we are so glad to have a chance of reunion after the war that we are grateful there is a town which can take us in May if at no other time. If any are found ready to complain of time or place let them consult their own personal difficulty in finding somewhere to spend a holiday this summer; that difficulty, multiplied a thousand‐fold is the dilemma of any association that seeks to confer in body in the genial months. May, then, which in spite of the poets is a bleak if sometimes sunny month, will be accepted and made the best of.

HIS MAJESTY THE KING is winning new admiration, if that were possible, as the speaker of words on libraries which are memorable. At the opening of the University Library at Cambridge on October 22nd, he described that great new library as “both a power house and a testing station of educational activities,” and went on to say, “It is a workshop of new knowledge and a store‐house of seasoned wisdom.” It is difficult to think of phrases which convey more fully the work and aspirations of a great national library. We cannot refrain from mentioning again the significant fact that within one year His Majesty has opened two libraries, which together have cost £1,000,000 to build. If any have doubts as to the national attitude towards the library movement, they will probably be resolved in favour of the future of libraries by thinking of this. Of course, the Manchester Public Library was built out of the sum accumulated from the sale of a previous central library, and we know that one half of the £500,000 spent at Cambridge came from the International Education Board; but in the first case, the good will of Mancunians was required for the spending on the library of this large sum of money, and in the second case, £229,000 was obtained by public subscription from friends of Cambridge. These are works of faith which must have a very great effect upon the future of education and culture of England. If they were alone, however, they would have been significant, but when we remember that Leeds University and the City of Sheffield have built great libraries, and even in smaller places such as Dover a new library has been established, while there are many new branch libraries at Birmingham, Bristol, and elsewhere, and renovations of older libraries, as at Coventry and Croydon, and Nottingham, we realise that in a time which is thought to be one of depression, the public library has made strides which are almost as great as those of the early Carnegie days.

THE June conference at Margate is so near that we must needs be pre‐occupied with it at the moment although two months ago we were able to give an anticipatory description of the programme. The protracted and cold winter, culminating in the most “perishing” April of the century, possibly of any century since the Great Ice Age, seems on the threshold of May to have dissolved at last in warmer weather. Margate is a lady in the sun, but perhaps something else under cloud, and wise people take warm clothes when they visit her. We hope, however, that they will not be necessary and that for some hundreds of our readers Margate air will be an invigorating experience.