bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE CATCH 22 OF SUNDAY SERVICE
Authors: JACKAMAN PETER
Published: March 2008

It is difficult today, after a decade which has seen the introduction of the 35 hour week, when people spend more time at recreation than at work; and when as a result of these developments there has been a substantial growth in interest in leisure and its uses, to realise the difficulties which must have faced the pioneers of nineteenth century public library service in establishing a service which was accessible to its intended clientele, the working class; in particular the difficulty of establishing adequate opening hours. Today because of changing economic and social circumstances there has been a tendency to curtail the opening hours of libraries. While this has been done with some reluctance in most cases, it has been accompanied by very little discussion of its impact on library services and the users of those services. Historically the problem of opening hours for public libraries has been very little discussed. The general tendency has been to dismiss the matter as a very minor problem. Allred for example writes These libraries were soon opened at hours convenient to the working man.
CULTURE IN THE OLD WEST COAST
Authors: HAY DANIEL
Published: March 2008

I was fairly certain that I had explored most aspects of Whitehaven history. However this town of endless surprises had yet one more to spring on me. On his return my plumber friend unwrapped a parcel: it contained a ship's log — not the official one, but one kept by an apprentice on a voyage to the far east in the early nineteenth century — and the minute book of the Whitehaven Literary Society, 1820–1822. Of all the material things written about White‐haven very little has been said about its cultural activities. For the development of an interest in art it should be said by the way that the town owes a debt to William Gilpin of Scaleby Castle, the agent for Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven. Directly through his patronage of Matthias Read, and indirectly through his son and grandsons Gilpin contributed not a little to the promotion of painting in Cumberland and elsewhere.
THE LONDON LIBRARY BORROWINGS OF THOMAS CARLYLE, 1841–1844
Authors: BAKER WILLIAM
Published: March 2008

THOMAS Carlyle's personal crusade for the opening of a lending library in London and his enlisting for the support of that cause influential and wealthy patrons such as Lord Clarendon, Bulwer‐Lytton, Lord Lyttelton, Dean Milman, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Henry Hallam—amongst a host of other now forgotten early Victorian luminaries—is well documented. According to Robert Harrison's Preface to the 1888 fifth edition of the Catalogue of the London Library, it opened on 3 May 1841 “with a collection of about 3,000 volumes, which, by the following March, when the first Catalogue was published, had increased to 13,000” (p.viii). The Library was declared formally open on 24 May 1841 using a hired hall in Pall Mall. There were 500 members. In April 1845 the Library moved to its present location in St. James's Square.
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: PREPARING FOR A LONG HARD WINTER?
Authors: ANDERSON ALEX
Published: March 2008

THE reader should not be misled by James Thompson's title into expecting a history of university libraries chronologically from Alexandria to Atkinson or geographically from Bolivia to Taiwan. The aim of this volume of fifteen essays is more modest and more uncertain. The editor's original idea, one suspects, was for a survey mainly of the last 30 years' developments in British university libraries, with overseas contributions to give the international or comparative dimension. The contributors however—nine from the United Kingdom, three from the United States, one each from Canada and Australasia, and one expatriate Briton from Italy—have interpreted their brief variously. The period covered by each consequently varies considerably. With the somewhat anomalous exception of Italy the countries represented in the “comparative” essays belong exclusively to the Anglo‐Saxon tradition in the universities and their libraries. Despite the limited connotation of “international”, this book may be read as a complement to the recent SCONUL‐German symposium on the current situation in British and German university libraries to gain a somewhat more truly international overview.
THE OCCUPATIONAL IMAGE: POOR FOCUSING?
Authors: SLATER MARGARET
Published: March 2008

THE social image of any group, occupation or profession is not a single or uni‐dimensional phemonenon. It exists on several levels and assumes various forms. Each of these facets deserves recognition and separate consideration. In this paper an attempt is made to examine some major aspects of the image and some of the associated or attendant problems, in the following order:
THE ALLOA ACCOUNT
Authors: HOBSON JOHN I.
Published: March 2008

Even before local government reorganisation in 1975 individual public libraries were disappearing through amalgamations. John Hobson discusses one whose account was closed in 1936.
PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOKSTOCKS: NEW STANDARDS OR NO STANDARDS?
Authors: DURBIDGE LIONEL
Published: March 2008

This article is prompted by a concern for both quantity and quality of public library bookstocks. Twenty years ago, the Bourdillon report thought fit to focus concern for public librar) standards on urban areas of 30–40,000 population. Since then the shortcomings of crude numerical standards have been indicated, notably by P. H. Sewell, “The evaluation of library services in depth” (Unesco Bulletin for libraries, 32 Nov.‐Dec. 1968, pp 274–280) and to some extent recognised in the latest IFLA Standards for public libraries. But crude numeric data may have its uses in prompting deeper enquiry. In addition, concern that “comprehensive and efficient” service is a lost battle for readers in rural areas (who it would seem must accept disadvantage in the modern situation) results in a plea that the Bourdillon urban area—50,000 population is chosen for convenience—is where perhaps public librarians should seek a defence line.
AS I KNEW IT: THE LIBRARY WORLD
Authors: HARRISON K.C.
Published: March 2008

