The 25 essays written for this compilation focus on a variety of initiatives undertaken by librarians, information scientists, and educators to give increased service with diminished funding. They show librarians responding to a changed environment through creating new organizational patterns, making use of new technologies, and participating…

Challenging popular prognostications and asserting that the complex mix of technologies projects suggests no clear path to the future, this book offers an alternative model to a simplistic digital future. The book is divided into four main parts. Chapters in the first part, "Being Analog," consider the need to get over the digital…

Cooperative library programs in Great Britain began with suggestions made in the 1915 Adams report commissioned by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. Following the report's recommendations and with grants from the trust, countries began library services to rural areas and the Central Library for Students (CLS) was formed and later became a…

During the first half of the twentieth century, there was slow but steady progress toward larger units of public library service, such as county and regional systems. But there was a lag both in the conceptual and the actual development of the central libraries of these systems as strong points for direct service to readers. Librarians were first…

This publication outlines the complete community networking process: planning, developing partnerships, funding, marketing, content, public access, and evaluation, and discusses the variety of roles that the local public library can play in this process. Chapter One, "The Importance of Community Networking," describes the importance of community…

From its earliest beginnings to the post war information explosion, this text traces the history of the world's largest library, the Library of Congress (LC). The library's creation in 1800 for use by members of Congress is comprehensively discussed along with its development into a world wide service. Library methodology is covered in chapters on…

In 1975 a study of the Ontario (Canada) public library system was undertaken in order to develop plans for organizing, financing, and coordinating public libraries in the next ten years. From published reports, interviews, letters, and examination of facilities and available data, information was collected on provincial and county library…

A study on information technology and public policy examined relationships among information providers and their clients in order to determine the economic, institutional, and technological factors that are key in deciding how people get the information they need. The research project was conducted to help the National Commission on Libraries and…