Identifies interacting principles of theory of library service and indicates nature of library policies, activities, and professional values upon which implementation of principles rests. Library users ("worthy" and "needy"), hierarchy of service functions (stimulation, guidance, instruction, information services, access,…

Discusses a paradigm for academic librarianship that requires greater sensitivity to and identification with needs of library users. Centrality of library academic community is questioned, noting insistence of librarians on independent status of library and failure of bibliographic instruction programs to make issue of critical thinking top…

Critiques the model of information literacy as a central purpose of librarianship. Reviews the appropriateness of the "learning methodology" of the information literacy model. Outlines the challenge of relating information literacy to workplace competencies. Proposes that information literacy be refocused away from information toward learning, and…

Contends that an entrepreneurial model of librarianship contradicts traditional ideals of free and equal access to information and argues that such a model threatens the future of the library as a vital public sphere of democratic culture. Discusses broad trends of advanced capitalism to provide a context for the critical interpretation of issues…

Arguing that traditional models are no longer effective in the information, age in which change will be a constant, this paper advocates the use of team-management to ensure two-way communication in an academic library. The need for both creative approaches to problem-solving and managing the library organization and a new organizational structure…

This essay suggests that conversation, crucial for human life in society and intrinsic to nature of libraries, may be the appropriate model for providing guidance, means, and context for change in academic librarianship. The business model, missions and goals, collection development, bibliographic instruction, and organizational considerations are…

Reports on the 1991 Special Libraries Association (SLA) Annual Conference. Issues addressed include the need for innovation through the creation and adoption of paradigms; new developments in computers; library education, including continuing education; operations and services of the SLA; and new roles for the future in recruitment, ethics, and…

This discussion of effective communication for leaders in the field of librarianship begins by providing a historical overview which highlights the librarian's influential role from the earliest days of recorded language; the evolution and modification of words in individual languages from crude forms to their electronic storage and transmission;…