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11 – 20 of over 2000To report the highlights of the annual Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Top Technology Trends program at 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference…
Abstract
Purpose
To report the highlights of the annual Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Top Technology Trends program at 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, DC.
Design/methodology/approach
Provides a brief review of the conference program on technology issues in libraries.
Findings
This summary of LITA section Top Technology Trends program with presentations and information. The presentations focus is on new technologies and their applications in a variety of library environments. The program offered a wide variety of timely presentations that were on new and emerging technologies and the application to the library environment.
Originality/value
Provides descriptions of opinions on technological trends in library and information services from industry professionals.
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MANY of the parish and community libraries of Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were subscription libraries, as this was the best way for people of limited means…
Abstract
MANY of the parish and community libraries of Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were subscription libraries, as this was the best way for people of limited means to amass and maintain reasonable collections, but it was not always so. When William Ewart and his colleagues met to consider the problem of public libraries in 1849, they interviewed John Imray, a civil engineer who had seen several parochial and village libraries in the north of Aberdeenshire. The cross‐examination by Ewart began as follows:
In 1840 the ancient city of Brechin was the kind of community which was ceasing to be important. It was a market town of some 6000 people set in the fertile countryside of Angus…
Abstract
In 1840 the ancient city of Brechin was the kind of community which was ceasing to be important. It was a market town of some 6000 people set in the fertile countryside of Angus in North East Scotland. During the Age of Improvement market towns had become wealthy by selling hitherto novel and expensive goods and services to the surrounding countrypeople who purchased them with the profits of capitalistic agriculture. Now the initiative was slipping away to cities like nearby Dundee and the emergent industrial centres of the central belt of Scotland. Nevertheless the town had a flax mill, a bleachfield, several linen works and two distilleries. There was also work for nine ministers, nine lawyers and nine doctors. The ministers and lawyers were particularly important: the former propounded rival arguments about church government, the latter formalised and interpreted the resulting conflicts. Their part in this cameo of library history calls for some explanation.
David Fisher, Wilfred Ashworth, Ruth Kerns, Terry Hanstock, John C. Crawford and Wilfred Ashworth
My conclusion is that by far the most effective way forward is to aim for a full unification of the Institute of Information Scientists, Aslib and The Library Association, and to…
Abstract
My conclusion is that by far the most effective way forward is to aim for a full unification of the Institute of Information Scientists, Aslib and The Library Association, and to set a short but realistic time scale within which this should be achieved. I would propose two and a half years as an appropriate length of time.
Angel de Vicente, John Crawford and Stuart Clink
The present study reports on the use of electronic information services by staff at GCU. It is part of a wider study which reports on usage by both staff and students. It builds…
Abstract
The present study reports on the use of electronic information services by staff at GCU. It is part of a wider study which reports on usage by both staff and students. It builds on previous work at Leeds Metropolitan University, and as the user population at GCU is well understood the outcomes contain useful baseline data for comparison. It reports on the views of 97 respondents out of an academic staff of about 700. The freely available Internet was the most widely used source, which some respondents viewed as a more appropriate source of vocationally orientated information than passworded databases. Less than a third used the catalogue to find EIS, which raises questions about the future of the catalogue as a free‐standing comprehensive resource. Non‐use of EIS was rarely due to difficulty of access or use. Staff were pessimistic about their student's skill levels in using EIS.
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Anna Marie Johnson, Claudene Sproles and Latisha Reynolds
The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.
Findings
The findings provide information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.
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Wilfred Ashworth, Richard Hemmings, Bob McKee and Paul Sturges
I suppose most librarians carry around something to read in case they have a spare moment, for example on a train journey or while waiting for the One Really Interesting Bit on…
Abstract
I suppose most librarians carry around something to read in case they have a spare moment, for example on a train journey or while waiting for the One Really Interesting Bit on the usual dull agenda paper. It is not always assumed that librarians read, of course. Was once stopped walking home in what we used to call the wee small hours by the motorised Law who wanted to know what I was carrying in that large army pack — an enquiry with the heavy and well‐seasoned implication that “we're not taking at face value anything you say, so you might as well show us”. On seeing the load of books they asked, “What are you, then, a student?” Revealing myself as a librarian was obviously insufficient evidence and I was further quizzed as to what I was doing with the books.
John C. Crawford, Barbara C. Garland and G. Ganesh
This article examines the extent to which there is a global pro‐trade consumer segment that cuts across levels of economic development. This study, involving two different…
Abstract
This article examines the extent to which there is a global pro‐trade consumer segment that cuts across levels of economic development. This study, involving two different methodological techniques, identifies and profiles the pro‐trade consumer segments in four countries representing two developed/developing nation pairs, using demographic variables, intrapersonal variables and global marketplace variables. The results demonstrate that there is an intermarket pro‐trade segment among consumers, which can be described by a common set of indicators with a fair degree of accuracy.
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ALFRED COTGREAVE was born at Ecclestone in Cheshire in 1849 and acquired experience first at the Royal Exchange Library in Manchester and then with Birmingham public libraries. In…
Abstract
ALFRED COTGREAVE was born at Ecclestone in Cheshire in 1849 and acquired experience first at the Royal Exchange Library in Manchester and then with Birmingham public libraries. In 1877 he received his first appointment as librarian at Wednesbury on the northern fringe of Birmingham. Wednesbury at that time was a small town of 25,000, engaged principally in the production of iron and steel; the economic crash of 1872 had dealt its economy severe blows from which it was only now beginning to recover. On 21 March 1878 the library opened for its first day's business with a stock of 4,446 volumes classified by the Birmingham scheme and an Elliot indicator, the type which had been in use in nearby Wolverhampton since 1870.
I am a specialist, I suppose, in People's Culture. It has taken me ten years to realize that is what I “do.” I publish books, and distribute other books, and study still more…
Abstract
I am a specialist, I suppose, in People's Culture. It has taken me ten years to realize that is what I “do.” I publish books, and distribute other books, and study still more books, relating to the expressions of people considered “marginalized” in this society, though together they form the majority: working‐class people, farmers and some regional writers, minorities, women who deal with themes of oppression, and so on. The books express history, often a common one (on my desk is an autobiography by a Japanese‐American labor organizer in California who spent much of his life as an agricultural worker). The genres may vary: labor history, biography, autobiography, fiction, poetry, drama, occasionally a scholarly or critical study, but they share a radical content, related to their marginality.