Search results

User education programmes fall into two categories. They may aim simply to help the student through his course and familiarise him with a single library (short‐term objectives), or to provide a fuller awareness of the generation, role, and use of information which may allow him to research problems in any subsequent professional situation (long‐term objectives). It is argued that the latter are more valuable; the objectives of librarian and student on such courses are discussed in detail. A user education course based on long‐term objectives is described, and its effects on student and library discussed. Finally, the contribution of user education to the “information society” is considered, and user education programmes with long‐term objectives preferred.

If links are to be formed between libraries and professional colleagues in other areas, they need to remember that their wider professional objectives are similar and that a clear understanding of respective practices, problems and opportunities is needed. Links can produce better economy; a more comprehensive and quicker service to users; and staff development through the skills and better knowledge of contacts. The extent to which linking or interaction can occur between colleagues and the employment sector is influenced by senior management attitudes and philosophy but most significant is the dynamism of individuals.

This paper describes a 19‐week project which sought to examine and evaluate the library‐information service at Syntex Research Centre, Riccarton, Edinburgh, a pharmaceutical R and D centre. The project was unusual in attempting to evaluate the full range of the Library's stock, activities, and services, rather than dealing with only a single aspect. The remits of the Library and of the evaluation project are noted. The evaluation design is described in detail, and summary results are provided. Activities so treated include: library stock‐use records, inter‐library loan requests, use of library staff time, current awareness bulletin. 36 library users, research scientists, were interviewed, and their demand for library‐information services is described, using as a framework the categorisation of library service devised by Orr. Finally, there is some discussion of the validity of individual library‐information service evaluation tests, and of the problems and attractions of evaluating a complete library‐information service ‘in the round’.

THE MIDLAND county borough of Dudley has produced two post‐war chief librarians who have gone on to become national librarians. Alex Wilson told me this with some pride, when we met at the beginning of February to discuss his new appointment, which takes effect this month, as Director‐General of the British Library Reference Division. A couple of decades ago, Alex took over at Dudley, at one remove, from George Chandler, who has just retired as Australia's National Librarian.

Library assistants were originally considered to be professional librarians in the making, and were trained accordingly. With the expansion of libraries and librarianship, Britain's “apprenticeship” system of qualification gave way to formal library school education, and a new category of “non‐professional staff” was created, of people who were unwilling or unable to proceed to graduate‐level qualification. The development of non‐professional certificates of competence in the UK is described against parallel developments in the US, Canada and Australia; the COMLA training modules are also examined. The theoretical and practical issues surrounding training are discussed, training schemes and qualifications in the four countries analysed, and the relative merits of in‐house training and external certificate programmes argued.

The traditional scenario concerning scholarly communication envisages the authors of papers in learned journals communicating with each other by letter, and exchanging offprints of their work. Such communication permits the transfer of more highly detailed and specific information than can be published in the necessarily confined space of the journals themselves, provides scholars with news about on‐going or future investigations, and above all cements partnerships in research, furthering the formation and functioning of invisible colleges.

Some libraries and information services are quite definitely user‐centred; some think they are but are not always; some seem to be designed for librarians rather than users. The purpose of this monograph is to encourage the development of libraries to meet the perceived needs of users — I hope it will be found useful by librarians and information workers as well as by students.

The issue of language as a barrier to the work of librarians in post‐war Britain was pinpointed in the report of the Royal Society's Scientific Information Conference in 1948. Concerning the work of information officers, it stated:

The value of libraries and information services lies in their contribution to customer information needs. As non‐profit organisations, their benefit is seen less as profit than as benefit or utility to the communities they serve. They follow service goals and resource management goals, and a successful balance ensures effectiveness and efficiency. Good management methods within the organisation increase the likelihood of achieving these goals, and such methods include systematic monitoring and analysis of internal data and systematic and imaginative marketing.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and computer skills related to information gathering. This is RSR's twelfth annual review of this literature and lists items published in 1985. A few references are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for the review.