Challenges For Libraries Research Articles

Visual arts provision in public libraries: threats and opportunities

Local government re-organisation, educational changes and increasing costs of materials are just some of the external threats faced by UK public libraries. Internally the threats come chiefly from the need for financial savings, but they can come from our own unwillingness to make change. However it is an exciting time, with new initiatives coming from government particularly in the areas of educational development and information technology, and opportunities for greater cohesion in planning and management. All these provide challenges for librarians in the visual arts.

How much should it cost? An introduction tomanagement use of costing information

With the introduction of the internal market the health service is changing rapidly and health libraries must change with it. Many libraries are requested to cost their services. The demand comes from external customers and from their own organizations. This paper discusses the various reasons for costing services and how costing information can influence our management decision making. The paper challenges librarians to move costing processes away from a mechanistic approach, towards a means of demonstrating the worth of a library resources unit in cost and qualitative terms. Using costing information for cost control purposes, comparison of cost with other providers, setting prices or determining future service delivery levels is discussed, as well as considering the question of external provision of library services. Use of information on fixed and variable costs and assessing break-even levels of service provision is illustrated as a helpful guide to library survival.

How much should it cost? An introduction to management use of costing information

With the introduction of the internal market the health service is changing rapidly and health libraries must change with it. Many libraries are requested to cost their services. The demand comes from external customers and from their own organizations. This paper discusses the various reasons for costing services and how costing information can influence our management decision making.The paper challenges librarians to move costing processes away from a mechanistic approach, towards a means of demonstrating the worth of a library resources unit in cost and qualitative terms. Using costing information for cost control purposes, comparison of cost with other providers, setting prices or determining future service delivery levels is discussed, as well as considering the question of external provision of library services.Use of information on fixed and variable costs and assessing break‐even levels of service provision is illustrated as a helpful guide to library survival.

Electronic Instruction at Carlson Library

In this age of increasing electronic instruction in academic libraries, the University of Toledo's Carlson Library, like many other academic libraries, is trying to come of age. The library's instruction program has traditionally used a paper-based instructional format. However, with the introduction of the library's OPAC, CD-ROMs, the Internet, and OhioLINK in recent years, we are faced with a number of challenges which this paper will discuss. The main challenge is that we are trying to teach electronic resources without a mediated classroom in the library. We need to bridge the gap between the paper-based instruction program and electronic resources because our current teaching methods do not always allow for patron interaction with the technology. Increasingly, instruction is having to take place at the Information Desk, where there are time constraints and library users are unclear about the kinds of information they want or which electronic resources they need. Adapting to these new and growing resources and developing the skills needed to teach them are among the important challenges librarians at Carlson Library face.

Information Management Problems and Challenges in Transition Economies

La penetration des ordinateurs, des technologies de l'information et des telecommunications dans les anciens pays socialistes en transition economique a contribue a l'automatisation des nombreuses activites liees a l'information dans les organisations et dans les entreprises, et a change le mode d'acces a l'information. Malgre l'intervention d'ingenieurs en informatique et de professionnels en systemes d'information, certaines organisations continuent a faire face a un certain nombre de problemes dus a l'interdisciplinarite de la connaissance a gerer par les bibliothecaires et les specialistes de l'information. De plus le besoin d'information dans les organisations et les entreprises est un veritable challenge a surmonter pour les specialistes de l'information

Beyond "First You Push This Button, Then...":

The current proliferation of computer-based sources and resources challenges librarians to teach the commonalities of using a computer to retrieve relevant sources, rather than to instruct users how to cope with the quirks of individual databases and systems. Since the spring of 1991, Bobst Library at New York University has been teaching open workshops on the use of DIALOG Information Service's Classmate system to students with a wide range of computer skills, academic levels, and in different disciplines (often in the same class). A core group of librarian instructors designed a syllabus which stresses the common techniques and strategies of computer-based research. Teaching just the basics allows these classes to focus on casting a research question in terms of computer logic, and to demonstrate the recursive process of an evaluative path. Applying this approach to any computer-based resource (whether OPACs, CD-ROMs, or online databases) will address the need to create an integrated framework for how t...

Perestroika as a Challenge for Librarians: A Brief Report on Recent Conferences

ABSTRACTThe dramatic changes which have altered the political, social and economic profile of Eastern Europe have also had a substantial impact on publishing activities in the region. Two recent conferences provided the opportunity for librarians who acquire Slavic and other Eastern European publications to discuss problems which have been experienced over the last five years.

New technology and marketing—the challenge for librarians

Though I have had little contact with the medical library profession, I do know that your group (Medical, Health and Welfare Libraries) is highly active and highly thought of throughout the profession. From my point of view, however, the grouping of three really quite different professional sub‐groups under one banner presents a number of problems. If I'm to talk about marketing then I've got to take some note of the markets served by these three groups. Since the markets served by these groups are quite different from one another I can either attempt to say something which applies equally to all three, thereby missing some of the key differences, or I can attempt to touch individually on the problems and peculiarities of each sector in turn, but without going into sufficient detail to avoid generalities. As a group you are serving three very distinct user populations: medical professionals with highly frequent, demanding and specific information needs, a captive, if floating, patient population whose needs are less specific, more diffuse and less clearly defined and a broad base of administrators and planners. (See Fig. 1 below). This trichotomy is, of course, a gross oversimplification on a number of levels, but I mention it merely to show what I mean when I say that as a group you are aiming to serve a number of distinct markets. Keith Morton has referred to the National Health Service as an information market and I should like to quote what he had to say, since it confirms my first impressions as an outsider looking in.