The Australian Library Journal
volume 50 issue 3
John Levett
Trusting librarians too blindly? A review-article
R L Cope
Baker, Nicholson: Double Fold: Libraries and the assault on paper. New York, Random House, 2001. xii, 371 p., illus. ISBN 0 375 50444 3. Price: $US25.95 (hardback),
Double Fold is not likely to leave many readers indifferent. To judge from the large range of reactions (offensive and defensive) in the United States, just the opposite is true. Indignation, disbelief, occasionally self-righteous ripostes, and even muted fury are not hard to find. The Association of Research Libraries writes of 'purposeful misrepresentations', for example. Baker has, in effect, touched a most sensitive nerve in librarianship: its own self-perception. But the reactions of those outside the profession show that public perceptions of the profession have suffered a grave shock and a severe loss of confidence in librarians' trustworthiness as 'guardians of the book'. To review the book through the prism of these reactions is tempting, but the present article will only briefly attempt this, noting a few important pieces in passing. Perhaps the least useful reaction encountered is that of James Billington, the present Librarian of Congress (reported in The New York Times of 7 April 2001): 'I take offense at the implication that there was a wide conspiracy going on at the Library of Congress (LC) from people who have probably not run anything in their lives'. But Billington (who has not read the book) had admitted in the same interview that ' This is the first time I ever heard that such a thing [as described by Baker] happened.' 'I'll look into it, and we can get an answer, I guess'. Do those words inspire confidence?
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When libraries made headlines
Larry Amey
How big an impact did the report have? Sir Grenfell Price, at the opening of the building of the National Library of Australia in 1968, said the Munn Pitt survey led to a 'revolution in Australian libraries'. Eventually, authorities took to referring to Australian library history as AM and PM, that is, the bettering influence on library provision between ante-Munn and post-Munn. Norman Horrocks in his study, 'The Carnegie Corporation of New York and its impact on library development in Australia' comments that 'the impact of this report at the time was tremendous'. Indeed, it is undoubtedly true that no library report before or after in the history of Australia has made such an impression.
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The Northeast coast of Papua New Guinea: a bibliographic survey
Sam Kaima and Otto Nekitel
National bibliographies for Papua-New Guinea have been compiled in the past and more may be completed in the future; there is also a need for regional or provincial bibliographies to help researchers working at these levels. This paper stems from the recent publication of bibliographies of Morobe, Madang, East and West Sepik provinces which are being combined as one regional bibliography in order to assist in the identification of sources of interest to future researchers. The series is now being expanded to include all the highland provinces.
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Disability information: from knowledge to power
Laura Molino
This paper was originally presented at a Community Summit organised by the NSW Council of Social Service in Sydney on 9th April 2001
The aim here is to look at the provision of disability information and the role of information professionals:
- What obstacles are faced by people looking for information?
- Why is access to information important?
- What is the difference between advocacy and information?
- How is the provision of disability information being handled in NSW currently?
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The search for the philosopher's stone: balancing librarianship education in core and evolving knowledges
Maureen Nimon
Ross Harvey's article, 'Losing the quality battle in Australian education for librarianship' (2001), may be read as a lament for all things past, a jeremiad in which the prophet cries for a return to the straight and narrow paths of former practices. Readers may focus on the dramatic statements in the first half of the paper without placing them in the context of the proposals that follow. If they do so, they will miss the attention-grabbing function of these statements, which are designed to provoke constructive debate.
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Library and information professionals and knowledge management: conceptions, challenges and conflicts
Gray Southon and Ross Todd
The level of interest suggests that knowledge management needs to be taken seriously as an issue for information professionals and for the fields of librarianship and information science. Knowledge management is perceived to offer a substantial enhancement of the role of the information professional. However, the confusion, variations and concerns expressed indicate that knowledge management is a difficult area still requiring significant exploration and development. The definition of the area is still very open and in some ways quite problematic. There is an understandable desire for this to be resolved. A recognised definition provides people with a more substantive base to explain the concept and to argue for its adoption. It enables them to establish their identity with respect to a specific concept, program or set of tools. Further, the current lack of status of many information professions, and the pervasive uncertainty in many industries suggest substantial reasons for developing a more coherent and strategically relevant professional identity. However, the breadth of approaches represented just by this group of information professionals suggests commonality may be difficult to achieve within the profession, let alone outside.
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