These proceedings include four articles intended to familiarize librarians with many facets of operations research and how they might be applied to their institutions. The first paper provides a brief definition of operations research. The second presentation, by Ralph Shoffner, relates, in the form of concrete examples, the questions one asks about libraries and the nature of assistance that can be given by operations research in formulating and answering these questions. A series of steps in the process of systems analysis is outlined in the third paper. It shows how operations research can be translated into mathematical terms for solution by computer. After a brief introduction of the various forms of operations research, it considers seven major techniques available to an operations researcher. They include decision theory, resource allocation, graph theory, queuing theory, simulation, and problem solving. The last paper presents a case study showing how to set up an operations research problem and how to solve it. A mathematical model is developed dealing with some of the factors which affect the manpower costs of book processing in libraries. (A list of participants, speakers and panelists is provided.) (CH)