Other administrators of distinction have edited professional journals ably over several years. None has served under four companies over a decade as did the former City Librarian of Westminster. The bright covers, broad interests and fresh writing of Harrison's LW did much to extend the professional dialogue in the years of Roberts, Parry and Dainton. Here Harrison discusses the typical difficulties and the satisfaction of the professional gatekeeper.
USER EDUCATION — FOR LIFE?
Authors: RENNIE McELROY A. , BATE JOHN L.
Published: March 2008

User education programmes fall into two categories. They may aim simply to help the student through his course and familiarise him with a single library (short‐term objectives), or to provide a fuller awareness of the generation, role, and use of information which may allow him to research problems in any subsequent professional situation (long‐term objectives). It is argued that the latter are more valuable; the objectives of librarian and student on such courses are discussed in detail. A user education course based on long‐term objectives is described, and its effects on student and library discussed. Finally, the contribution of user education to the “information society” is considered, and user education programmes with long‐term objectives preferred.
STAFFING IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Authors: AGUOLU C.C.
Published: March 2008

To ascertain to what extent academic librarians in Nigeria satisfy the bibliographical and information requirements of scholarship and research, and whether the institutional settings in which staff work are conducive to effective professional service, this study, based upon the six oldest Nigerian University libraries, was undertaken. Among major elements examined were the librarians' perceptions of their responsibilities; their academic and professional backgrounds; work environments; job satisfaction and opportunities for continuing education and professional development. It was found that effective professional library service has been hindered by such factors as the inability of the library administrators to conceptualize the proper role of a librarian; rigid bureaucratization in the libraries; failure to separate professional from non‐professional duties or to match job content with relevant knowledge and capability; and by limited incentives and opportunities for continuing education and professional growth.
THROUGH DEPRESSION IN THE HAYES: THE HUNGRY, THE TROUBLED AND THE STUDIOUS
Authors: READY W.B.
Published: March 2008

It is a matter of sad record that the author of the memoirs from which this account of Cardiff in the 1930s has been extracted died while his work was still in the press. As “Files on parade” it is scheduled to appear in book form this year. By arrangement with Scarecrow Press, LR prints this extract in tribute to one of the most individual of its occasional contributors.
THE MAKING OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY
Authors: JONES GRAHAM
Published: March 2008

In the bright summer of 1945 history lay with a heavy weight on the library of the British Museum.
REFERENCE DIVISION
Authors: REVELL PETER
Published: March 2008

It may seem paradoxical to assert that the Reference Division, despte being the crown and glory of the new institution which began to operate on 1 July 1973, was, and to some extent still is, the least “national” of the various components which made up the whole.
THE INFORMATION PROVIDER
Authors: COLLISON R.L.
Published: March 2008

The annual Drama Festival at Welwyn Garden City provided me with my first sighting of Lionel McColvin. In the spring of 1931 I walked over from Knebworth to see McColvin stage his play To kill the Queen, acted by a group of players from Ipswich. He was a tall dark young man, and although his play did not win a prize it was well received. McColvin had an instinctive knack for dramatising situations, and years later I was reminded of his gift for this when he staged some scenes in aid of Westminster's post‐World War II civil defence training sessions. The same flair was there.
THE CHIEF
Authors: MAIDMENT W.R.
Published: March 2008

When I joined the Library Association in 1935 Lionel Roy McColvin was its Honorary Secretary. He was also Chief Librarian of Hampstead, a post I was myself to occupy some twenty‐five years later. During that quarter century, McColvin was the dominant figure in British public librarianship and became a world leader in our profession but, for nearly half the period, I knew little of him. The names that mattered to me in the late 1930s were those of tutors, examiners and the authors of textbooks and then, for six years, the important people were the generals, admirals and air chief marshals. After the war I had not had time to learn much about McColvin before I met him in 1947, when I was interviewed for a job in the City of Westminster Libraries.
THE NATIONAL INFORMATION RESOURCE
Authors: RATCLIFFE F.W.
Published: March 2008

