Providing Materials for Library Users

Citation

Duckett, B. (2001), "Providing Materials for Library Users", Library Review, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 42-56. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2001.50.1.42.4

David Spiller is well known for his work Book Selection: Principles and Practice. This was first published in 1971, with a 5th edition in 1991. Some of the themes from these editions find their way into Providing Materials for Library Users, but with justice does the author declare that this “is a completely new book”. So rapidly do times change that neither the Internet nor the “holdings versus access” discussion featured in the previous edition. As well as the change from “books” to “materials” in the title, “selection” becomes “provision”, and “users” feature as “a statement of intent”. In fact, there is not a great deal here about book selection.

After the opening chapters on library policy, provision and budgeting, we do, it is true, have chapters on evaluating print and electronic materials, but then we are into stock logistics and revision, stock evaluation and performance measures, managing the provision of material, weeding, and holdings versus access – and quite right too. In 1971, the date of Spiller One, book selection was still the great challenge of the professional librarian, the hallmark even, where discussions took place and reviews were read. Matters such as regional, even national, bibliographic provision, cultural investment and standards of intellectual appreciation were considered. Book selection took up a lot of our time. (Do people browse BNB any more? No mention of it here.) The library landscape is different now. Government pressure to hive off materials‐supply activities (outsourcing), formula management, declining bookfunds, reduced staffing levels, user‐driven agendas, and much else besides, has resulted in a decline of book selection activity. Now we recognise that it is pointless purchasing material if no one uses it; the work of McClellan (1978) in public libraries and Baker (1997) in academic ones has focused our attention on effective stock management, LISU (Library and Information Statistics Unit) at Loughborough and CRUS (Centre for User Studies) at Sheffield have fired statistics at us; and CPI (Capital Planning Information) and CIPFA have had us rethinking policy. Atkinson, Follet and Dearing are “names” from the academic sector that have changed our thinking. To re‐iterate the point: selection is only one of the many activities that feature in the provision of library materials.

The book kicks off with a look at the policy dilemmas facing selectors – research versus teaching in HE; user demands versus user needs in public libraries; and curriculum support versus recreational use in school libraries. Chapter 2 covers budgeting and we are given an informative insight into the many issues relating to how academic and public libraries calculate their budget needs and how that figure is divided up or allocated within the library system. For the former these issues include books versus serials, print versus electronic, ownership versus access, and special collections; while for public libraries – a somewhat weaker section – issues of centralisation and stock revision feature. Chapters follow on the evaluation of print materials (readability, physical features, reviews, etc.) and of electronic materials (types, formats, sites). Management issues follow with chapters on stock logistics and stock revision; stock evaluation and performance measures (probably the best chapter); managing the provision of materials (stock rotation, duplication, short loan collections); weeding; and holdings versus access. Different types of material are then covered: serials; reference and research materials (over‐reliance on serials as the “major repository for research” here; too much on KnowUK and nothing on EARL); fiction and recreational non‐fiction; materials for children; foreign language materials; out of print materials (including donations); paperbacks; videos and recorded sound (no DVDs yet). These chapters cover matters from evaluation and purchase, to use and management. The bibliography (“Further reading”) is extensive but the index rather cursory. And no reference in “Reviews” to Reference Reviews!

David Spiller had a public library background before 25 years of library and information work for the British Council. He was later director of the Library and Information Statistics Unit at Loughborough University. The latter post no doubt accounts for the quantity of survey and statistical material gathered here, complete with their own bibliographical appendices. Manager and student alike will value this feature. A weakness of the work, though, is the lack of input from the practitioner side of the subjects covered. Research does take time to filter through into print and by the time it has done so, the goalposts have moved, the playing field altered, and government policy, the punters, and the technology have changed. Too much of the research here comes from a restricted field – mostly academic libraries – and is taken at face value. Topics not covered by surveys get short shrift, and while many new items on the library agenda are covered, there are many lacunae – outsourcing, library purchasing consortia, and e‐Reference are examples. As a practitioner I’m screaming to challenge so much of what is stated as fact. One example concerns the evaluation of electronic material, where the problem is less that of selecting from different media, or even cost, but more that of available hardware and systems support. The Internet is everything now, and Web sites dominate library provision at least from my reference desk. Having just cancelled my last CD‐ROM subscription (a newspaper) because it is unused and virtually unusable, the problem now is how to evaluate Web sites for library use and how to present that information to our users. Recent moves by library suppliers to send us their stock lists on CD‐ROMs, and by publishers to sell over the telephone, provide publicity on their Web sites and send “junk” faxes, are other developments not featured here. (Perhaps Web site selection will be the title of a future edition!) Do librarians still select from the TLS? Evidence please.

For students and others approaching stock management for the first time, this is an excellent introduction; the selection of sources is comprehensive and the author covers a lot of ground – conspectus, benchmarking, government reports, and so on, but the author’s recent sojourn in academia lies a little too heavy. Although usefully lingering on a number of high‐profile topics such as user surveys, this book is, generally speaking, a pretty breathless rush through the literature. It is an introduction rather than a handbook; a good introduction indeed, but I doubt the practitioner will learn much that’s new.