Library World Research Articles

Health information literacy awareness and capacity building: Present and future

Health literacy is increasingly important in today’s complex information ecosystem, both nationally and globally. Across the world, whether people live in “information rich” or “information poor” societies, the role of our profession is a vital one. In the developed world, the ubiquitous nature of health information creates a wealth of accessible content and simultaneously has created confusion as to what information is reliable, how health information can be utilized, and whether or not information is produced in a meaningful manner. In the developing world, content may be non-existent, culturally inappropriate or inaccessible in terms of language and other barriers. In order to mitigate the health information crisis we are now facing, we need to collaborate and respond to the challenges raised by the complexity of health information. Librarians and other information professionals can and must play an important role in improving health literacy in their communities. This paper considers international efforts towards improving health in both information poor and information rich settings, including work showcased in recent years at IFLA’s Health & Biosciences Libraries Section Open Sessions at the World Library & Information Congress (WLIC). It discusses health literacy in the US and other developed economies, and looks in detail at innovative work by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)where the Health Sciences Library (HSL), a part of the University Libraries, has strengthened efforts surrounding health literacy in local communities and throughout the state. This paper provides examples of how to partner with multiple constituencies on health literacy and discusses future opportunities for growth and engagement.

Competency or Capacity: Measuring Librarians’ Potential for Success

Core competencies have long been established in the competitive world of business and industry. These tenants lend themselves to individualization and branding, being exclusionary tools by their very nature. So how do core competencies fit in the world of libraries and information centers, particularly when considering potential employees? The concept of individual capacity is a better fit for information fields, being more inclusive and reflective of diverse knowledge bases and skillsets that working in this field requires. Juxtaposing the two, core competencies and individual capacity, will help us re-focus our efforts on user-centered information work rather than business rhetoric and conformity.

G. Edward Evans and Holland Christie. Managerial Leadership for Librarians: Thriving in the Public and Nonprofit World. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2017. 377p. Paper, $65.00 (ISBN 9781440841705).

Managerial Leadership for Librarians: Thriving in the Public and Nonprofit World by G. Edward Evans and Holland Christie is an excellent primer for library students and professionals who are looking for a broad and comprehensive understanding of the role that leadership and management play in the public and nonprofit library world. The book itself has 20 chapters covering a number of different topics. This may seem overwhelming, but the authors have done a good job of organizing the text around four assumptions. First, the reader must understand the core concepts of managing an organization. Second, the reader must understand the core management functions and activities. From that, the third assumption is possible. The third assumption addresses the landscape in which the managerial leader operates and focuses on different elements of the environment, like governing boards, fundraising, and the like. Finally, the fourth assumption illustrates the importance of the managerial leaders continually seeking to improve their craft. The reason for this is that the better a managerial leader is, the better the organization in which they lead. Using these four assumptions as a guide, it is possible to provide an overview of the book and the underlying conceptual frameworks used for each section.

Copyright Literacy and the Role of Librarians as Educators and Advocates

The paper is inspired by the opening panel of the International Federation of Library Associations’ (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress off-site meeting held in Poland in August 2017 on models for copyright education. The panel was made up of researchers from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Turkey, Romania, and Norway and reflected on findings from a multinational study on levels of copyright literacy of librarians and those in the cultural heritage sector (Todorova et al., 2017). The members of the panel considered the rationale for copyright education, why it might be viewed as part of wider information literacy initiatives, and the specific challenges and opportunities that it presents. The paper recognizes the value in national library associations and international organizations such as IFLA and Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) taking a lead in promoting copyright education initiatives to strengthen their advocacy role. The paper also argues for a more critical and universal approach to copyright education so that this work is extended beyond the library sector.

The Critical Thinking Abilities in Learning Using Elementary Algebra E-Books: A Case Study at Public Universities in Indonesia

The learning Algebra courses are often taught using coventional textbooks. However, the reality of the learning outcomes has not been able to absorb the material to the maximum extent possible, and this is because the textbooks is limited in number so that students only record some of what is taught by the Lecturer. At the same time, electronic books are available free of charge in several world libraries. The purpose of this study is to determine the ability to think critically mathematically through the use of Elementary Algebra electronic books. The study of the method are used a Quasi Experiment with a nonrandomized Pre-test Post-test Control Group Design research design. The study population was all students who took Elementary Algebra in the Department of Mathematics Education, Malikussaleh University, in the Even Semester 2018/2019 academic year. Sample for the study was students of class A1 as an Experiment group using E-books for Teaching, and Class A2 as a Control group with lectures using conventional textbooks. The results showed that the mathematical critical thinking ability of students taught using Electronic books was better than the mathematical critical thinking ability of students who were taught using conventional textbooks. Thus the use of elementary algebra electronic books (E-books) can improve students' mathematical critical thinking skills in learning Algebra.

