Search results

The purpose of this paper is to analyse managerial approaches of a selective group of national library directors, examining their views and perceptions of successful library leadership in the twenty-first century in different sociocultural contexts. This study was carried out based on a series of semi-structured interviews with ten top-level directors of national libraries located on different continents.

The data collection method for this study consisted of the narrative analysis of the ten interviews coupled with the participative leadership theory, which highlights the leaders’ desire to create a more democratic culture within their library organisations.

The analysis of these interviews reveals that many of the directors’ responses were supportive to the concepts discussed in participative leadership. National librarians, through their participative leadership philosophies, values and beliefs, contributed to the development of an institutional culture that fostered improving trust, communications, engagement as well as promotion of inter-team relationships by breaking down the traditional “hierarchical” barriers within their organisations.

The participants were predominantly from Europe; only one participant represented the USA, Middle East (Israel) and Northern Africa (Egypt). As a result, there are not many diverse viewpoints from national library directors outside of Europe. Further studies would be needed to obtain a more international perspective in the national library sphere. Furthermore, this study only examines the views and attitudes of ten different library directors. In comparison with the totality of national library directors across the world, this is a relatively small sample. This study may not be representative of all national library directors around the world.

The results of this study would be of interest to library professionals and educators interested in management, as well as Library and Information Science students who want to understand how national library directors view successful traits of participative leadership in different sociocultural contexts.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

MY reaction to being appointed Director of Library Services would be one of frank amazement, rather as if I had been a commercial traveller in a rather dubious line of trade, such as ladies' underwear, who had suddenly been offered a bishopric. The recovery from this amazement would take about ten seconds flat and I would doubtless find myself in the thick of finding an office, a desk, a rubber plant and a regulation‐size piece of carpet appropriate to my grade. My first real task would be to bring some order to the seven sections of the D.E.S. now dealing with library matters and to initiate among librarians generally some radical thinking on the problems that face us all.

This paper aims to report on the China‐North America Library Conference held in Beijing, China. The conference theme is Sharing Digital Resources: Challenges and Opportunities. Six sub‐themes are also intertwined with the conference theme: Resource sharing policies and perspectives; Digital infrastructure and repository technology; Research data sharing; Sharing digital preservation methods; and Shared digital access, retrieval and use.

The paper summarizes several important presentations at the conference.

The shared projects in this report include: National Cultural Information Resource Sharing Project; Multicultural Canada Project; Data Conservancy; National Library Digital Exchange Services; and Digital Museum Platform.

This is an original conference report which would help those who are interested in sharing digital resources on a global scale to understand the challenges, issues, and opportunities on that aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to study the cultural integration, the role of national libraries in regional and international cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) national libraries’ barriers of cooperation and drivers of their cooperation and to propose a framework (conceptual and operational) for their cooperation.

Data collection tool of this survey was a researcher-made questionnaire, sent to 30 individuals and experts involved in cooperation of ECO National Libraries from eight institutions. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha. It was 0.91. In this study, for awareness of activities between ECO national libraries and extraction of drivers, some documents were studied, and preliminary data were collected by informal interviews with meeting stakeholders and participants.

The lack of stability in management positions was one of the major barriers in cooperation of the ECO national libraries. Other major obstacles in this context were lack of continuous communication, lack of common protocols and standards, lack of planning, lack of a central coordinating organization, bureaucracy, etc. Geographical proximity, common history and heritage, common resources, Islamic and cultural factors, importance of information and knowledge, requirements of the international system and political and security requirements were considered as drivers. An information centre was proposed for their active cooperation. Iran is better to host the information centre.

National libraries as the scientific and cultural memory of nations and heirs of written heritage should cooperate and share their valuable scientific and cultural heritage to the future generations.

This study examines the collection building of Western language materials in a Third World national library. Given the multitude of demands and needs of a developing country, national libraries are confronted with basic problems, including convincing the government that the library is an important national institution, contributing to the nation's development and worthy of financial support. In addition to resource constraints, there is also the question of spending wisely for one's domestic collection as well as foreign publications, the latter being crucial if the Third World country is embarked upon a determined program of modernization. With limited resources on the one hand and the need to procure information from the developed world on the other, libraries in Third World countries could best meet their goals through careful planning. When collecting Western language materials, constructive planning could be achieved through a collection development policy in which Western collections are systematically and rationally built to assure collection growth and maximum utility.

The key roles of national libraries in terms of acquisition, retention, preservation and providing access to materials are considered, first of all in terms of printed materials and then in terms of electronic materials. The current situation regarding the legal deposit of electronic materials in selected countries, including the UK, is discussed. The automation history of the National Library of Scotland, founded in 1925 but with a history dating back to the 1680s, is outlined and current initiatives, internal as well as external, towards the development of a hybrid library are described. The importance of collaboration in meeting the challenges is emphasised.

Gabriel is the World Wide Web server for those European national libraries represented in the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), providing a single point of access on the Internet for the retrieval of information about their functions, services and collections. Above all, it serves as a gateway to their online services. The service has been developed through an international project involving the national libraries of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Finland and Germany. Gabriel has the potential of becoming a model for collaboration in the networking field across a wide geographical area and among diverse institutions.

In the bright summer of 1945 history lay with a heavy weight on the library of the British Museum.