Co‐operation in Action: Collaborative Initiatives in the World of Information

Citation

James, S. (2002), "Co‐operation in Action: Collaborative Initiatives in the World of Information", Library Review, Vol. 51 No. 9, pp. 478-479. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2002.51.9.478.1

Everybody’s doing it – or claiming they are doing it. Ours is a profession with a long, honourable and productive history of co‐operative effort. Now co‐operation in the UK is rapidly moving us into new dimensions – first cross‐sectoral, then cross‐domain, and who knows where eventually? This is in response to clear policy leads coming from governments or executives, but in response to their calls we actually seem to be running well ahead of them. Still, the point is made by the Introduction to this volume being written by the (UK) Minister of State for the Arts. At the opening of their survey chapter, Moore and Carpenter make the point:

After many years of financial restraint, and a political climate that was not conducive to public sector innovation and development, life in Britain is changing. The delivery of effective public services has moved up the political agenda and there is growing pressure to find new ways of meeting users’ needs.

One could argue that those years of financial restraint drove many libraries to seek collaboration as a means of survival, although the many projects and initiatives reported in this volume are for the most part of more recent date; but the burgeoning of co‐operation in the last five or so years has been possible thanks to professionally fertile soil dating back much longer.

There is plenty to report and, if only as a snapshot of where we are now, this collection would be useful. But it manages to be much more than that. It is well planned so that all the main themes are covered, but in particular they are covered by authors who really know what they are talking about through having been involved, usually very intimately, in the developments, projects and activities they describe. They therefore have, and express here, opinions worth consideration, in discussions of their topics which take the usefulness of the collection beyond the merely descriptive. The only thing lacking is an introduction or overview by the editors picking out major themes and issues common to all or several contributions or drawing major conclusions; their introduction does little more than summarise what follows.

We are taken on an almost circular tour, beginning with “The view of the British Library” (Stella Pilling and Stephanie Keene) and ending with “The international dimension” (Graham Cornish). The second chapter is a valuable survey of major activities and themes (“Mapping the British co‐operative landscape”) by Nick Moore and Julie Carpenter. The opening view from the British Library is then complemented by “The view from resource”, presented by Vivien Griffiths and Neville McKay with a futuristic, yet achievable, vision of where all this is leading us. “The regional perspective” is given by Stewart Brewer, while Bernard Naylor discusses co‐operation in higher education. “Co‐operation in preservation” is surveyed by Stephanie Kenna and Helen Shenton, while Derek Law is as usual thought‐provoking, informative and entertaining on “E‐co‐operation”. In the penultimate chapter Ronald Milne reviews and discusses “Joined up funding”. On that topic, this reviewer’s conclusion would be that joined‐up funding for cross‐sectoral collaboration at the grass roots level appears just to be getting established (through Resource) in England and Wales, but has yet to happen in Scotland. Still, he has many positive points to report and justifies his contention that step‐shifts happen (and have happened) as a result of significant new funding.

All the contributors analyse as well as describe and pick out major trends and conclusions, and point to useful lessons and experience (positive, negative and still waiting to see), although in some places the text reads like pasted downloads from various organisations’ Web sites. Much valuable experience is, however, discussed and some equally valuable conclusions drawn. Along the way there is useful comment, such as on the effects of geography and population sizes on library co‐operation, especially where scattered rural populations are to be served – a subject vital to the experience of this reviewer.

Nothing of importance on the UK national or regional scene is missed, although the more local grass roots level of library co‐operation where so much valuable service is actually being given to our various customers is largely missing: so, for Scotland, for example SCURL, SLIC, SPIS and SCRAN are mentioned, but the likes of ALF or TAFLIN are not. As that sentence of the review suggests, acronyms and Web sites abound: one of the many virtues of this book is a glossary of acronyms, a directory of Web sites (in addition to full references to each chapter) and a thorough index.

This book can be recommended to students and anybody outside the UK who wants to know what is going on in library co‐operation in this country (and there is a lot of it), what it means and where it is heading. Those of us involved at the sharp end might think we know it all already – but we would of course be wrong. At the very least this will be a useful starting point to find out who can teach us what, but while the issues might be widely recognized, they are here valuably contextualised and discussed. The discussion is largely at the policy and strategy level, but is firmly based throughout on practice and examples. I would therefore recommend this book to anybody involved in library co‐operation – and I guess that means all of us.