A set of benchmarks for Handwritten Text Recognition on historical documents

Handwritten Text Recognition is a important requirement in order to make visible the contents of the myriads of historical documents residing in public and private archives and libraries world wide. Automatic Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) is a challenging problem that requires a careful combination of several advanced Pattern Recognition techniques, including but not limited to Image Processing, Document Image Analysis, Feature Extraction, Neural Network approaches and Language Modeling. The progress of this kind of systems is strongly bound by the availability of adequate benchmarking datasets, software tools and reproducible results achieved using the corresponding tools and datasets. Based on English and German historical documents proposed in recent open competitions at ICDAR and ICFHR conferences between 2014 and 2017, this paper introduces four HTR benchmarks in order of increasing complexity from several points of view. For each benchmark, a specific system is proposed which overcomes results published so far under comparable conditions. Therefore, this paper establishes new state of the art baseline systems and results which aim at becoming new challenges that would hopefully drive further improvement of HTR technologies. Both the datasets and the software tools used to implement the baseline systems are made freely accessible for research purposes.

Library Orientation Programme in School Libraries: Awareness to Students and Teachers

School is the gateway of entering into the world of knowledge and school library plays a vital role to introduce the library system among the school children. First duty of the school library is to make the school children as the library user through library orientation programme. Library orientation programme helps to transmit knowledge and information search skills among the students. Students, newly joined teachers and parents are enlisted for the orientation programme which can be conducted in the beginning of the academic session or any specific time of the session. In this article, the components which are related to the school library use, services and activities are discussed. The formal and informal processes of library orientation, requirements for the programme are included. The effectiveness of such programme is always good for the school library users. A number of studies have recommended that it is the crucial time for the libraries to rejuvenate them by preparing suitable users. Library orientation programme creates the awareness among the users about the using of school library.

Labours of Love and Convenience: Dealing with Community-Supported Knowledge in Museums

This writing utilizes the case study of a specific project, namely adopting a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) based on open source technologies at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), to describe the thought process, which along the way led to the discovery of Linked Data and more general technology development practices based on community participation. In order to better replicate such a thought process and its evolution into a broader strategy that goes beyond technology, this paper will begin by describing the problem that the Collection IT team at AIC had been initially tasked to resolve, and its technical implementation. After that, the paper will treat the strategic shift of resources from a self-contained production and review cycle toward an exchange-based economy. The challenges, both external and internal, posed by this change will be addressed. All the while, the paper will highlight perspectives and challenges related to the museum sector, and the efforts of AIC to adopt views and methodologies that have traditionally been associated with the library world. A section is dedicated to ongoing efforts of the same nature among museums.

Before the Public Library: Reading, Community, and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1650–1850

