Access, Delivery, Performance. The Future of Libraries without Walls

Citation

Mullen, P. (2009), "Access, Delivery, Performance. The Future of Libraries without Walls", Library Management, Vol. 30 No. 6/7, pp. 497-498. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120910982203

This book is a fascinating analysis of libraries and how Professor Peter Brophy through his work and academic output has contributed to the development of Information Services in the UK. Professor Peter Brophy at his retirement was Director of the Centre for Research Library and Information Management (CERLIM) and he has over 30 years experience working and studying in the information management area.

The title page calls this book a Festschrift to celebrate the work of Professor Peter Brophy and there are 12 chapters written by friends or people who have been somehow influenced by Professor Brophy. Some chapters do this better than others but over all this book is a terrific read. The chapters that worked best for me were those that discussed at length the contribution of Professor Brophy in the context of the subject theme.

The book has been divided into four themes that have shaped Professor Brophy's work. Theme one is called “Libraries, learning and distance learning”. There are two articles in this part of the book; both articles describe the development of information services for distance learning students and the contribution made by Peter Brophy to the development of these services.

Importantly these chapters provide a practical discussion on the development of services for distance learners and how University Library services have been challenged by the needs of distance students – well worth a read if you are part of the distance learning team. I particularly liked the way these chapters presented the development of services as an evolving challenge to develop resources and programs that meet the needs of distance staff and students. As they say on Idol – it is all about the journey.

Theme two is, “Widening access to information”. This section has chapters on library services for the visually impaired, local government areas and Web 2.0 technology in Libraries. These chapters show how the work of Professor Brophy has played a significant part in the highlighting the challenges faced by disparate groups in our society as they try and access libraries and information services.

The overriding theme for me in this section and the whole book is how important Professor Brophy's reports and papers have been in the development of new services and techniques that have been introduced into libraries, without loosing sight of the fundamentals of information services.

Theme three is “Changing directions of information delivery”, it contains two chapters on institutional repositories and folksonomies. Both articles highlight how libraries are on a journey and our services need to change to meet these challenges, but in meeting these challenges we need to identify how planned changes to information services will improve delivery and access to information.

The final theme in the book is “Performance, quality and leadership” and there are three chapters. There is a chapter on evaluating decision‐making system, measuring the quality of academic library electronic services and the final chapter is on influential leadership for academic libraries. All three chapters are worth close examination.

This book is about the evolution of the UK academic and public library system. Many of the themes such as relevance, delivery of services, quality control and leadership are central to the development of even the smallest information service. Finally what was so intriguing about this book was the open way the authors discussed how services evolved and changed to meet the challenges of access and delivery that the Internet has created and the importance of Professor Brophy's work in navigating these changes.