Search results

Gives an objective, factual overview of what has to be done to prepare for competitive tendering in UK libraries, with particular reference to public libraries. Discusses the national situation, the purpose of competition, its advantages and success criteria. Considers the particular experience of the pioneer enabling London Borough of Bromley. Gives a straightforward description of the steps necessary in preparing for competition: the service review and articulation of standards, and the separation of client and contractor functions. Considers the client role of writing and specification, establishing the contract strategy, implementing and monitoring the contract, together with the options for contractor side preparation. Finally, comments on the potential difficulties of the client‐contractor division.

Describes the establishment of a practical set of performance indicators for Bromley libraries. Analyses what the set was intended to achieve, how the indicators were chosen and what the selection criteria were. Covers the production criteria of how and when the indicators were to be made available and describes the set of indicators that was chosen. Finally, considers what was learned from the project and how the indicators are used in practice. Concludes that the main values of the indicators are as a practical management tool, as a means of pre‐empting problems, and as a platform for further informed questions; the main test of a good set of indicators is their fitness for purpose in pointing to whether the service is making a good job of delivering its own chosen objectives.

1989 was designated Museums Year to commemorate the centenary of the Museums Association, and unlike many of these PR exercises this one resulted in museums (especially national museums based in London) receiving an unusual amount of coverage in the qualities. Whether stories of protests and problems would have the desired positive effect on actual attendances has not yet been calculated. The unusually sunny weather cannot have helped much either. But the Museums Association itself produced a series of 11 regional guides which if read on the beach or in the pool would have enabled the readers almost to think that they had actually visited the collections described in considerable detail. Too many to note here but a list of all the titles is available from the MA or the Museums and Galleries Commission. Simon Olding's Exploring Museums: London (ISBN 0 11 2904653) and Arnold Wilson's Exploring Museums: The South West (ISBN 0 11 2904696) tackle their areas entertainingly, but their step‐by‐step guides to some of their subjects may soon be outdated as many existing museums are currently undergoing major rearrangements or refurbishments.

THE first of the Islington Public Libraries, opened on September 21st, has proved a phenomenal success, and, at the same time, has thrown an interesting light on several modern theories in librarianship. It is, as our readers know, the fust of a system of five libraries, towards the erection of which Dr. Carnegie has given £40,000. The building itself is, as many librarians had an opportunity of judging at the “private view” described in our last number, of an exceedingly well‐lighted and attractive character. The arrangement and accommodation provided present several novel features. On the ground floor, opening from the Central Hall, is the Children's Lending Library and Reading Room. This is stocked with about 3,000 volumes for lending purposes, including French and German juvenile literature, and the reading room portion has seating accommodation for about a hundred children. A representative selection of children's magazines are displayed here, and there are special study‐tables for girls and boys equipped with suitable reference collections. A feature of this room is a striking dado of pictures illustrating scenes from English history, which goes far to make the room interesting and attractive.

Purpose: In this chapter, we develop a concept of social biographies which draws on social network and life course theories to examine how a diverse set of social relationships impacts health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) people over time.

Design/methodology/approach: We provide an overview of several decades of research on SGM people's social relationships, organizing this research within a social biographies framework.

Findings: We theorize about the importance of both the structure and content of SGM people's social networks for health, how these social relationships interact with each other, how these social biographies and their impacts shift across SGM cohorts and over the life course, and how they further are shaped by the intersection of a range of factors (e.g., race/ethnicity, social class).

Social biographies can remain constant or change over time, and relationships of all types and durations have the power to significantly improve or undermine health. This is in part because social ties both buffer and exacerbate the inimical effects of stress on health.

Originality/value: Traditional conceptualizations of relationships fail to reflect the diversity of relationships in SGM lives. Studying this diversity deepens our view of how social biographies influence health and how health inequities between SGM and cisgender and heterosexual (cishet) populations emerge. Studying social biographies of SGM people using theoretical and methodological tools from life course and social network perspectives reveals existing voids in the current literature, enabling researchers to better understand the shifting nature of social relationships in the twenty-first century.

Considers the advantages and limitations of job sharing, with particular reference to librarians. Stresses the importance of communication and equitable division of work and includes two case studies. Concludes that job sharing makes good sense in a female‐dominated profession but that library managers need to be more aware of the job‐sharing option and should create specific job‐sharing contracts. Prospective job‐sharers need encouragement and can learn from the experiences of others in similar working environments.

This paper aims to show how the concept of “Bibliography” has changed since the late nineteenth century. It proposes discussing what “Bibliography” did and did not include in the various stages of its development; how the study of “Bibliography” moved from the UK to the USA; how it narrowed down from an originally much wider concept and how, under the influence of French historians over the past three decades, it has widened out again, reaching a better synthesis of the study of books as material objects with the study of the history of the book.

A discussion and critical assessment of the writings of the major main stream bibliographers and book historians is presented.

From an original (nineteenth century) emphasis on enumerative bibliography, the concept of “Bibliography” widened out (from the end of the nineteenth century) to include historical bibliography and the study of books as material objects; in the mid‐twentieth century this wider approach narrowed down, as a consequence of much emphasis being placed on descriptive, analytical, critical and textual bibliography. Under influence of French book historians the emphasis has changed again and the value of a wider historical approach and greater inclusivity in subjects has brought the study of historical bibliography and that of the history of the book much closer together.

This research looks only at Western Europe and the USA.

Practical implications of this study are: the widening‐out of the subject to include all physical manifestations of the book; the dimension of creative reading; and the emphasis on the importance of artifactual evidence for correct establishment and interpretation of texts has had implications for preservation.

This paper is a critical assessment of the literature, drawing the logical consequences of its findings. It presents an argument for the inclusion of all aspects of the book as a physical object, as well as for the importance of using all available evidence.

Introduction Relativism of all shades and kinds is in fashion. For some decades, it has been trying to enter the very bastion of the academic heartland by questioning the prevailing cognitive realism in the philosophy of science (Kuhn, Feyerabend). More recently a somewhat different and stronger version of relativism has made some extraordinary advances in literary criticism (the movement of “deconstruction”) and spawned some controversy in the field of law (critical legal studies). The same tendencies have now emerged in architecture (Jencks). More alarmingly, perhaps, in the social sciences we observe a brand new interest in so‐ called “post‐modern” perspectives: post‐modern ethnography in anthropology (Tylor), new voices in sociology (Lash and Urri), and, of course, also the novel ideas representing economics as discourse with a distinctly post‐modern flavor (Amariglio; Rossetti; Milberg; Ruccio).