For most library users, the idea of a public library is something that has always been a part of their daily experience. But actually, the concept of a publically funded community space devoted to the collection and maintenance of reading materials for all to access is only a little more than 150 years old. In the Anglophone world the public library officially began in the United Kingdom with the Public Libraries Act of 1850, and in America with the founding of the Peterborough Town Library in 1833. But for at least two centuries prior to this, there were libraries for the public and those libraries—in all their variety—are the subject of this excellent collection of essays smoothly edited by Mark Towsey (University of St. Andrews) and Kyle Roberts (University of Pennsylvania).The essays in Before the Public Library represent some of the research that has come out of a collective effort of over eighty scholars interested in exploring the relationship between reading and libraries in the period before the emergence of the modern public library that took place in the mid-nineteenth century. For Towsey and Roberts's book, sixteen authors from this scholarly group representing institutions from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean contributed their recent findings on a wide range of library types that existed between 1650 and 1850 in the United Kingdom and the Americas—both North and South.As is often the case with reviews of anthologies, space constraints make it difficult for anything more than a cursory summary of the articles—many of which are excellent—found within the volume. The book's context and purpose is thoroughly outlined in the editors' finely wrought introduction, which is nearly thirty pages long and itself worth the price of admission. The actual text is then divided into four chronological sections with four or five essays within each. Thus, for example in part 1 (“Empire and Enlightenment”), Louisiane Ferlier examines Quaker and Anglican transatlantic libraries during the last part of the seventeenth century, while Junia Ferreira Furtado explains the significance of the Brazilian naturalist José Vieria Couto's personal library. In part 2 (“Revolution and Nation Building”) Cheryl Knott surveys the late eighteenth-century subscription library in America, while Loveday Herridge and Sue Roe investigate the role of libraries and book clubs in Sheffield from 1771 to 1850.Part 3 moves the story along with Annika Bautz's review of the founding of the subscription library in Plymouth, England. On the other side of the Atlantic a library devoted to supporting the reading needs of apprentice mechanics is the subject of Lynda Yankaskas's study. The essays mentioned here are by no means a complete summary of all that the volume contains, but only representative examples. The concluding part contains two valuable essays by long-time library historians Tom Glynn and Alistair Black. Glynn, who has written extensively on the history of public libraries in New York City, reviews the early years of the public library in America. Black, whose credentials as an historian of the British public library are well established, provides a similar keen assessment of the establishment of public libraries in England.As this book clearly shows, the world of libraries and their users was quite dynamic and varied during the twenty decades that preceded the advent of the publically funded library. And this world has been, for the most part, little known to scholars of libraries and librarianship until only the past couple of decades. Towsey and Roberts have done all of us a great service by putting together this outstanding group of scholars whose industrious and skillful efforts have brought this under examined period into the light of modern day scholarship.Before the Public Library has an excellent and thorough index (something that is not always the case!) and a nice summary bibliography of all the literature cited in the essays. Frankly, I have not seen another work of this type that surveys the world of Anglo-American libraries and librarianship for the period under review. Towsey and Roberts's undertaking is unique and sets a new standard for historical exploration of library history. Without hesitation, I recommend this important book for all libraries whose mission is to support and maintain access to quality research. It is well worth the price.

Andrew Weiss. Big Data Shocks: An Introduction to Big Data for Librarians and Information Professionals. Chicago: American Library Association, 2018. 194p. Paper, $45.00 (ISBN: 978-1-5381-0323-4).

In Andrew Weiss’ book Big Data Shocks: An Introduction to Big Data for Librarians and Information Professionals, the author skillfully explores the intersections between libraries and big data by examining how this powerful technology is transforming and impacting (shocking) the world of libraries and information. The book is timely, given the intensity of the ongoing debates focused around campaigns of misinformation (Facebook and Google are two examples) coupled with the erosions of individual privacy that have been enabled by the use of big data technologies.

IFLA Statement on Net Neutrality and Zero-rating: At the backstage of the problem

The article analyzes the IFLA Statement on Network Neutrality and Zero-rating adopted on August 15, 2016 at the meeting of the World Library and Information Congress of the 82nd IFLA Conference inColumbus,USA, its importance for the international library community, as well as the socio-economic and cultural context, which was due to its adoption. Speaking in defense of network neutrality and against the practice of the zero-rating, IFLA designated a zone of latent for that period conflict of commercial interests of Internet providers and rules of equal access of the user to all types of content without speed and additional fee. Conflict this year later, in 2017, became public in the period of active struggle against the abolition of the principle of network neutrality in theUnited States.The market rate of traffic, the green light of which was opened as a result of the cancellation of network neutrality in theUnited Stateson December 14, 2017 by the Federal Communications Commission, is particularly sensitive for libraries with limited funding, unable to pay for high-speed Internet. In addition to paid access to broadband Internet, the obvious danger for libraries is the practice of zero rating, providing free and unlimited traffic in the framework of popular social networks or package tariff plans from large corporations, which leads to the monopolization of the information market by the largest IT corporations and the further marginalization of libraries.The displacement of cultural and educational institutions as a non-profitable sector on the roadside negatively affects libraries as providers of access and as creators of Internet content; strikes both on the acquisition of funds, and on the maintenance of readers of high-quality noncommercial information. As natural opponents of progressing monetization, the Library's networks favor the interpretation of the Internet as a public service, a publicly available public resource with a transparent and stable tariff, legislatively protected from attempts by providers to receive super-profits.

