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

Citation

Barker, P. (2010), "Access, Delivery, Performance: The Future of Libraries without Walls", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 897-899. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011093615

This book is essentially a commemorative edition to celebrate the contributions that Peter Brophy has made to the field of library and information studies. Brophy recently retired after 37 years working in this field. In order to celebrate this event, an internationally acclaimed team of authors has contributed material for this publication. As its title suggests, the majority of the 12 chapters that it contains each relate, in one way or another, to the future of “libraries without walls”.

The book starts off (chapter 1) with a short summary of Peter Brophy's work and an overview of how the book's conceptual structure relates to this. The next contribution provides a description of the Library Research Unit at Lancaster University – where Brophy began his research career. Following on from these first two introductory chapters, the remainder of the book's narrative content is organised into four broad theme areas. These are devoted to: libraries, learning and distance learning; widening access to information; changing directions of information delivery; and performance, quality and leadership. The final part of the book contains a selected bibliography of Peter Brophy's work during the period 1972 through 2008.

The two contributions that make up the first theme area cover various issues relating to libraries and learning. The first chapter describes the development and delivery of library services for distance learners ‐ with particular reference to the UK's Open University. Much of the material presented in this chapter relates closely to the ‘libraries without walls’ concept which started to become popular in the mid‐1990s. The second chapter in this section explores the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the field of learning and teaching within UK higher education. It examines the impact that ICT has had, and continues to have, on the transformation of education from local to global accessibility – and the problems which this creates.

The second theme area in the book contains three chapters each of which is related to widening people's access to information. The opening chapter in this section discusses the provision of library services and web‐accessible digital resources for users that have some form of visual impairment. This is followed by a contribution that discusses the impact of new technologies and new policies on the important role that public libraries have to play in relation to widening the provision of access to information and learning opportunities as dictated by both the national and local needs of the general public. The final chapter in this theme area provides a sceptical discussion of the current relevance and appropriateness of Web 2.0 facilities (in general) and Library 2.0 initiatives (in particular) within many contemporary public library systems.

In the third part of the book there are just two chapters. These deal with, respectively: institutional repositories (IRs) in the tertiary educational sector and the use of folksonomies and ontologies in relation to controlled vocabularies. Each of these is an important consideration in relation to changing directions of information delivery – the theme area with which this section deals. Information repositories are important because they often reduce the time lag and costs involved in disseminating academic research publications. The chapter that deals with this topic provides a useful summary of the strategies, problems, supporting technologies and political issues that are involved. It also briefly discusses various currently operational IRs in selected countries. The underlying premise of the second chapter in this section is that “language is and will continue to be at the heart of effective information resource discovery and access” (pp. 145 and 157). Bearing this in mind, the author discusses possible reasons for the decline and subsequent resurgence of interest in controlled vocabularies. Social tagging, ontologies and taxonomies are then introduced as special types of controlled language for use in information retrieval – particularly in relation to the “semantic web”.

The three chapters that make up the final theme area of the book delve into various aspects of performance, quality and leadership. The opening chapter in this section describes the design and development of an evaluation decision‐management system called EDMS. This system was produced in order to help public libraries to evaluate both their performance and the impact of the services that they provide. The theme of evaluation is continued in the following chapter, which discusses the measurement of the quality of electronic services and resources in academic libraries. The rationale underlying the material presented in this chapter is based on Garvin's early work on “quality attributes”. In the final contribution to this section (and to the book), the important topic of “influential leadership in academic libraries” is discussed. To this end, the authors introduce the “Leadership diamond” as a model that integrates the four main facets of leadership behaviour and competencies – personal qualities, working with others, vision and direction, and managing performance and implementation. In many ways, bearing in mind the rationale underlying the conception of this edition, this final chapter provides a befitting way to draw the book to a close.

Overall, I found this book a very interesting one. Its different perspectives on many of the contemporary issues in information storage, retrieval and dissemination – and their various applications – provided both interesting and stimulating reading. I am sure that anyone with an interest in libraries and the functions they perform will find this a very interesting book to read. Although the 12 chapters that make up the main content of this book are interwoven around the work of Peter Brophy, much of what is presented in this edition is transferable across the different areas and activities of the library and information services sector.

Addendum

Many years ago, I worked with Peter Brophy and so it is a great pleasure to have this opportunity of writing a review of a book that pays tribute to all the significant work that he has undertaken during his working life.