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Article
Publication date: 1 August 1986

WILFRED ASHWORTH, MIKE CORNFORD, MIKE PEARCE and ANDREW WRIGHTING

Ex Libris, the report of the Adam Smith Institute advocating membership fees and borrowing charges in public libraries, attracted no great attention apart from a few knockabout…

Abstract

Ex Libris, the report of the Adam Smith Institute advocating membership fees and borrowing charges in public libraries, attracted no great attention apart from a few knockabout setpieces in the press and on the radio. NLW's prize for headline of the month goes to the Daily Telegraph of 23 June: two half columns on the report were headed by Fees Demanded to Deter Library Louts. Worth reporting here if only to express editorial belief that there can't be more than two people who read both NLW and the Daily Telegraph. There was also a little to‐do on Radio 4's ‘Stop the Week’ on 28 June with Robert Robinson almost alone defending public libraries, provoking a reference from one of the chatting coterie that something was alright for the ‘Raynes Park literati’. Robinson went to Raynes Park Country Grammar School which in its day was quite a school with W H Auden writing the words of the school song. (Readers in Uttoxeter and Gosport may like to know that the school is hard by the London and South Western Railway and is probably in the new‐fangled London Borough of Merton.) The Times on the same day had a respectable second leader which concluded that the report “should make us think more about how libraries should be managed, what they should stock and who should manage them”.

Details

New Library World, vol. 87 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 October 1989

Ian Cowburn, David F. Cheshire, Mike Cornford and Sandra Vogel

Considered going to IFLA 89 in Paris, but as noted in leading article in August, the fee of 2,200 francs would pay for a first class run around the Hexagon with SNCF for nine days…

Abstract

Considered going to IFLA 89 in Paris, but as noted in leading article in August, the fee of 2,200 francs would pay for a first class run around the Hexagon with SNCF for nine days with all sorts of extras and still leave enough for five good dinners. Expostulating thus to NLW's Favourite Overseas Librarian, Frances Salinié of the British Council in Paris, led her to make enquiry. Transpired, as they say, that belatedly and all unannounced one‐day registration at 300 francs was allowed. This possibility, the fact that I hadn't been to Paris this year, the near certainty that one day of IFLA would be an “elegant sufficiency” and a curiosity to see if “they order this matter… better in France” led me to the Gare du Nord clutching my 300 dirty oncers. Warning: lengthy chunk of political bias coming up. Don't bother to take reading matter on the London Dover/Folkestone railway. The swaying, clattering, noisome line makes reading, conversation or walkman listening virtually impossible. This chunk of Network Southeast is not a worthy descendant of the South‐Eastern and Chatham railway on which long dead father once drove beautiful locomotives. A pride in railways is one of the Victorian values not preached from the Downing Street pulpit. The new line promised for the Tunnel may sometime let you read in comfort, but that seems a rather drastic and expensive remedy.

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New Library World, vol. 90 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1987

MIKE CORNFORD

However much it might sound like an old chestnut, this is not an apocryphal story. During my first month of employment in a library when my advisory work had consisted entirely of…

Abstract

However much it might sound like an old chestnut, this is not an apocryphal story. During my first month of employment in a library when my advisory work had consisted entirely of fielding questions about the availability of lavatories, public telephones and photocopiers I was approached by a man who said, “You used to have a book, I can't remember what it's called”, and vaguely waving towards the windows added, “it had a green cover and used to be over there”. For a timid waif, as yet unaware that there was such a grandiose thing as enquiry technique, this was a devastating challenge so I looked anxiously around for professional assistance. But as usual, my senior colleagues were either at a meeting, hiding from the public in the office or else out in the foyer harassing a defenceless pensioner for spilling tea over a crochet book. Manfully I single‐handedly set about the task. By careful questioning, some inspired guess‐work and a bit of luck (I still hadn't quite got the hang of the catalogue) I advanced from subject to title and triumphantly dug the required item out of the reserve store. Naturally it had a red cover.

Details

New Library World, vol. 88 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1981

Alan Day, Malcolm Key, Mike Cornford, Wilfred Ashworth, Richard Preston, Mike Pattinson, Roman Iwaschkin and Wilfred Ashworth

THE New English dictionary on historical principles founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A H Murray, forty‐four years in the…

Abstract

THE New English dictionary on historical principles founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A H Murray, forty‐four years in the making, and now known the world over as the Oxford English dictionary holds an unchallenged place in that remarkable series of substantial works of learning and scholarship planned, nurtured, and executed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Rolls series, the Dictionary of national biography, and at the turn of the century, the Cambridge moderm history and the Victorian history of the counties of England, all bear witness to the tremendous, almost incredible, energy of the Victorian middle classes who, sometimes holding academic posts at the universities, or perhaps earning their bread as publishers (regarded then as one of the very few commercial pursuits allowed to gentlemen), formed clubs and learned societies to occupy their ‘leisure’ hours, and conceived and brought to fruition their costly schemes for ambitious publishing programmes, refusing to be deterred by years of unremitting toil which consumed their time, their money, but never sapped their vision or their dedication.

