Search results

Library association policies and guidelines are important to study because they reflect consensus values of the profession. As such, they can shape the association, itself, and set the tone for the values of its individual members in their professional practice. From the titles alone, these documents proclaim themselves to be guides for the development of individual library policy. Additionally, as library and information science (LIS) graduate education programs are accredited by national associations, LIS schools pay attention to association policies and guidelines to help shape professional and continuing education. In these ways, they have a role in shaping professional ideology around a topic. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The services to persons with disabilities policies from three national-level LIS organizations were analyzed through a thematic analysis.

The guidelines speak to a shared understanding of disability and accessibility around the themes of library staff, library policies and library resources and services. While not surprising, additional themes around disability context and legislation show a shared understanding of accessibility that is much broader than what the legislation requires.

An analysis of guidelines on services to persons with disabilities from the American Library Association (ALA), Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) is of interest because of the ways these organizations intersect. The ALA and ALIA have reciprocal agreements so that students in LIS education programs are recognized as equivalents. Second, the ALA accredits library education programs in Canada. Given these intersecting relationships, the guidelines-shared notions of accessibility become of high interest.

We offer our readers a special Norwich Conference Souvenir number of “The Library World” which we trust they will find of permanent interest. It contains several features to which we wish to draw their attention. With regard to our article “The Library Association: Old and New Councillors” we thank those who have so kindly sent us details of their career. It has unfortunately been impossible in the short time at our command to obtain portraits of more than a few of the Councillors, and we have therefore decided to omit them in the hope that at some future opportunity we may be able to get together a more complete collection.

To investigate the role of national library associations both in promoting information literacy and in advancing the interests of the practitioner library and information worker.

An opinion piece based on information literacy practice world‐wide and recent debate on the role of national association and professional organisations in the UK.

The dynamic role of associations for the library and information profession in a variety of countries world‐wide gives an indication of how the profession should use its own national association.

This is purely an expression of opinion about the value of the relationship between national associations for the library and information profession and the promotion of information literacy.

Gives some insight into how a national professional association is uniquely positioned to support professional status and encourage job opportunities by forward‐looking policy formulation and cross‐sectoral leadership, in particular in the area of information literacy.

An attempt to validate at practitioner level the impact and importance of a national association by reference to real practice‐based examples and demonstrably successful international models.

The aim of this paper is to review the development of the library profession in Ghana from its inception during the colonial period to the present day. It discusses the achievements of the profession as well as its problems. Suggestions are made for solutions to these problems. Wherever possible, comparisons are made with other library professions in the sub‐region, particularly with the Nigeria Library Association which is a sister organisation. The writer concludes that a lot still needs to be done by the Ghana Library Association in order to fulfil the basic attributes of the profession.

Miss L.V. Paulin, M.A., F.L.A., County Librarian of Hertfordshire and Chairman of the Library Association Education Committee, opened the meeting and introduced Mr Patrick, who as a special librarian and one closely concerned with the drawing up of the new Library Association Examination syllabus was, she felt, a fortunate choice of speaker. About one hundred members of Aslib attended the meeting.

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.

