Edited by Sarah Ormes and Lorcan Dempsey
The Internet, Networking and the Public Library
Library Association Publishing, 1996. ISBN 1 85604 202 2
Review by Robert Harden
Have public libraries arrived at a defining moment in their history? Read this important book if you are prepared to confront that question.
The perceptive opening chapters set the scene, making a convincing case for public libraries to join, even lead, the networking revolution. It is all very confident and affirmative but there is no escaping the implicit "adapt or die" message which emerges from the careful analysis. There is a revealing statistical comparison of public library internet connectivity in the USA, where libraries have claimed a place in the national strategy for information, and in the UK where there has been no unified voice powerful enough to assert such a claim. The bulk of the book is an account of the current public library networking scene with all the detail you could wish for to gain a true picture of what is being achieved. Sarah Ormes contributes an overview and the first ever directory of Internet, resource sharing and civic information projects. This is followed by accounts of the key projects by those involved in them.
Ironically, the theme of fragmentation is the thread that holds this book together. The public library service in the UK has become a victim of, as Geoffrey Hare puts it, "the parochialism of its local authority framework". Other contributors also refer to the fragmented condition of the public library service, either as a factor which has inhibited collaborative networking, or as the major reason for the absence of a national sense of vision and purpose for public libraries which in turn discourages strategic development and investment on the necessary national scale. The networking projects themselves are a case in point. For the most part they are products of the enthusiasm and energy of librarians in individual local authorities. There has been no overall research and development plan. The nation needs a coherent, ambitious vision for the modern public library service and librarians must see to it, for no-one else will, that a national strategic framework is put in place for the development of public library networking. With EARL establishing itself as a national networking consortium a start has been made.
The networking pioneers who describe their projects in this book are commendably candid about their experiences. There is as much to learn from the setbacks and blind alleys as from the outright successes. Many of the initiatives are in the process of making the transition from project status to mainstream activity. These case studies afford ample evidence that the time has arrived for all public librarians to integrate networking into their professional thinking and their services.
The editors were right to place the networking projects in the wider context. Doing so has highlighted the contrast between the resourcefulness of librarians when it comes to achieving something practical on a local scale and the past failure of the national public library community to think, plan and build strategically. This book constitutes a wake up call which public libraries would do well to heed.
Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This article last updated/links checked on 14-Mar-1997