While libraries have the basic responsibility of collecting, documenting, and organizing information, they also have a bigger responsibility to societal elements of public policy, political theory, social trends, and cultural values. This article introduces the theme of this issue, which discusses libraries and society in relation to these bigger…

Discusses factors militating against integration of social science data archives and libraries in near future, noting usage of materials, access requisite skills of librarians, economic stability of archives, existing structures which manage social science data archives. Role of librarians, data access tools, and cataloging of machine-readable…

A critical look at prevailing assumptions concerning relations between libraries and society is followed by a discussion of specific demographic trends including population growth, population increase of people over 65, women, geographic population redistribution, minorities, the poor, class status, and social research in the library field. (MBR)

Examines bibliographers and collection development in terms of seven sometimes overlapping contexts in order to gauge how and why their roles have changed in the past and to speculate about the future. Dimensions examined include the system of scholarly communication; information marketplace; library and university as organization; technological…