Search results

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

Library Workstation and PC Report, founded in 1984 as M300 and PC Report, was the brainchild of Allan Pratt, then at the University of Arizona. Pratt, the founding editor of Small Computers in Libraries, had a hunch that OCLC's introduction of the M300 workstation was going to call for much hand‐holding and specialist advice and information for librarians. He was right. M300 and PC Report had a subscribership well before the first issue was mailed to readers. And it remains a growing publication to this day.

Earliest localism was sited on a tree or hill or ford, crossroads or whenceways, where people assembled to talk, (Sax. witan), or trade, (Sax. staple), in eggs, fowl, fish or faggots. From such primitive beginnings many a great city has grown. Settlements and society brought changes; appointed headmen and officials, a cloak of legality, uplifted hands holding “men to witness”. Institutions tend to decay and many of these early forms passed away, but not the principle vital to the system. The parish an ecclesiastical institution, had no place until Saxons, originally heathens, became Christians and time came when Church, cottage and inn filled the lives of men, a state of localism in affairs which endured for centuries. The feudal system decayed and the vestry became the seat of local government. The novels of Thomas Hardy—and English literature boasts of no finer descriptions of life as it once was—depict this authority and the awe in which his smocked countrymen stood of “the vicar in his vestry”. The plague freed serfs and bondsmen, but events, such as the Poor Law of 1601, if anything, revived the parish as the organ of local government, but gradually secular and ecclesiastical aspects were divided and the great population explosion of the eighteenth century created necessity for subdivision of areas, which continued to serve the principle of localism however. The ballot box completed the eclipse of Church; it changed concepts of localism but not its importance in government.

THERE was a rather remarkable statement made at the Royal Institute of British Architects by Mr. Berwick Sayers last month. He affirmed that so far as the recorded issues of the reference libraries in the municipal libraries of London were concerned, only 8,880 books were consulted daily. This, as the statistical account of twenty‐nine public libraries, shows an average of a fraction over 302 books daily. To some this may seem not an inadequate issue, if all the books recorded are books which the student and the searcher for information have used. The point of the meeting at which the remark was made was that the reference libraries of London should do more in co‐operation with industry, and it was argued by the representatives of ASLIB who took part in the conference that our London reference libraries should be strengthened in the science and technology departments, even at the expense of the lending libraries. The experience of the public librarian seemed to be that few people lived in London near their work; and that they had command of the special libraries in London in a way that provincial industrialists had not, and therefore they did not make any use that mattered of London reference libraries. The Chambers of Commerce in the various boroughs of London consist of small traders as a rule whose main purpose is “to keep down the rates,” and who have very little connection with industry on the scale in the minds of the ASLIB representatives. In short, the chief function of the London public libraries is mainly that of home reading. Ultimately the solution of the reference problem may be the establishment of one or two great regional reference libraries supported by the co‐operation of the boroughs. Co‐operation, however, is in its initial stages yet, and it will probably be some time before such an ideal, if it be an ideal, is achieved.

This paper aims to compile an annotated list of films about or pertaining to the artist Andy Warhol.

Films were located using library catalogs, databases and online searches. Selections were evaluated through inspection and both academic and popular film reviews. Inclusion was predicated not only on subject matter and merit but also on availability either on home media or online.

Warhol’s many artistic creations can be introduced and evaluated using a combination of visual and auditory representation. Movies and television (TV) depicting Warhol through dramatization, primary source film, biographical documentary and his art in the context of other artists and movements are readily available through a variety of media.

The selected titles provide a comprehensive introduction to the scholarly analysis of Warhol’s art and work through a format that allows the most extensive representation of Warhol’s artistic output.

This is indeed the age of revolution, when timeless attitudes are changing and new ways of living being born. To most it is a bewildering complex, with uneasy forbodirtgs of the outcome. Improvement and change, there must always be—although change is not necessarily progress—but with unrest in the schools, universities and industry, one naturally questions if this is the right time for such sweeping reorganization as now seems certain to take place in local government and in the structure of the national health service. These services have so far escaped the destructive influences working havoc in other spheres. Area health boards to administer all branches of the national health service, including those which the National Health Service Act, 1946 allowed local health authorities to retain, were recommended by the Porritt Committee a number of years ago, when it reviewed the working of the service.

AT this time of the year librarians take their holidays. They will need the break this year as much as in any year since the end of the war. There are many problems to be faced in the autumn and winter, among them the continuous rising prices of everything, and the diversion of public funds to rearmament, which must have some repercussions upon the library service. Whether it is yet a fact that the pound is worth little more than five shillings in real money, we are not prepared to say, but it is certain that every cost has increased, and is continuing to increase. Especially is this so in connection with book production and bookselling; even, as our correspondent on another page suggests, in some cases the royalties of authors are in jeopardy. How far this will go it is impossible to say. At the same time the rates everywhere promise to increase still further, and in spite of the advances, it is unlikely that libraries will be exempt from the stringencies of the time. Such predictions have, however, been frequently contradicted by our past experience. Some of the real advances libraries have made have seemed to be the direct result of bad times. This is hardly a holiday meditation, but we think our readers will need all the physical and mental refreshment they can get before they face the possibilities that may follow.

ON December 6th Mr. Salter Davies was installed President of the Library Association at Chaucer House in succession to Mr. S. A. Pitt. A word first should be said about the Presidency of Mr. Pitt. It has been carried on under handicaps that would have deterred most men in such a post. A severe illness, successfully encountered and gallantly overcome, has been the main personal feature for Mr. Pitt of what should have been the most distinguisned year of a quite eminent library career. We had looked forward to very active work from him during his Presidency, and so far as circumstances permitted, he fulfilled all the obligations laid upon him completely. We can thank him more warmly, if not more sincerely, than perhaps would ordinarily be the case, because of the difficulties he has victoriously surmounted. With newly established health, we wish for him a continuance of the great work he has done for librarianship not only in Glasgow but in the Library Association and in the world of libraries generally.

Using the Internet as a means of registering discontent with politicians, policies and groups is a growing phenomenon. There are various ways of manifesting protest on the Internet, including building protest sites, cyber‐squatting, defacing Web sites and organising denial of service attacks. Some of these methods are extremely effective, being cheap to use and requiring limited technical ability. Others err on the wrong side of the law and involve full‐scale hacking. Overall, hacktivism can be a productive part of the political process.