Search results

The aim of this publication is to list the catalogues of the Department of Manuscripts which are in regular use. Catalogues which have been superseded by later publications are not normally included, since whatever their historical or bibliographical interest they are no longer everyday working tools. To save space in cross‐reference, the catalogues, etc., here listed have been numbered serially in Clarendon type, thus: 31. This numeration has no other significance.

NOT for a long time have books and libraries featured in the correspondence columns of The Times and other newspapers as regularly as they have in 1960. Earlier in the year Sir Alan Herbert's lending rights' scheme had a good run, and we have clearly not yet heard the last of it. Indeed, a Private Member's bill on the subject is to have its second reading in Parliament on December 9th. More recently, the Herbert proposals have had a by‐product in the shape of bound paperbacks, and a correspondence ensued which culminated in Sir Allen Lane's fifth‐of‐November firework banning hard‐covered Penguins for library use.

The Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts incorporates collections which were previously included in the Departments of Printed Books and of Manuscripts. A Department of Oriental Manuscripts was formed out of the latter in 1867, the Oriental printed books being added from the former department in 1892. Prior to these dates, any catalogues which were issued were technically publications of the parent departments. All, however, are included in this list for convenience.

EVEN when it rains, and it did rain, Edinburgh has many attractions. It is a fine centre for a conference with some splendid libraries to visit and this year, as in other years, our hosts put themselves out to make us welcome.

Full of years and of honours, one of the greatest scholars and public men of our time has finished his career.

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

The next in the series of evening meetings arranged by the Aslib Research and Development Department, to be held at Aslib on Tuesday, 12th September 1972, is entitled ‘Data and the chemist’. The speakers from the Department will be Margaret Slater and Averil Osborn.

The purpose of this paper is to review the global history of library consortia from ancient times until the present and propose further development of consortia to address journal costs and research distribution.

The global history of consortia is reviewed, with a concentration on the early years of the American Library Association.

Consortia have proved their value in making libraries more efficient and in advancing research through combined efforts in developing indexes and catalogues.

The paper encourages libraries to build on their history of cooperation and extend it by linking their repositories, using their own strengths to battle excessive subscription fees, and become publishers in their own right.

Consortia are encouraged to work together to build a global repository, to stand firm against predatory pricing and to take the lead in the dissemination of scholarship.

This paper proposes that libraries join in broad regional consortia to oppose unjustifiable prices imposed by the major publishers and that libraries, with their institutions, work regionally and internationally to take control of the distribution of research.

As a response to the claims that much of management academic research is irrelevant from the practitioner perspective, this study aims to empirically investigate whether books serve as effective knowledge distribution agents and whether peer‐reviewed publications are used in the development of book content.

A citation analysis of 40 authored and nine edited books was done, followed by a survey of 35 book authors.

This study refutes the previous claims that management academic research has made little impact on the state of practice. Peer‐reviewed sources, such as refereed journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, are used to develop the content of knowledge management and intellectual capital (KM/IC) books. Even though most business professionals do not directly read academic articles, the knowledge existing in these articles is delivered to them by means of books and textbooks.

Scholarly research has played a significant role in developing the KM/IC field. This study confirms the existence of the indirect knowledge dissemination channels where books serve as knowledge transmission agents. Therefore, academics should not change their research behavior. Instead, infrastructure should be developed to facilitate the transition of scholarly knowledge to practitioners. The question is not whether academic research is relevant, instead it is whether it reaches practitioners in the most efficient way.

This is the most comprehensive empirical investigation of the role of books in academic knowledge transition ever conducted.

While granting Cowper the full poetic license he is entitled to, prosaically I must observe that it is not the syllables but rather the philogists who pant. They do indeed breathe rapidly in short gasps after they have established each successively deeper level of root connection in pursuit of the etymological purpose of delineating the origin and historical development of words, or of providing an account of any given word. Etymology as so defined I will designate analytic etymology and distinguish from another form of word study, which I shall call reconstructive etymology.