In Britain, university libraries encountered a decline in funding later than in the US, but had never enjoyed support sufficient to permit ambitious acquisitions schemes designed to extend the national information resource which together academic library collections constitute. Hitherto new technology, so far from reducing the output of literature in conventional formats, has merely enlarged the number of the claimants for limited funds: snared cataloguing networks, while offering economies, threaten to erode the position of the scholar‐cataloguer, so posing a threat to parity with academic staff. Never, Ratcliffe argues, has the need been greater for the combined expertise of library staff and faculty in collection‐building for the future.
PURCHASING: THE LIBRARIAN AS LONER
Authors: McMURDO GEORGE
Published: March 2008

Appropriately, perhaps, the literature of library acquisitions is largely devoted to topics such as records management, vendor evaluation, selection sources, fugitive materials, budgeting, etc., rather than to the accounting aspects of acquisitions work. In core librarianship textbooks the same pattern applies, a small minority only addressing themselves to purchasing procedures in any detail. This paper attempts to reconsider the applicability of centralized and standardized purchasing procedures such as prevail in large‐scale public or commercial organisations for the purposes of library acquisitions, and offers some comment on the potential impact of automation in this context.
LOCAL AUTHORITY MANAGEMENT STRUCTURES AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE
Authors: ROGERS STEVE
Published: March 2008

The starting point for this paper is research undertaken for the British Library by the author and Margaret Lomer during 1981 and 1982. The principal reasons for carrying out that research were the concerns expressed by public librarians as to changes which had occurred in the management and organisation of local authorities from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s (ie approximately the period from the reorganisation of London local government to the reorganisation of local government in the remainder of the country). The changes which were of most concern were part of the movement towards “corporate management” and which involved the creation of conglomerate “programme” committees and directorates by amalgamating existing service committees and departments. Some librarians felt that the inclusion of the library service within a programme structure represented a diminution in status and was likely to have an adverse effect on the service. This concern was heightened by Peter Shore's ultimately ill‐fated proposals for Organic Change in 1979 which resurrected the desire to find the best, or most appropriate, location for the library service within the management structure of the local authority.
THE LEISURE SERVICES CONTEXT
Authors: LOVELL GEORGE
Published: March 2008

All public libraries have an important leisure function. For those serving socially stable communities of moderate size, communities without pressing problems of deprivation but in which higher education is not a major industry, it is almost their only function. Large city reference libraries certainly provide information services of indubitably educational nature for students, research workers, industry and commerce, usually serving areas wider than the cities which finance them. Always their librarians are conscious of an educational role, absorbing a quarter to a third of their staff and expenditure, but they too operate lending and community‐based activity services. Smaller towns by contrast maintain informational services adequate for the general needs of their own communities but reliant upon regional reference libraries as referral points for specialist enquiries and research. Authorities serving amorphous, ill‐centred suburban chunks of a large conurbation, with easy access to a large library at the conurbation centre, usually provide little more than quick‐reference and community information services, similar to what better‐centred services provide in larger branch libraries. Prosperous residential suburbs, small market towns and poor inner‐city areas with social problems and unstable populations need quick‐reference and information provision differing as to stock, accommodation and staff. In deprived areas, community information service answering questions on social benefits and personal needs and crises will be the main feature. In prosperous areas, school homework, students on vacation and local leisure opportunities will dominate.
OUTREACH
Authors: MARTIN W.J.
Published: March 2008

The appearance of a paper on outreach in an issue devoted to practical achievement might strike some readers as odd. For one thing, outreach as a theoretical concept can appear far removed from the realities of librarianship. For another and despite any potential applications it might possess, the term is hedged about in ambiguity, misunderstanding and to an extent mistrust. Even in those circles where the term enjoys a fair degree of acceptance, one can be hard put to find a consensus as to what it actually means. And yet this is by no means the whole story because that outreach has had some influence upon library affairs during the past ten to fifteen years is quite certain. This paper re‐examines the concept and considers the extent to which it has spread among public libraries in the United Kingdom, both in terms of understanding and as regards the provision of services. An attempt will also be made to assess public library performance in respect of outreach librarianship.
THE ALA PLANNING PROCESS: THE SHEFFIELD EXPERIENCE
Authors: ATKINS ROBERT
Published: March 2008

Probably few members of the library profession in Britain will know of a project carried out in late 1978 and the first half of 1979 to test the applicability of the ALA Planning Process for Public Libraries to libraries in the UK. Indeed, many outside the US may not be aware that any such process existed. Briefly, it was developed for the Public Library Association, a division of the American Library Association, by Vernon E. Palmour, Marcia C. Bellassai and Nancy V. DeWath in 1977 and 1978 and subsequently published as a do‐it‐yourself manual. The Process represents a new approach to the setting of public library standards leading away from national input‐based standards towards the development of locally appropriate goals and objectives.
METROPOLIS 1900–1965: BRICKS AND MORTAR
Authors: DEWE MICHAEL
Published: March 2008

