Information Technology in Public Libraries. 6th edition

Citation

Cave, R. (1999), "Information Technology in Public Libraries. 6th edition", Asian Libraries, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 185-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1999.8.5.185.10

Once upon a time British public libraries acted as models for other Commonwealth countries. Despite his own doubts on aspects of their library service, James Duff Brown (for example) would readily have admitted that libraries in the USA were more advanced in many respects, but in the estimation of the British libraries in other English‐speaking countries were ‐ nowhere. There was always a strong element of metropolitan arrogance, as there was of ignorance about this, but libraries like Manchester or Islington or Croydon provided excellent examples for those developing services elsewhere to emulate.

Not any more. As the responses to the questionnaire sent out to public library authorities for this new edition of Information Technology in Public Libraries make painfully obvious, the UK has been very slow to respond to the digital revolution. There is information in this report which is important for the planners of library service in Britain, but not elsewhere. The organisation of the report, the assumption that its readers will also have read the earlier editions, and the ambiguities in some of the data make it hard to use. The amazingly small number of references to developments abroad (limited to a few sentences on the USA and Denmark) further reduce its value ‐ for readers in the UK as well!

Nonetheless, overseas librarians (unless put off by the unjustifiably high unit cost of almost 17 pence per page) will learn something from the report, if used as a model of what to avoid. A surveyor who complains about “wringing completed questionnaires from recalcitrant librarians” fails to follow up when he receives obviously ambiguous responses to some questions, and strings his narrative together in the tired and self‐indulgent way this report has been prepared, does no service to libraries. Nor those whom libraries and library associations supposedly serve: it is a pity that what used to be a strong professional association with high standards should regard this as an appropriate report to publish. It merely spoils the market for something more professional in approach.