Search results

Brings together the management maxims of Maurice Line, which offer words of wisdom for managers.

The term ‘obsolescence’ occurs frequently in the literature of librarianship and information science. In numerous papers we are told how most published literature becomes obsolete within a measurable time, and that an item receives half the uses it will ever receive (‘half‐life’) in a few years. ‘Obsolescence’ is however very rarely defined, and its validity, interest, and practical value are often assumed rather than explained. Before reviewing studies on ‘obsolescence’, therefore, it is necessary to look at the concept and to identify the reasons why it should be of interest.

Any system of making scientific and technical articles available must meet a reasonable number of the requirements of the main players in the system: authors, publishers, libraries and consumers. Among the requirements are high visibility (authors), profit (publishers) and affordable costs (libraries). Consumers need inter alia exposure, ready access and ease and flexibility of use. They have most requirements but least power. Needs differ for current and older journals. Of the various single modes of publication none performs very well for all parties. Combinations of modes are more effective but payment has to be made twice. Much depends on authors' willingness to accept less visible forms of publication, but the ultimate deciding factor is publishers' assessment of the economics.

Several members of this journal’s editorial advisory board give brief views on how they see the future of interlending and document supply. The article concludes with an overview of these contributions, together with additional comments by an editorial board member

In a paper published in 1973 Oromaner included an analysis of citations to articles in three sociological journals in 1960 by subsequent volumes of those journals 1961–70. This study was unusual in that it was one of very few that followed citations to a given set of articles through in time (diachronous study), as opposed to analysing by date a set of references to articles made by journals or articles of a given date (synchronous study) — a far more common procedure.

The picture of international lending is one of diversity: different systems, methods of application, restrictions, methods of payment etc. Problems caused by this diversity are compounded by language difficulties, length of supply times and lack of information regarding the progress of requests. Developments in electronic technology will probably aid the smoother running of international lending, particularly the growth of electronic databases with accompanying electronic mail systems.

The time when every country needed to plan its own acquisitions and document supply system may be over. For purposes of consultation, it is most convenient for users to have wanted items that are not available locally in one large collection, though this runs into political and other difficulties. Co‐operative acquisition systems rarely work. Remote consultation of digitised material would change this situation. It is now usually as fast to obtain “copiable” items from foreign countries as from one’s own, even when they have to be supplied by paper copies; and more and more items are accessible on the Internet. For books, the time taken to supply and the cost still vary considerably between domestic and other sources; there is no easy solution unless and until large amounts of material are digitised, and then remote supply and remote consultation begin to merge. As a result of the various factors, there is now no need for national acquisition and supply policies.