The technological university library (TUL) is not in any strict sense an information center for industry, but it has specific important functions in a network of Scientific and Technical Information Systems and Services (STI/SS) which coexist in a kind of symbiotic or feedback structure. (Author/PF)

This essay characterizes role of the librarian as using a variety of skills (intellectual, human and communication, technical) to deal with recorded information by evaluating, acquiring, preserving, sorting and ordering, and making it available. Library management, training, and preservation of library materials are highlighted. Six references are…

Describes the characteristics and roles of traditional libraries and information services, and examines predictions about their future. Analyzes recent models of the electronic or digital library, and describes the concept of the hybrid library. On this basis, develops a generic model of the library, using that term in its broadest sense.…

Defines and describes three roles of library collections: archival, dispensing, and bibliographic. It is argued that the rise of remotely accessible materials makes possession less important relative to access, has implications for all three roles, and indicates a shift in emphasis away from collection development and conventional catalogs and…

This report considers the effects of new technology (online search services) on user access to information; the role of libraries in providing such access; the structure of a future national information network in the United Kingdom; and general managerial considerations. Seventeen references are cited. (EJS)

Discusses the British Library's role, identity, and expectations, and comments on successes, charges, and copyright problems of the Lending Division, the current image of the Reference Division, controversial areas within the Bibliographic Services Division, and criticism of library research associated with the Research and Development Department.…

Describes a project at the Ministry of Health Library and Documentation Centre in Malawi, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), that changed the role of the library from information collector to producer of information through the use of desktop publishing and the creation of CD-ROM databases. (LRW)

Discusses the importance of oral tradition in African culture; describes efforts to collect, organize, and disseminate oral tradition; and highlights associated problems. It is concluded that librarians in Africa should place greater emphasis on oral tradition as a supplement to documentary sources. (18 references) (MES)

This analysis of metaphors relating to libraries in the "Chronicle of Higher Education" found that (1) administrators view libraries as contributors to the social structure of an academic environment; (2) faculty regard libraries as the repository for physical information resources to support their research; and (3) librarians attribute…