Search results

Manchester Commercial Library has one of the largest collections of business information available to the public in the UK. It is especially well provided with British and foreign company information. The library also has access to all the major online host services and extensive use is made of databases for company information.

Community festivals ‐ Local community festivals can be a lot of fun to those who participate in them and, incidentally, help to strengthen community awareness and develop skills, but for those called upon or lumbered with the job of planning and organising them, they can be a nightmare. The task is made easier by the existence of an excellent little book, the Community festivals handbook, which has just been released in its 3rd edition by Community Projects Foundation. The kind of festival covered by this essentially practical handbook is that in which there is a concentrated mixture of activities lasting for a day, a weekend or maybe a week, based in a particular locality, with some emphasis on community participation. It would also be relevant to other forms of community‐based work, such as running a barbecue or a social, trying to raise money, expanding the activities of an adventure playground, setting up a city farm or engaging in a local campaign. The handbook can serve as a checklist of ideas and aspects that need to be thought about from the reasons for running a festival to financial ‘post‐mortems’. On the way the book covers organising committees, involving local people, planning, publicity, legal and administrative aspects, site management and catering. An excellent guide that won't guarantee success but, if you follow its advice, will make it more possible. Costs £2.00 including postage from CPF, 60 Highbury Grove, London N5 2AG.

The Electronic Library spoke to Alec Gallimore, who is Central Library Manager of Manchester Public Libraries. In Manchester the public library has joined with the Citizens Advice Bureau, a national firm of management consultants, local voluntary groups and city council departments to establish the Manchester Community Information Network (http://www.poptel.org.uk/mcin/), a project designed to provide community information through public terminals in the form of World Wide Web pages with access to local databases. There is also a project to develop public information touch screen kiosks.

One of the sessions at December's Online Information Meeting in London dealt with the Information Society: what it is, how it can come about and the implications for the people who live in it.

A pilot database, known as INFORM, which provides information about local community groups in the Manchester area was developed during 1994 and 1995 by staff in Manchester Libraries. Tracing information about community groups in Manchester has always been a problem/The number of groups in a busy city such as Manchester is very large, many are ephemeral and transient in nature. Many enquiries are received in libraries concerning local groups and there is a steady demand from the public for easily accessible information about them. The aim of this pilot database and directory was to try and fill some of the gaps in information about local groups without duplicating what already existed in available directories.

How management information is an essential requirement for assessing the performance of library services and how a management information system (MIS) fits into the overall framework of management in an organisation is described. Stages in the design of an integrated MIS are discussed in turn, including an analysis of organisational information needs at the senior, middle and operational management levels. An appendix lists the type of questions which could be used in structured interviews in the investigative phase of the system design. Performance measures and indicators are described with reference to the performance review process favoured by the Audit Commission for public libraries. Software and hardware for a typical system are described, including estimated costs.

Provides an overview of the main challenges which face public library managers in the near future as electronic networking of library services becomes more widespread. External influences on libraries deriving from the Information Society and the government’s agenda are considered. The problems public libraries are facing in traditional services such as falling issues of lending books are compounded by a growing skills gap, specifically related to IT. As well as new demands on libraries, there are new opportunities, such as digitisation of important collections and funding for technology infrastructure which managers must respond to. Change within the profession is the most important challenge facing managers who need to understand the differences between the old and new cultures. The major issues facing managers are explored: strategic, budgetary, co‐operation, structure, technical, staff and service issues. A short, concise checklist is provided for the fully networked manager as a guide for action

Not many weeks back, according to newspaper reports, three members of the library staff of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London were dismissed. All had refused to carry out issue desk duty. All, according to the newspaper account, were members of ASTMS. None, according to the Library Association yearbook, was a member of the appropriate professional organisation for librarians in Great Britain.

National issues included: (1) a resolution from the Intellectual Freedom Committee calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to expunge the files maintained on their FBI Library Awareness program after giving any individuals involved an opportunity to request their records; (2) another resolution which would subject television news services with commercials being marketed to schools to the same selection guidelines as other materials considered for school media collections; (3) a national policy on permanent paper; and (4) encouraging libraries to celebrate Earth Day in April 1990 to provide information on environmental concerns to their communities.