In 1886, Thomas Greenwood had been rightly critical of the lack of public libraries in London. Eight years later, he was able to describe a changed situation. Following further adoptions of the Acts purpose‐built public libraries were to be found at Battersea, Bermondsey, Camberwell, Chelsea, Lambeth and St. Martin‐in‐the‐Fields, for example. Greenwood wrote appreciatively of further developments:
LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT: THE COLLEGES AND INSTITUTES OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Authors: BREWER GORDON
Published: March 2008

The colleges and institutes of higher education (CIHE) constitute the least well‐known, the least well‐resourced, and the most varied and complex sector of higher education provision in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the variety and complexity of the institutions involved, both in their present character and in their origins and traditions, are such that it is tempting to view their existence as a “sector” as nothing more than an historical accident. Certainly the manner of the emergence of the colleges from the reorganisation of higher education (and teacher training in particular) during the 1970s contrasts strongly with the purposeful creation of the polytechnics in the years following the publication of A plan for polytechnics and other colleges in 1966. Although the creation of what has become in effect a third higher education sector was in one sense a consequence of the James Report, which proposed diversification in the colleges of education into non teacher training courses, James did not foresee the widespread closures and mergers which were to come. Coming in 1972 after a period of very rapid growth in teacher training, James envisaged the colleges continuing to develop as a separate group, and largely ignored the consequences of demographic change. The birthrate, however, was falling from 1964 onwards, and the implications for the colleges whose main commitment was to the training of teachers were enormous. In the end, it was this decline in the demand for teachers as much as the policy recommendations of the James Report which led to the establishment of the CIHE.
EDUCATION FOR LIBRARIANSHIP: THE BIG PICTURE
Authors: DAVINSON DONALD
Published: March 2008

The Council for National Academic Awards could be said to have been fathered by SPUTNIK I, the first space satellite launched in 1957 by the USSR. This signal achievement, a great shock to Western democracies hitherto convinced of their technical and cultural superiority, induced national soul searching particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. Inevitably such soul searching turned upon the higher education system. If SPUTNIK I was the progenitor of CNAA, Lord Robbins was its midwife. The so called Robbins Report, which examined the structure of higher education in the United Kingdom, concluded that there was need to expand significantly the cadres of qualified manpower available by the expansion of opportunities for university level education. It was recognised by Lord Robbins' Committee of Enquiry that in the areas of professional and specifically vocational higher education the United Kingdom had failed seriously to furnish itself appropriately by its existing patterns of higher education provision.
EDUCATION FOR LIBRARIANSHIP: THE GRASS‐ROOTS PERSPECTIVE
Authors: JEFFERSON GEORGE
Published: March 2008

In 1964 two events taxed the energies and imaginations of lecturers in schools of librarianship — the introduction by the Library Association of a new syllabus and the inauguration of the Council for National Academic Awards. One was the culmination of an examination system nurtured by an organisation which had shaped for so long their professional context as practitioners and as teachers. The other heralded a system, as promulgated by Robbins, which would provide the opportunity and stimulus for colleges “to pioneer and experiment on distinctive lines in accordance with their own traditions”. The transition from the custom and practice of one to the innovative possibilities of the other was the greatest single challenge confronting lecturers in non‐university schools of librarianship. It was a challenge made more formidable by the general lack of support — indeed hostility — of the profession at large, furthering the divide between schools and practitioners, and by the characteristic ambivalence of the Library Association. The status quo of custom and practice seemed sufficient to many.
KEITH HARRIS: PRINCIPLES OF POLYTECHNIC LIBRARIANSHIP
Authors: THOMPSON JAMES
Published: March 2008

Keith Harris, Librarian of Newcastle Polytechnic, died at the age of 60 on 18 February, 1983. There have since been many personal tributes to this outstanding colleague. At the invitation of LR James Thompson, a friend for more than 30 years, here assesses his professional contribution, as represented in his writings.
INFORMATION‐SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF SCOTLAND'S LIBRARY PRACTITIONERS
Authors: NAZIM ALI S.
Published: March 2008

During the summer of 1981, fifty library practitioners affiliated with various types of library in Scotland were interviewed to find out how practitioners keep themselves up‐to‐date with current innovation and their likes and dislikes in terms of the various forms of material available in the dissemination of research results. The interview sample was drawn from the total library manpower of 15,696 librarians and information workers as represented in the Census of staff in librarianship and information work in 1976. A quota sample of 50 practitioners was selected in proportion to the sizes of the three categories mentioned in footnote (1): 27 (54.0 percent) practitioners from public libraries; 14 (28.0 percent) from academic libraries; and Finally 9 (18.0 percent) from special and government libraries. In order to interview the first set of 27 practitioners, six public library systems were visited: Glasgow (Mitchell), Renfrew, Dundee. Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Highland Regions. Four academic library systems were visited to interview 15 practitioners: Edinburgh University, Heriot‐Watt University, Paisley College and Napier College. Four special and government libraries were visited to interview 9 practitioners: Scottish Office. Department of Environment, Royal College of Physicians, and the National Library of Scotland were selected. In each type of library a minimum of one and maximum of five practitioners was interviewed from different departments or sections and the chief librarians were excluded from the samples.
CRITIC AND CREATOR
Authors: HAISTE J.H.
Published: March 2008

