Librarianship and Information Work Worldwide 1998

Citation

Harrison, K.C. (1999), "Librarianship and Information Work Worldwide 1998", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.2.95.7

There was a time when The Library Association published a regular volume under the title of The Year’s Work in Librarianship, and although that publication did not entirely ignore international and comparative librarianship, it did tend to be rather insular in outlook, concentrating on British progress in the profession. But for the last seven years Librananship and Information Work Worldwide has been appearing, and it is now so firmly established as to be known as LIWW. Not only is this Bowker‐Saur publication more universal in coverage than the Year’s Work ever was, it covers a much wider field than librarianship, reflecting the growth of information work which has transformed the profession in recent decades. To produce a volume of this calibre the publishers could not have chosen a better‐qualified editor than Maurice Line, while he in turn has gathered together an impressive editorial team. There is an editorial advisory board of 23 experts from 19 different countries worldwide, including such names as Richard Dougherty of Ann Arbor, Stanley Made of Zimbabwe, Marianne Scott of Canada, and Colin Steele of Australia.

The contributors to this 1998 volume number 13 (14 if you include editor Paul Sturges who writes an epilogue), and they include Blaise Cronin, Graham Comish, Ray Astbury, Barry Bloomfield, Alan Gilchrist and others equally well‐known. The eleven chapters cover such areas as research and consultancy, staff management, rare books and special collections, health services information, and LIS in context, as well as the regular and expected chapters devoted to national, academic, public and special libraries.

The editorial control has ensured that each contributor conforms to a similar pattern, and this generally takes the form of an overview of the topic covered, followed by a list of references alphabetically arranged under their authors. My own field being that of public libraries, I looked immediately at that chapter, which is written by Ray Astbury, a past‐president of The Library Association whose background includes both public library experience and education for librarianship. Beginning with an assertion that public libraries are currently undergoing a process of transformation, he goes on to devote sections to public libraries and the business ethos; compulsory competitive tendering; legislation, reorganisation and restructuring; public libraries and lifelong learning; and finally, he includes a brief reference to the north‐south divide. Perhaps this latter section could have had a longer treatment. He rounds off his contribution with a list of references covering almost five pages.

I have only selected Astbury’s contribution to demonstrate the way in which all the contributors have tackled their tasks, and because it happens to be the area with which I am most familiar. The other ten chapters follow this layout, and each one will be found extremely useful, especially for the generous lists of references provided. Volumes such as LIWW are essential in these times of change, and in his epilogue Paul Sturges describes present‐day changes as fundamental and all‐embracing. Not only that, he is certain that changes will be dominant in forthcoming volumes in this series. “Fasten your seatbelts”, he concludes, “further turbulence is expected”.

It should be added that the utility of this volume is enhanced by a subject index and by an author index of all the writers listed in the references at the end of every chapter. To return to Maurice Line, the general editor of the series: he and his editors and publishers still believe that LIWW is too little known. If this is the case, this issue should do much to improve its standing in the profession.