Focuses on the professional life and experiences of Don W. Krummel, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Addresses the essence of libraries and librarianship through interviews with Krummel that discussed the influences on his career and as an historian of librarianship. (Author/LRW)

Discusses S.R. Ranganathan's five laws (books are for use, every book its reader, every reader his or her book, save the time of the reader, the library is a growing organism) and updates them (libraries serve humanity, respect all forms of knowledge, use technology intelligently to enhance service, protect free access to knowledge, honor the past…

Discussion of history as a major research methodology in library and information science highlights the current status and nature of library history; rhetoric and history; historical significance of local history and larger perspectives; primary and secondary information sources; library biography; and publishing library history. Thirty-four…

There have been significant changes in the nature of scientific and technical librarianship in the past four decades, reflected both in the structure and organization of literature and the education and professional training of librarians. These changes are reflected in library school curricula and in the skills and abilities needed by…

Argues that libraries have gone through a rising and falling pattern of influence, largely in response to changes in information technology. The library of the future is described as an information support center where librarians can fill two new roles: systems analysts and knowledge engineers. (EM)

This document is based on transcripts of recorded informal interviews with: (1) selected senior professors in the library schools at Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw (Poland); (2) the director and a member of the Books and Readers Institute of the National Polish Libraries; and (3) a group of Polish librarians and students in the field. The report…