Scientometric Analysis of Library and Information Science Articles During the Year 2008-2017 Using Web of Science

This article highlights the research productivity and scholarly communication of library and information science articles during the year 2008–2017 indexed by the Web of Science database. This analytical study consisting of 56 reports and data downloaded from the Web of Science (Clarivate Analysis) database. Scientometric research mainly focused on the range of research productivity in the field of library science in a specific period. To evaluate the Publication years, to identify the authors who wrote, the more articles, which journals published most of the relevant subject articles, which institute and country have mostly involved in a particular subject; all these are to mainly discussed in this study. The present study considered as a useful tool for effective allocation of research funds in the research community and the academic world of library and information science to enhance the research process.

While the campus sleeps: Two perspectives on the uniqueness of overnight library work

Midnight, by definition, is a period of transition. It’s a quiet moment nestled between sunset and sunrise that universally marks the end of one day and the beginning of another. Most people are asleep at that hour, happily oblivious to this ceremonial passage of time, but we aren’t most people. As third-shift information associates with the Georgia Tech Library, a 24-hour academic library in Atlanta, Georgia, our work schedule is synchronized with the birth of each new day. We are the vampires of the library world, and midnight is our magic hour. We’ve reflected on our eight years as colleagues separately and collectively, and have gathered the following thoughts on what makes the graveyard shift at the library a lovely and distinctive experience.

Maximum Hours and Minimal Staffing

Three library directors of theological libraries at small institutions discussed the challenges they face that appear particular to their libraries. Participants in the conversation group were then invited to share their own challenges and compare them with those of others to see how common or unusual such challenges may be in the world of theological libraries.

Voices Versus Visions: A Commentary on Academic Library Collections and New Directions

Academic library collections are under pressure to follow dominant voices in the library world to redefine library missions and collections according to emerging trends in new library services. These trends call for a shift in focus away from traditional resource support for curriculum and research to new tech-related and other services. This sea-change in academic library function is led by the voices of major figures at library conferences and taken up by some library leaders who want to be on the cutting edge of reevaluating traditional academic library collections and the very essence of the mission of academic libraries. Thus, it is important to question dominant voices at library conferences, in published discourse, and among our colleagues so as to prevent the shaping of all libraries into a common mold of new services that can seem alluring but can potentially disconnect our libraries from their more fundamental role in supporting the research and curriculum of our institutions. Listening to the input of our faculty and student stakeholders, as well as balancing new roles with the value of foundational ones, are key to preserving our central importance to the university.

The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander

Reviewed by: The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Alexander, Zeno The Library of Ever. Imprint, 2019 [208p] (The Library of Ever) Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16917-4 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16916-7 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-6 Eleven-year-old Lenora is exploring the public library when an enormous stone archway appears where moments before only a blank wall had stood. She steps through it to find an epically grand library with seemingly endless shelves, thousands of doors, a whirlwind of activity, and a businesslike librarian who hires Lenora on the spot as an assistant apprentice librarian. Her first task is to staff the help desk for Calendars, which ends up landing her in a time machine with a polite but frazzled robot; she manages to get back, and now it’s onto Cartography, where she treks “the world’s largest globe” to find the city with the longest name; her biggest challenge, though, is those nasty men in black who keep popping up and demanding that some information should be restricted. There is no subtlety in Alexander’s spirited [End Page 284] pro-library message, and the tone unfortunately moves into preachy when Lenora scolds the villains; the book also takes a few shots at screens and social media with a heavy hand. The library world, however, is utterly enchanting, and Lenora’s journey through it is full of delightful, internet-hole inspiring tidbits; an ancient Egyptian city devoted entirely to the worship of cats, the ins and out of ant communication, and the lost languages Linear A and Linear B are just a few of the subjects of Lenora’s searches that may send readers off on journeys of their own. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Luana Giurgevich Henrique de Sousa LeitãoClavis Bibliothecarum: catálogos e inventários de livrarias de instituições religiosas em Portugal até 1834