F. G. B. Hutchings came almost a generation after the early “organisation”men — R. J. Gordon, J. P. Lamb, and their contemporaries. He was in many ways more seminal and more cultured. He had a range as a librarian that put him apart. I worked for him at Leeds from 1946 to 1950, and learned much. But it was only when I became librarian at Rugby, where Fred had served from 1932 to 1938, that I fully realised what a dynamo the early F. G. B. Hutchings must have been. He was the first qualified librarian there, the first breath from outside. The Urban District had just become a Borough, its population increasing from 19,000 to 32,000.
THE SETTING
Authors: MARTIN W.J.
Published: March 2008

The island of Ireland lies in the Atlantic Ocean separated from its neighbour Great Britain to the east by the Irish Sea. Ireland itself is divided geographically and politically, with the six northern counties forming part of the United Kingdom with Great Britain, and the remaining 26 counties constituting the territory of the Irish Republic. The Republic has a total land area of nearly 7 million hectares and a population of around 3 million people.
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Authors: PHILLIPS SEAN
Published: March 2008

For the Republic of Ireland, as for most European countries, the period since the Second World War has been one of growth and expansion in higher education. This has resulted partly from a growing population of young people and partly from the demand for trained manpower in response to increasing industrialisation and technological change. Total enrolment in all sectors of higher education trebled from 15,000 in 1950 to more than 45,000 in 1983, and during the same period the number of students in the universities rose from 8,000 to 27,000. The rapid increase in enrolments led to the appointment of a Commission on Higher Education which reported in 1967. Many of its recommendations have been overtaken by subsequent developments, but two central themes were that increased state investment in higher education was a precondition of social and economic progress, and that the growing demand for higher education was so large and so diverse that new institutions should be established to cope with it. Accordingly, in addition to expansion in virtually all the existing universities and colleges, two new national institutes of higher education have been established since 1970, together with nine regional technical colleges, in which the emphasis is on courses in the applied sciences and technological and business studies. As far as state investment in higher education is concerned, around 80% of the financial provision for almost all the institutions is derived from state funds. The distribution of these funds to the universities and national institutes of higher education is one of the functions of the Higher Education Authority, a body established in 1968 on the recommendation of the Commission, and whose other functions include the continuous review of the need for and provision of higher education, and the coordination of financial planning and development.
LEARNED SOCIETY LIBRARIES
Authors: DOLAN BRIGID
Published: March 2008

Learned societies, with well defined research objectives, were formed for the organisation and dissemination of Irish scholarship in the 18th century. For the members, the societies provided meeting places for the discussion of research projects, facilities for the publication of papers and a library for their use. The library had a reading room for the consultation of manuscript or printed material and the members were entitled to borrow books.
THE PROFESSION
Authors: O'BYRNE MAIRIN
Published: March 2008

The history of the early years of the library movement in Ireland must be read in conjunction with its political counterpart in order to understand why, although the enabling Acts were almost contemporaneous with those in Britain, little or no growth took place in public sector libraries outside the major cities in the turbulent times before 1928. The academic libraries looked for scholarly excellence and subject specialisation in their staff and were satisfied that, given these qualifications, the collection and organisation of their book resources were adequately catered for. But the pressure of a lending system, with its requirement of an organised and controllable lending stock, ensured that those engaged in it in the major urban centres quickly recognised the need for special qualification, and turned to the Library Association in Britain to follow its courses leading to Fellowship. The need for an Irish library school was perceived, and Adams suggested Dublin as its base, as early as 1919. Little progress was recorded until 1928 when two major developments took place simultaneously — the School of Library Training was established in University College Dublin and the Library Association of Ireland was founded. William Martin in his thesis for the Fellowship of the Library Association of Ireland suggests that the impetus for the establishment of the school came from within University College Dublin where it was perceived as a vehicle for enabling graduates to obtain posts in the emerging County Libraries. Others, with perhaps more authority, have held that there were pressures on the College by the fore‐runner of the Library Association of Ireland (Cumann na Leabharlann) to provide an opportunity for Irish people engaged in library work to obtain a qualification in their own country. Whichever the reason, it is clear that there was conflict between the School, which was conceived by the University as offering a postgraduate qualification, and the public library sector which saw only the danger that such a regulation would close all opportunity for qualification, and by implication promotion to the new county libraries, to all but a very few of their staff. In the circumstances University College agreed to admit non‐graduate public library staff having an approved length of experience and having successfully completed a year's study of the Arts course to the Diploma Course. This practice has continued to the present day.
MULTI‐SITE MANAGEMENT; THE COMPUTER CONTRIBUTION IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Authors: PUGH LYDON
Published: March 2008

