Interrelations among Special Libraries

Abstract

IN APPROACHING the topic of interrelationships among libraries, or networks as stated in the title of this conference, some attention should be paid to an older phrase and an antecedent idea, library If we think of networks as a more sophisticated development, a recent writer has paid due respect to the role of co-operation in promoting them. Working librarians, he wrote, largely on their own initiative and often with scant recognition outside the profession, have created through cooperative efforts in many geographic areas and various subject disciplines, a series of overlapping structures and relationships to expedite the distribution of scientific documentation; in addition, despite criticism of the profession's alleged inertia with respect to technologic change, 'library professionals have created the only operational or near-operational network schemes . . . designed to make libraries more efficient and economic, and in so doing have improved their services and made them more broadly available.' The present paper will first deal with some of the objectives, etiology, and requirements of the network as it overtakes and embraces co-operation. Next, in this context of network development, a number of activities involving special libraries will be reviewed by way of illustration and example. The greatest proportion of special interrelationships are, on the surface at least, random and informal. We shall therefore concentrate on such arrangements as have about them some measure of structure and intent. Finally, we will deduce from these examples the performance and promise which special libraries may offer to a total network or information system. The ultimate objective of librarianship and information sciences is to make possible those moments when information transfer takes place, from media to minds. This purpose exists in our individual work, in co-operative work, and in network. In times long gone, it was thought that individual persons could be fully knowledgeable of their specialties. Now, the disciplinary range which man can fully grasp is but a minuscule part of a small segment of recorded knowledge, and on even that part, the flood of new knowledge drowns him daily. At one time in history, it was believed that a single, scholarly might bring together all publications necessary to its users. Today, it is recognized that no single can hope to acquire, process, and make available more than a fraction of the total record. In the face of interdisciplinary movement and the torrent of publishing output, such limitations to learning are intolerable. Recognizing these futilities of isolated effort, as individual scholars we further reduce our reach to that minisubject whose literature we may grasp; as seekers, custodians, and purveyors of information, we join in co-operative ventures to achieve more comprehensive coverage and easier access through planning and sharing our total resources. 1 Melvin Weinstock, Network Concepts in Scientific and Technical Libraries, Special Libraries (May, 1967), 58:330.