http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/authors/bruce-royan/ Recent content in Bruce Royan on Ariadne Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/royan-rvw/ Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/46/royan-rvw/ There is no shortage of guides to the delivery of e-services in learning centres, although often their emphasis is on academic rather than local authority institutions [1]. In the public library field, it could be argued that more than enough journal articles and monographs on the topic have already been churned out in the 8 years since the publication of New Library: the People's Network [2]. Is there really room on the shelves for one more? http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/royan-rvw/ Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/45/royan-rvw/ Sixteen years ago, when Buying Books for Libraries [1] was first published, it rapidly became a set text in library schools. It also found its way onto the shelves of many practitioners, and I predict a similar destiny for this fashionably re-titled and newly revised second edition. A revised edition is timely, as much has changed in this fast-moving field, including online order systems and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the rise and rise of consortium purchasing, bewildering turnover among suppliers, the development of new value-added services, site licensing, e-books and the triumph of the Web as a means both of pre-order checking and publication supply. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/royan-rvw/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/42/royan-rvw/ There is an irony in reviewing a printed book about the Digital Library. The gestation period of monographic print publishing is such that it is unreasonable to expect it to be fully up to date. From internal evidence it is clear that no chapter in the book under review was completed more recently than April 2003. This may explain the lack of mention of developments such as the UK Parliamentary Select Committee Report on Scientific Publication [1], or the Public Access Proposal of the US National Institutes of Health [2]. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/royan-rvw/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/38/royan-rvw/ The list of 25 contributors at the front of this volume is initially rather disheartening to the new reader: it conjures up memories of past encounters with loose compilations of elderly conference papers, only resuscitated because of their perceived relevance to a currently fashionable topic. This is decidedly not what is on offer here: each of the eight chapters of this book sets out a focused and coherent view of one aspect of the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) phenomenon, based on the distilled experiences of four universities: Aberdeen, Leeds Metropolitan, Lincoln and Sheffield Hallam. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/royan/ Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/34/royan/ There is something about the phrase “International Yearbook” that makes the reviewer’s heart sink. It conjures up an image of an arbitrary assemblage of re-cycled conference papers in indifferent English, cobbled together at random and in haste with minimal editorial control and no critical apparatus to speak of. Having some familiarity with series editor Gary Gorman’s timely and practical contributions to the literature of information services, from Qualitative Research (1997) to Information Resource Management (2001) however, this reviewer was hopeful that the annual International Yearbook of Library and Information Management (IYLIM) series might buck the trend. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/scran/ Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/7/scran/ The images that the year 2001 bring up are either seductively utopian or dimly dystopian from an information and technology point of view. Visionaries either see an information rich world with constant online access - built into your clothes in some scenarios - or HAL 9000 calmly saying, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave." There is probably no doubt that we will have the technology, but can we build a bionic information system?