DURING the past six years, a considerable amount of progress has been made, in certain directions, towards improving methods of library work. The improvements introduced have mostly come from the younger generation of English librarians, and it must also be added that this enthusiasm for betterment has been confined to a very small circle of young librarians. The majority of British librarians have apparently remained untouched by the movement towards more perfect methods compassed by their fellows, and it is doubtful if, in spite of the remarkably good work accomplished by a few “earnest men in various parts of the country, there is not, on the whole, a great preponderance of professional apathy in regard to burning questions of librarianship. The proof of this is only too obvious. Anyone who has watched the dwindling attendances at monthly Library Association meetings must have been struck by the fact as indicative of weakness or defectiveness somewhere. No professional association, with professional interests at stake, is going to languish, and practically sputter out, unless the members are bored, or indifferent, or in some way apathetic. For nearly four years, the interest in the Library Association meetings has been declining, and although the annual gatherings have been more or less successful, thanks to the energy of the provincial members, it must be remembered that the monthly meetings have been very badly attended, although their interest has been as great as heretofore—which, however, is not saying much. Recently, this lack of interest has assumed the form of a kind of epidemic rot, which has attacked other associations as well as the parent one. We hear of one kindred society having entirely suspended its meetings for months, while we read of another which can hardly get an attendance large enough to carry a vote of thanks to the speaker. When we hear it stated that the interest in the Library Association meetings is so languid that even the readers of papers do not trouble to appear, and that about half‐a‐dozen members is all that can be mustered on some occasions, it must be obvious to all that there is something radically wrong. We have heard it suggested that the Library Association meetings take place on an impossible day, and that the notice sent out is insufficient because only published in the Record, which nobody reads ! There may be an element of truth in these suggestions, but hardly enough to account for the all‐round apathy which undoubtedly exists. The stimulus derived from the Leeds meeting has apparently evaporated already, and beyond a decidedly more healthy response to the examination scheme of the Association, it is hard to understand in which direction activity of any kind exists. Comparing the professional work on this side of the Atlantic with that of the United States, it must be confessed that the comparison is very unfavourable to the British case. In America there are dozens of flourishing associations, counting their membership in thousands, while here, there are some half‐dozen associations, including the Library Association itself, which can only muster among them a little more than five hundred members. This is a poor record when one considers the possibilities, and if librarianship is to become a more powerful factor in the educational development of the future, it is evident that a strong effort must be made all round to double the membership of all the existing associations to begin with, and then to interest and retain the members who join by means of live meetings, publications, and other enterprizes. It will not suffice to rest on present achievements if librarianship is to be recognized as a greater power in the State than hitherto, and for this reason it behoves those librarians who have any “go” left in them, to try and pull up the existing machinery to a higher state of efficiency.

This chapter introduces an initiative of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellows to build an online resource that engages the Library and Information Studies (LIS) community in a discussion of social justice initiatives within the field. This tool further develops a social justice framework that raises awareness of and integrates social justice methodologies into LIS curricula and library practices. This framework facilitates community building and the empowerment of the populations they serve.

Using an iterative approach to user-centered design, the Social Justice Collaboratorium (SJC) development process consists of input from a community of engaged users to inform the wireframe, prototype, testing, and development phases. This includes gathering substantial qualitative and quantitative data such as surveys of LIS faculty, practitioners and students, as well as tracking web analytics once the tool is live.

The SJC allows for the confluence of research, resources, networks, best practices, and LIS school models in a centralized medium. Designed for LIS practitioners, faculty, staff, and students, as well as those interested in project management, resource development, and collaborative work, the SJC supports different approaches to social justice in LIS.

The SJC will be accessible to a distributed community of social justice LIS scholars, practitioners, students, and activists. Contributions from the community of users throughout every stage of the development process ensures participation, stewardship, and intentionality. In this way, the SJC will be a transformative tool for the LIS community as a vehicle for promoting equity and social change.

The purpose of the article is to review the historical development in South Africa of library and information service associations, and to highlight events in the process that culminated in the founding in 1997 of the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA).

This is a general review from 1930 to the present, based on published and unpublished material and personal engagement. Some analysis of the significance of events from a current perspective is included. The paper covers the founding in 1930 of the South African Library Association, attempts in the 1960s and 1970s to achieve greater recognition for libraries by government, the transformation of SALA in 1980 into the graduate South African Institute for Library and Information Science; and, in the early 1990s and the first years of democratic rule in South Africa, the emergence of “alternative” “democratic” library and information science (LIS) associations and initiatives. Participation in the 1991‐1992 African National Congress‐based National Education Policy Initiative (NEPI) led to a number of shared LIS events in the mid‐1990s that bridged the apartheid years and prepared the ground for LIASA. The rise of other significant but smaller specialist associations and their subsequent relationship with LIASA is also described.

In addition to documenting events, this paper reveals the continuing efforts on the part of members of the LIS sector over 75 years to exercise influence on government and in the broad community. Problems identified in 1929 are still reflected in 2005.

The value of the paper lies in its use of unpublished ephemeral records and the use and consolidation of information in scattered and previously unused published sources.