Portuguese Studies vol. 35 no. 1 (2019), 105–18© Modern Humanities Research Association 2019 Reviews Luana Giurgevich and Henrique de Sousa Leitão, Clavis Bibliothecarum: catálogos e inventários de livrarias de instituições religiosas em Portugal até 1834, Fontes para o Estudo dos Bens Culturais da Igreja, 1 (Moscavide: Secretariado Nacional para os Bens Culturais da Igreja, 2016). 944 pages. Print. Reviewed by Jeremy Roe (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas — Universidade Nova de Lisboa — Centro de Humanidades) Elaborating on the title of this work, the authors declare it to be ‘uma chave para entrar no mundo imenso das antigas bibliotecas de mosteiros, conventos e instituções religiosas de Portugal’ [a key to enter the vast world of the former libraries of Portuguese monasteries, convents and religious institutions]. It might be still better referred to as an immense bunch of keys to Portugal’s diverse ecclesiastical libraries prior to the suppression of their respective religious institutions in 1834. The bulk of this book is a detailed catalogue of two corpora of archival documents relating to some 400 religious institutions. The first concerns 901 library catalogues and book inventories; the second 348 documents relating to these libraries. All these documents are methodically catalogued according to the diverse religious and military orders, as well as other devotional entities, to which they belonged, and their geographical locations. The meticulous structure of the book as a whole, as well the clarity of the individual entries, ensures its potential to fulfil the authors’ aim to provide ‘um instrumento’ [an instrument] to develop ‘a pesquisa a novas áreas e a horizontes explorados’ [research in new areas and already explored horizons]. As might be expected, the majority of the documents from the first corpus of documents date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and above all circa 1834. Nonetheless, there are earlier documents to be traced. The lack of a chronological index of the documents catalogued in this book is felt at times, although the uncertain date of a number of the documents might have limited its value. The second corpus of documents contains a higher number of preeighteenth -century documents, such as Frei António de Araújo’s catalogue of the library of the Mosteiro de Alcobaça, which also included a description of its decoration. This was later partially recorded in a drawing included in the 1701 manuscript catalogue Aurea Clavis..., illustrated in this book. A valuable collection of documents is listed for this royal library and illuminates its development and use. However, setting aside my own interests in Baroque cultural history, it must be underscored that this book provides a tool for a range of approaches to the history of libraries and books across the early modern and modern periods, as well as other related facets of ecclesiastical, cultural and Reviews 106 intellectual history. Besides the catalogues of major libraries, such as the Alcobaça collection or Lisbon’s Convent of Nossa Senhora de Jesus, which is today conserved in the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, this book documents inventories of many more modest libraries, as well as individuals’ personal collections in conjunction with diverse legal documents and correspondence that offer valuable perspectives on the histories of book collecting and reading in ecclesiastical libraries. Toorientatethereader’sexplorationofthismonumentalcatalogueGiurgevich and Leitão provide a succinct introduction, which addresses the range and dimensions of ecclesiastical libraries over the course of their history up until 1834. They then focus on key facets of these libraries elucidated by the documents they catalogue, such as the control exerted over reading and the circulation of books. In addition to this a digital dimension to this book should also be highlighted. The book reviewed here is an independent and valuable resource in its own right, but the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal also hosts a complementary website that provides access to digital editions of some of the documents catalogued: http://clavisbibliothecarum.bn.pt/index.php. While this site is still a work in progress, it provides readers with a valuable opportunity to begin exploring some of the many libraries to which Clavis Bibliothecarum offers a key. Graciliano Ramos and the Making of Modern Brazil: Memories, Politics and Identities, ed...