A survey of the literature of automation indicates not surprisingly that the use of the computer as a management tool apart from as a provider of statistics has attracted little attention. Chorba and Bommer for example see automation as a question of decision support systems, and Runyon typically regards library management as depending crucially upon a total systems approach. One of the most comprehensive accounts of computerisation in an academic library in the UK similarly reveals an inevitable concentration on the systems. The use of the computer as a part of a management philosophy per se is one which is hardly touched upon, yet in a multi site organisation in particular it can be of vital significance in itself. In the context of the particular problems of this kind of library service it is a general aid to management in a much broader sense.
THE ONLINE CATALOGUE, SUBJECT ACCESS AND USER REACTIONS: A REVIEW
Authors: WANG CHIH
Published: March 2008

INTRODUCTION Computers and new information technologies have beyond question brought tremendous advancement in information storage and retrieval. In recent years, the traditional card catalog has given way first to the COM (computer output on microform) catalog, then to the online catalog. Now, many libraries are shifting to the new capability in order to provide better and faster services to their patrons.
FROM LANCASHIRE TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE; RAYMOND IRWIN AND PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP
Authors: STAVELEY RONALD
Published: March 2008

The former colleague at University College of Raymond Irwin (1902–1976) and his obituarist here presents a fuller portrait of this unusual man.
RURAL LIBRARY PROVISION IN HEREFORDSHIRE; THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
Authors: CRAWFORD JOHN C.
Published: March 2008

Although Herefordshire does not have long traditions of rural library provision two experiments took place in the 1890s. (1) In 1894, the newly founded Colwall Parish Council started providing a wide range of services, including a rate supported library from 1899. The problems of library administration within the framework of parochial government are examined. (2) From 1899 John Percival, bishop of Hereford, provided an itinerating library service based on ecclesiastical parishes. Although reorganised and extended in 1906 it proved expensive to operate and met with hostility from community leaders. It pioneered features found in the later county library service.
PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICES IN MALAYSIA: AN ANALYSIS
Authors: HUCK TEE LIM
Published: March 2008

Alexander Wilson belongs to a long line of British librarians who have contributed significantly to the development of libraries and librarianship in Malaysia. His major contributions to Malaysia include the preparation of the architectural brief and development programme for the Kedah State Library in 1978, and his assistance to Malaysian libraries in making available copies of Malay documents and books which had been deposited in the British Library (then British Museum) during the colonial period. This essay is written in honour of his contributions to Malaysian librarianship.
INTO A NEW CHESHIRE
Authors: GEE PATRICK
Published: March 2008

The public library service for the County of Cheshire administered by the former Cheshire County Council since 1922 was mainly a book lending service to the more rural areas of the county with village library centres staffed by volunteers and later a mobile library service. Branch libraries served small towns and the suburban fringes of the larger towns with a student library postal loan service as support. Library services in most of the larger towns were run by the borough or urban district authorities, and in all there were eighteen library authorities in Cheshire by 1964. In 1965 S. G. Berriman, the former County Librarian of Middlesex, was appointed to the new post of Director of Libraries and Museums for Cheshire County Council, and with the support of an independent Library Committee, rather than a Sub Committee of the Education Committee, he proposed and achieved a massive development programme. Between 1964 and 1973 the face of the Cheshire Library Service was transformed as substantial money both capital and revenue was made available for the very first time and many new libraries were built. With the advent of local government reorganisation and the proposed changes to the shape of Cheshire that exciting developmental period was over, and Berriman decided to retire early as Director of Libraries and Museums to allow a new man to steer the service into the new Cheshire. Appointed in 1972, that man was Alex Wilson.
LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICE TO LOCAL AUTHORITY ELECTED MEMBERS AND STAFF
Authors: FLEMING EDWIN
Published: March 2008

The large scale and far reaching functions of local government in the United Kingdom today are eloquent proofs of the universal demand for local services of high quality and wide coverage extending into almost every sector of life from literally the cradle to the grave. In the cities of Britain local government is often found to employ more people than any other single organisation. There are some 25,400 councillors in Britain and around 2,500,000 employees. The total expenditure of local authorities in England and Wales for 1984–85 was estimated at £24,323,000,000.1 The services provided include departments for development and planning, art galleries, libraries, museums, engineers, building surveyors, environmental health, architects, estate surveyors, housing, leisure and recreation, social services, economic development, education, transport, highways, trading standards, fire brigade, and police. In addition each local authority has departments mainly concerned with services to the other departments: the chief executive or secretary, personnel and management, solicitor, treasurer, and central purchasing services. Each of these departments has several important subdivisions, and clearly all require a constant inflow of information, and increasingly it is recognised local authorities generate large quantities of important information which can be used more widely with benefit within the authority, as well as outside.
RELEVANCE AND REALITY IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Authors: WINKWORTH IAN , ENRIGHT BRIAN
Published: March 2008

