Search results

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

What to do about preparing librarians for handling non‐book media has been the most vexing problem to face the library schools in the past five years. Or has it? Janet Andrew's plea that “non‐book materials should be treated as what they are—genuine library materials…deserving of attention throughout any course designed to educate (or train) librarians” produced, in the same issue of Audiovisual librarian in which it appeared, a response from the educators themselves:— to be accurate, from ten of the fifteen schools to whom the pre‐print of the article was circulated, and from an eleventh in a subsequent issue. Some respondents outlined their school's policies; others questioned the validity of Ms Andrew's criticisms. If anything emerged from the “debate”, it was that that there is no consensus as to whether or not librarianship education should take special account of non‐book media, or if so, how this should be carried out.

Most anger research has adopted a within-person view, focusing on the effects of experienced anger on a person's feelings, cognition, and behavior. Less research has examined the effects of anger expressed by one person on other people in the workplace. We review available literature on the interpersonal effects of anger and propose a theoretical framework that addresses two main questions (1) What mechanisms can explain the effects of observed anger on other people? and (2) What factors may strengthen or attenuate these effects? We propose that observed anger affects observers’ performance via emotional and cognitive routes that are interrelated, and that this effect depends on the properties of the expressed anger, the situation in which the anger occurs, and the task being performed by the observer.

This article reviews Ameritech's Horizon. It describes hardware and operating system requirements and then considers in detail the functionality of the principal modules. It also considers likely future developments.

MALTBY, ARTHUR. U.K. catalogue use survey. London: Library Association, 1973. 35 p. Library Association research publication, no. 12. £1.25 (£1 to members). This report on the use and non‐use of the catalogue by readers describes the findings of a project carried out largely by the various schools of librarianship in April/May 1971. Two previous pilot studies had been carried out to refine the questionnaire to make it applicable throughout the United Kingdom. Special libraries were reluctantly excluded, but all other types of library were included. The method chosen was that of briefed interviewers and a structured interview, largely because it seemed desirable to catch not only those who use the catalogue, but also those who do not. Of the total of 3,252 interviewed, 1914 (59 per cent) actually used the catalogue; of the 41 per cent who never used the catalogue, the vast majority stated that they could manage without it, while 281 preferred to ask the staff. Probably most of this group went straight to the shelves. From the break‐down by type of library, it would seem that municipal and county libraries hardly need a catalogue at all. There is also the point that if more people had been shown how to use the catalogue, more would use it.

The Seminar on Library Interior Layout and Design organised by IFLA's Section on Library Buildings and Equipment, and attended by people from over twenty‐two countries, was held at Frederiksdal, Denmark, in June 1980. This present article neither reports on the Seminar's proceedings, as it is hoped to publish the papers in due course, nor describes fully the Danish public libraries seen, but rather uses the Seminar's theme and the library visits as a point of departure for considering some aspects of the interior layout—the landscape—of public libraries. Brief details of the new Danish public libraries visited are given in a table at the end of the article.

AS OUR subscription‐renewal reminders for 1982 go out, may I offer you a cautionary note— though not, perhaps, the one you will be expecting of me from these introductory words?

The review begins with a look at the interlending of audiovisual materials. The main obstacles in this area are fear of damage in transit and packaging problems, costs of transportation, copyright and contractual restrictions, the lending/reference conflict, and problems of incompatibility of technical equipment. The general problems are discussed and also the situation in the United Kingdom and Australia. The interlending of music is examined with a critical look at an ambitious scheme for combining ILL and publication on demand by using telefacsimile. A continued growth in the volume of interlending traffic is detected by analysing figures from Canada, the USA, the German Democratic Republic, and the UK. The administration of ILL systems is critical for their efficiency and the questions of staffing and finance are examined. The nature of ILL work has changed so as to require more qualified staff and it is necessary to look at all the components of interlending work to estimate what elements, if any, should be charged to the system itself and what are overheads for general library use. Finally the value of grandiose networking schemes in Third World countries is questioned in the light of experiences from the Arab World, India, and Brazil.

“WHAT PRICE educational technology now?” This was the pessimistic title of an article contributed by Geoffrey Hubbard, Director of the Council for Educational Technology, to the 3M magazine Tape teacher, last September. Hubbard outlined a bleak future for educational technology if expenditure cuts forced education authorities to cut back on what are often regarded as “audio visual frills”. The article argued that educational technology is concerned with not only the efficient utilisation of audio‐visual equipment, but with the best use of all resources in the effective implementation of the curriculum. Nevertheless, it is easier to argue for savings in expenditure by pruning capital‐intensive projects usually associated with resource‐based learning than to prove that educational technology can help teachers make the best use of scarce resources. Current popular attitudes, favouring a return to “traditional” education, make it even more likely that the former argument will prevail. Librarians not working in the educational sector may also find themselves under pressure to decrease spending on non‐book materials in favour of books.