IAML Congress 2018 General Assembly

IAML Congress 2018 General Assembly Pia Shekhter Tuesday 24 July and Friday 27 July Leipzig, Germany Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Concert Hall DRAFT 1. Welcome and Apologies The President, Stanisław Hrabia, welcomed everybody to the General Assembly. A special warm welcome was given to the many first-time attendees. There was an unusually large number of newcomers this year. He said that he felt honoured to chair the General Assembly for the first time and paid his respect to the five Past Presidents present in the auditorium: Maria Calderisi, Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, John Roberts, and Martie Severt. The system of voting for registered individual members and institutional representatives was explained. 2. Matters arising from the minutes of the 2017 General Assembly in Riga There were no matters arising from the minutes of the 2017 General Assembly in Riga. The minutes were unanimously approved. 3. President’s report The President presented the following report: “Since the congress in Riga, I have participated in several international conferences. I was invited by IAML-Brazil to participate in the 4th Congress of RIdIM-Brazil and the 2nd Congress of IAML-Brazil, 17–21 July 2017, in Salvador, where I presented a paper ‘Cataloguing Through Cooperation: The Role of Music Librarians in Creating a National Union Catalogue’. The congress had been organised under the leadership of Pablo Sotuyo Blanco, the chair of RIdIM-Brazil. I had a chance to meet and talk to people from different libraries and academic institutions. I also took part in a working meeting of the IAML Branch of Brazil, chaired by the President of the Brazilian Branch, Beatriz Magalhães Castro. I have also participated in a conference in Athens. I was invited to the 2nd Conference of the Greek IAML Branch, in the Athens Conservatoire, 27–28 April 2018. I presented, as the keynote speaker, a paper on the topic: ‘Seize the Opportunities: Music Librarians in Today’s World of Information’. Athens has become the World Book Capital for 2018. This conference took place just before the official opening of this celebration; and thanks to the great efforts of colleagues from the Greek Branch—Alexandros Charkiolakis, President, and Stephanie Merakos, Vice President—my visit was associated with this occasion and sponsored by the Polish Embassy in Greece. I am very grateful for both invitations—to Salvador and to Athens. It was a great opportunity to strengthen relations between “big IAML” and the national branches, and for learning more about local efforts and achievements. Thank you very much. [End Page 77] I also had a unique opportunity to represent IAML at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress (22–23 August 2017) in Wrocław, Poland, where I met some IAML colleagues: Anders Cato, Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, Katre Riisalu, and Anna J. Shelmer-dine. I officially represented IAML in two meetings of the representatives of the national, international, and professional library associations: the Association Members Meeting and the IFLA General Assembly. All these meetings were very inspiring and gave me a new perspective on international activity. Another important event, The International Music Forum of Six Societies ICTM–SEM– IMS–IAML–IASPM–ATMC (Association for Traditional Music in China) on the topic ‘Approaches to Research on Music and Dance in the Internet Era’, took place in Beijing at the Central Conservatory of Music, 11–14 July 2018. After a very successful joint meeting of three societies—IMS, IAML, and ICTM—in Abu Dhabi in March 2017 on the topic ‘Music as Cultural Heritage’, this was yet another event that connects representatives of various music organisations. IAML was represented by sixteen delegates, who presented ten papers and participated in a panel discussion devoted to the four “R” Projects. Besides presenting papers relevant to the main conference topic, it was a great occasion to present IAML as an organisation, and to underline the importance of music libraries, archives, and documentation centres for research, education, preservation of musical heritage, and dissemination of information. As a part of our collaboration with the European Music Council, I have submitted the consultation form of the European Agenda for Music, the document developed out of a continent-wide consultation launched by EMC...

Study of Authorship Pattern, Collaboration and Application of Lotka's Law for Evaluation of Author Productivity in Conference Proceedings of IFLA

The paper examines the authorship pattern and author collaboration in the conference proceedings of World library and Information Congress organised by International Federation of Library Institution and Association (IFLA). For the study, the data from 2011 to 2015(5 years) has been taken. The authorship pattern is studied and the degree of collaboration is calculated which is 0.4463 for the present dataset. In the paper, Lotka's law was tested for which the value of the exponent n and the constant c were computed. Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) goodness-of-fit is applied to verify the applicability of Lotka's law. It is found from the study that observed distribution is different from theoretical distribution predicted by Lotka's law. The law does not fit in the observed distribution of IFLA.

Italian bibliographic and library science journals between Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries

The first Italian library periodical is the «Giornale delle biblioteche», published in Genoa from 1867 to 1873, but the first modern-looking journal is the «Rivista delle biblioteche» founded by Guido Biagi in 1888 (since 1895 «Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi»), which was also the official organ of the Italian Bibliographical Society from 1898 to 1906. But for the circulation of information and the debate in the library world, a significant role was played by journals with somewhat different purposes, such as «Il bibliofilo» and Olschki’s «La bibliofilia», and by those aimed at popular libraries, starting from the early years of twentieth century, or published by individual libraries, mostly with news about their activity. All these initiatives, however, had a rather precarious life, while the library world could count on a regular journal rich in content only with «Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia», published by the Directorate General of Academies and Libraries since 1927 and resumed after the second world war in 1950.