The fifteen years before Atkinson represented for many British university librarians a golden age, as the number and size of universities expanded, young men received promotion long before they might reasonably have expected, and funds for collections and buildings to house them became available on a scale never before seen in most British universities. The thesis of this contribution is that the “golden age” provided an opportunity for the testing of attitudes and approaches to academic librarianship which before had always been constrained by financial circumstances, and that in that test the traditional philosophies were found wanting. The Atkinson Report was a turning point when the reluctant academic library community was reminded of reality.
BEYOND THE SPACE AGE
Authors: BATE JOHN
Published: March 2008

ATKINSON was mainly about space. However, certain very important general principles emerge in the report, firstly that the allocation of limited resources among universities cannot be decided without “making assumptions about the role and operation of libraries”. The report was not concerned with these assumptions, although it noted, secondly, that in deciding how much space should be allocated for readers, much depended “on local circumstances and teaching patterns”.
THE PAST AS PROLOGUE: TWO DECADES OF MISSED CHANCES
Authors: BESWICK NORMAN W.
Published: March 2008

It is heartbreaking to recall that in 1970 it was possible to be very hopeful that a great new age of British school librarianship was about to dawn. It did not happen: and this despite the best activities of some school librarians and some local education authorities; and despite some positive statements by professional associations, and some research projects and official reports. It could be important to ask what went wrong. Although the circumstances may not recur, asking the right questions might give us helpful answers for when the campaign for school libraries starts again, tomorrow morning.
THE MATERIALS AND THEIR CHANGING NATURE
Authors: FOTHERGILL RICHARD
Published: March 2008

Forecasting for the future is fun and when I started in education in the sixties my guesses were fairly accurate. So few new materials and methods of presentation were being produced that more of what we had was the likely future. Now, however, the situation is very different. Change is the watchword that we all carry around, some with considerable apprehension. Over the last few years many new options have opened up for education and there is no likelihood that this will do anything but continue. Forecasting the future is still fun, but the chances of successful guesses are much lower. It is only the brave man who tries, but I have been asked to be brave — so here goes.
EDUCATING SCIENTIFIC END‐USERS: AN EXPERIMENT IN UNDERGRADUATE ON‐LINE RETRIEVAL TUTORIALS
Authors: JAMES STUART
Published: March 2008

Paisley College of Technology was originally founded in 1897 and in 1950 became a Scottish Central Institution; it currently has some 3000 students, all of whom are studying at undergraduate or postgraduate level for degrees validated by the Council for National Academic Awards. All the courses are vocationally‐oriented with a high level of practical work and with several departments running sandwich courses; the College has considerable links with industry, including some teaching companies based within the College. The College is organised initially into three Schools: of engineering; of science; and of social, planning and management sciences. There are also several specialist research and teaching units (Scottish School of Non‐Destructive Testing, Microelectronics Quality Assurance Laboratory, Materials and Components Development and Testing Association, etc.).
THE MICROCOMPUTER IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY: MISLIP IN SCOTTISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Authors: WILLIAMS DOROTHY A.
Published: March 2008

The present climate in education is one of change with increasing emphasis on independent learning and resource‐based learning. The decisions facing today's youngsters will require that they know how and where to “find out” for themselves, whether it is where to collect the relevant form, how to locate a useful contact address or how to make sense of the wealth of information available in any particular field of knowledge. Central to this ability to think and learn for oneself is the ability to make the best use of available information.
MISLIP IN PRACTICE: CUMNOCK ACADEMY
Authors: NOLAN AUDREY
Published: March 2008

During the past year at Cumnock Academy, Ayrshire, MISLIP has progressed from being an experimental package introduced to the school via the library and has become a novel and useful part of the work of several teaching departments. As MISLIP has developed, the importance of the practical considerations involved in putting it into practice in a school has become more obvious. In this article I would like to outline a few of the practical aspects which must be considered before MISLIP becomes part of the curriculum.
THE IFLA ROUND TABLE ON RESEARCH IN READING
Authors: KAEGBEIN PAUL
Published: March 2008