Details

New Library World, vol. 82 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1989

Sue Lacey Bryant, Mike Cornford and Alan Kent

It was one of the Almighty's little jokes to place the British and the French so close together and make them so entirely different in mental habits. The British hardly ever…

Abstract

It was one of the Almighty's little jokes to place the British and the French so close together and make them so entirely different in mental habits. The British hardly ever clear‐sightedly address themselves to establishing a policy — on anything. In Britain a “policy” is what you accidentally find you have after taking a number of ad hoc decisions on related matters. The French, and to a lesser extent other Continental peoples, are inclined to decide first to have a policy, then to decide what it should be in general terms and only finally to translate that general policy into detailed implementation. At European meetings it is therefore common for a proposition to be advanced in extremely general terms…often surrounded by clauses beginning “whereas”, “recalling”, “considering”, the kind of thing which characterises United Nations resolutions but is foreign to the economical language of a British Cabinet minute. At this point the eyes of the British representatives glaze over.

Details

New Library World, vol. 90 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1990

David F. Cheshire, Mike Cornford, Sandra Vogel, Sue Lacey Bryant, Edward Dudley, Shirley Day, Edwin Fleming and Allan Bunch

1989 was designated Museums Year to commemorate the centenary of the Museums Association, and unlike many of these PR exercises this one resulted in museums (especially national…

Abstract

1989 was designated Museums Year to commemorate the centenary of the Museums Association, and unlike many of these PR exercises this one resulted in museums (especially national museums based in London) receiving an unusual amount of coverage in the qualities. Whether stories of protests and problems would have the desired positive effect on actual attendances has not yet been calculated. The unusually sunny weather cannot have helped much either. But the Museums Association itself produced a series of 11 regional guides which if read on the beach or in the pool would have enabled the readers almost to think that they had actually visited the collections described in considerable detail. Too many to note here but a list of all the titles is available from the MA or the Museums and Galleries Commission. Simon Olding's Exploring Museums: London (ISBN 0 11 2904653) and Arnold Wilson's Exploring Museums: The South West (ISBN 0 11 2904696) tackle their areas entertainingly, but their step‐by‐step guides to some of their subjects may soon be outdated as many existing museums are currently undergoing major rearrangements or refurbishments.

Details

New Library World, vol. 91 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 July 1987

MIKE CORNFORD

There are many different ways for the general public to express their views about the range and nature of our services. Throwing a supermarket trolley through the window, storming…

Abstract

There are many different ways for the general public to express their views about the range and nature of our services. Throwing a supermarket trolley through the window, storming out threatening never to darken our shelves again and dumping a bag of overdue books in the fishing lake are three recent pointers to me that maybe I'm not completely in touch with the needs of the local community. These may well be entirely appropriate gestures but I much prefer more subtle messages, especially when it comes to opinions on my book selection.

Details

New Library World, vol. 88 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 1986

MELINDA RILEY, BRIAN LANTZ, MIKE CORNFORD, TONY WARSHAW, JANE LITTLE, EDWIN FLEMING, ALLAN BUNCH and WILFRED ASHWORTH

The idea for this hugely successful event at the Crucible Theatre on 7 June, came first from the pages of New Library World, believe it or not. Reading one of Jane Little's…

Abstract

The idea for this hugely successful event at the Crucible Theatre on 7 June, came first from the pages of New Library World, believe it or not. Reading one of Jane Little's articles advertising Feminist Book Fortnight, I noticed that there was not going to be a feminist book fair in this country this year, and that the main fair was to be in Oslo. It seemed an ideal opportunity to alter Sheffield's image as the macho snooker playing capital of the North and the idea for the First Sheffield Women's Book Fair was born.

Details

New Library World, vol. 87 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1989

Yvonne Warburton, Mike Cornford and Sandra Vogel

Last month there was an unexpected complete absence of anything I felt like shouting about. This month there's more than enough.

Abstract

Last month there was an unexpected complete absence of anything I felt like shouting about. This month there's more than enough.

Details

New Library World, vol. 90 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1991

Sarah Cowell, Mike Cornford, Edwin Fleming, Allan Bunch and Tony Joseph

Through this column I will be exploring the field of environmental information and its provision in this country. I will do this by tackling the subject from the user's point of…

Abstract

Through this column I will be exploring the field of environmental information and its provision in this country. I will do this by tackling the subject from the user's point of view: each month I will pick a different user (or potential user) group, and discuss resources, services and organisations which can be of use to this group. Just to avoid any charge of repetitiveness, I will occasionally diverge from this pattern to discuss other issues.

Details

New Library World, vol. 92 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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