For a number of years problems of research in reading have been given some priority in the work of the IFLA Section on Library Theory and Research. As it is one of the Section's objectives as formulated in IFLA's Medium Term Programme to promote communication and co‐operation among researchers in library and information science as well as to improve the contacts between researchers and practitioners, the organisation of international seminars on research subjects has been one primary task of the Section.
PRINTED AND ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR ENGLISH LITERARY STUDIES: A DECADE OF CHANGE
Authors: MADDEN LIONEL
Published: March 2008

The last decade has witnessed considerable changes in the nature and range of the general current bibliographies which serve the student of English literature. The development of an online database for modern languages and literature, including English, has added a new dimension to bibliographical provision. One entirely new printed service has been introduced and existing printed bibliographies have been significantly modified. Librarians are among the main purchasers of these materials and are also called upon to advise on their value and use. The present article surveys the developments which have taken place and seeks to identify the particular value of each work as a contribution to the bibliographical control of newly published materials in this field.
LANCASHIRE COUNTY LIBRARY'S INTEGRATED COMPUTER SYSTEM
Authors: DUNBAR GRAHAM G.W.
Published: March 2008

Lancashire County was formed, following Local Government Reorganisation in 1974, from eighteen constituent parts, including the former County and several independent Borough Authorities.
THE IMPORTANCE OF USER STUDIES
Authors: HANNABUSS STUART
Published: March 2008

The relationship between information provider and client is a crucial measure of effectiveness. In commerce the success of this relationship might be measured by market share or profitability, while in the non‐profit sector, where most libraries and information services (but not all) exist, the success might be measured by criteria such as document delivery and satisfaction. We speak of effectiveness, implying the extent to which the service can successfully impact upon and meet the needs of the users. Particularly if the model which management supports is a community‐based model (as opposed, say, to a stock‐holding model), then the relationship and interaction between service and user group lies at the heart of the matter.
LABORATORY IN THE LIBRARY: ARCHIVAL CONSERVATION IN STIRLING UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Authors: DAVIS ROBIN. J.
Published: March 2008

The word “librarian” sums up brilliantly the notion that librarians work in libraries, but is in other respects most uninformative: it tells the world nothing about the myriad activities with which librarians are associated. One of the latest specialised activities is conservation, which means much more than being the “keeper” of our collections. Conservation as currently understood implies taking active steps to prevent the physical deterioration of the collections in our care, and involves bringing in to play the knowledge and skills of the paper and leather chemists. As conservation becomes established as an essential part of librarianship, white‐coated laboratory scientists become part of the library team and management makes contingency plans in case of disasters such as fire or flood. Stirling University Library has responsibility for a number of special collections whose quality and diversity may surprise those who think of the university as one of the smallest in the country. We also have a link with the Leighton Library, Dunblane, whose Trustees look to us for advice on the care and maintenance of the books and manuscripts in their ownership, and it was through this partnership that practical conservation first took hold at Stirling about five years ago. At that time it was the conservation of items produced in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that was of most concern to us, and we were fortunate in finding to hand Jan Michaels, a Canadian conservation scientist living locally, and more than happy to act as consultant. The British Library was happy too, and provided financial support for the project. The main conservation effort in recent years has however been concentrated on two modern archives held in the university library, the Howietoun Fish Farm Archive and the Grierson (film documentary) Archive, and it is this work, under the title “Conservation of Scottish library materials of national importance” that has attracted most external interest and attention.
THE ROLE OF THE CONSERVATION UNIT WITHIN SHEFFIELD CITY LIBRARIES
Authors: JANUSZONOK TERESA
Published: March 2008

In 1983 the Conservation Unit for Sheffield City Libraries was created within the Archives Section (Sheffield Record office), employing the first qualified (sole) conservator in archive and library material (the Conservator obtained the Society of Archivists Certificate in Archive Conservation). Similar to the position in other institutes, the post of Conservator was a direct development from the position of Document Repairer whose sole objective was to “repair” those books, documents and manuscripts which were damaged.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES
Authors: HANNABUS STUART
Published: March 2008

The notion of a good library lies implicit in much service. It can rest on objective factors, like the speed with which documents are retrieved, and on subjective ones such as how helpful the library staff happen to be. Often our view draws on both. For librarians and library managers, too, there is a need to consider the goodness of the system. It may lie in its rate of satisfaction, in its market penetration, in the subtle integration of user education programmes into the curriculum, the cost‐effectiveness of the aquisition arrangements, or the work elicited from staff each week. Looking at the good library, then, impels both users and staff, clients and managers, to consider — and then test operationally — performance measures.
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE INDEXES AT MORAY HOUSE
Authors: MACPHERSON RUBY
Published: March 2008

Moray House College of Education (incorporating the Scottish Centre for Physical Education, Movement and Leisure Studies) is the largest college of education on the east coast of Scotland. It offers a wide range of pre‐ and in‐service courses in, among other things, social work, community education, overseas education and of course, teaching.