William Copulsky and Shirley H. Baker
Radio broadcasting is a fragmented industry — one in which many of the local stations are small, and stations have little chance to establish a dominant market share. Since there…
Abstract
Radio broadcasting is a fragmented industry — one in which many of the local stations are small, and stations have little chance to establish a dominant market share. Since there are many such fragmented manufacturing and service industries in the U. S., and competitive tactics to gain market share are not always successful in such industries, we'd like to offer a different strategy: cooperation. We'll illustrate how it's done, using a case history describing the cooperative effort of the New York Market Radio Broadcasters Association (NYMRAD) — the trade association of the New York Metropolitan Area radio stations. Its members worked together to increase the total market through development of unexploited niche groups of advertisers. In less than two years, this plan has added significantly to total New York radio station advertising revenues.
AT last Mr. Baker's long announced “Descriptive Guide to the Best Fiction” is in our hands, and proves to be a bulky volume of over 600 pages, which must have cost its author many…
Abstract
AT last Mr. Baker's long announced “Descriptive Guide to the Best Fiction” is in our hands, and proves to be a bulky volume of over 600 pages, which must have cost its author many hours of arduous labour. Descriptive guides to literature of any sort are unfortunately too rare on this side of the world not to ensure for any decent attempt to compare with what the Americans are doing in this direction, the support of all librarians and bibliographers—at least we hope so—and Mr. Baker's book is a great advance on anything that has hitherto been attempted, here or elsewhere, to provide an annotated handbook to fiction. When the series of guides to literature, science, the arts, &c., announced by Messrs. Scott, Greenwood & Co., are published—which it is to be hoped will be soon—England will not be so desperately and humiliatingly “out of it,” as is the case at present, in the great task of selecting from and annotating the literature of the world.
IT is evident from the numerous press cuttings which are reaching us, that we are once more afflicted with one of those periodical visitations of antagonism to Public Libraries…
Abstract
IT is evident from the numerous press cuttings which are reaching us, that we are once more afflicted with one of those periodical visitations of antagonism to Public Libraries, which occasionally assume epidemic form as the result of a succession of library opening ceremonies, or a rush of Carnegie gifts. Let a new library building be opened, or an old one celebrate its jubilee, or let Lord Avebury regale us with his statistics of crime‐diminution and Public Libraries, and immediately we have the same old, never‐ending flood of articles, papers and speeches to prove that Public Libraries are not what their original promoters intended, and that they simply exist for the purpose of circulating American “Penny Bloods.” We have had this same chorus, with variations, at regular intervals during the past twenty years, and it is amazing to find old‐established newspapers, and gentlemen of wide reading and knowledge, treating the theme as a novelty. One of the latest gladiators to enter the arena against Public Libraries, is Mr. J. Churton Collins, who contributes a forcible and able article, on “Free Libraries, their Functions and Opportunities,” to the Nineteenth Century for June, 1903. Were we not assured by its benevolent tone that Mr. Collins seeks only the betterment of Public Libraries, we should be very much disposed to resent some of the conclusions at which he has arrived, by accepting erroneous and misleading information. As a matter of fact, we heartily endorse most of Mr. Collins' ideas, though on very different grounds, and feel delighted to find in him an able exponent of what we have striven for five years to establish, namely, that Public Libraries will never be improved till they are better financed and better staffed.
THE pages of the Library World have at all times been open to receive the opinions of every side, on all questions of library policy, and we believe that it can be fairly claimed…
Abstract
THE pages of the Library World have at all times been open to receive the opinions of every side, on all questions of library policy, and we believe that it can be fairly claimed that no other English professional journal can show a greater record of catholicity and freedom from prejudice. Just recently we have published three articles in succession, which plead for, or advocate, some method of mitigating what the writers term the “Fiction Nuisance,” and one result of our complaisance may be witnessed in the stir which has been caused in journalistic quarters, over the alleged shortcomings of Public Libraries, and their scandalous distribution of nothing but fiction! It is argued, with some justice, that, if librarians are so quick to admit the existence of a fiction nuisance, then the case must be very serious indeed; and that it is regarded in this light may be gathered from the article on “Free Libraries,” by Mr. J. Churton Collins, in the June Nineteenth Century. For some reason or another, best known, no doubt, to themselves, certain librarians are always ready to join in the hue and cry against Public Libraries, and to lend the sanction of their authority to the general execration of fiction reading, thus giving a weapon to the enemy which is promptly used to thrash municipal libraries into a pulp. For months past this outcry against libraries has been going on, and there cannot be a single doubt that it has been stimulated by, if it did not originate in, the injudicious apologies for high fiction percentages in some library reports, and the publication of articles by librarians who admit too much, without giving substantial grounds for their conclusions. We are unable to say whether such apologies and articles are dictated by the weak, but human, desire to side with the majority, but there can be no doubt as to their harmful tendency and the evil they are causing all over the country. It is time, therefore, that the other, and, we believe, true side of the question should be put forward, and we propose to devote a series of articles to show that the charges made against Public Libraries of being nothing but huge engines for the distribution of fiction, mostly bad in tone and quality, are either gross misrepresentations, or exaggerations capable of explanation, and justification. As an introduction to this series, we have obtained permission from Mr. Thomas Greenwood, to use the greater part of the paper entitled, “The Great Fiction Question,” which is printed in Greenwoods Library Year Book, 1897, and is now becoming scarce and difficult to procure, owing to the book being out‐of‐print; like the later Year Book of 1900–1901. This paper is a vigorous, fair, and able statement of the case for fiction, which has not received the amount of attention it deserves, and we think it will be performing a service to librarians if we reprint it as a preliminary to our own proposed examination of the question of Fiction Reading in Public Libraries:
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the…
Abstract
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.
IT is fitting that a new series of this magazine should be introduced by some reflections on the whole question of book selection, both for the general public and libraries.
EVERYONE interested in the British library movement will learn with sorrow and regret that one of its greatest friends and strongest champions has passed away, in the person of…
Abstract
EVERYONE interested in the British library movement will learn with sorrow and regret that one of its greatest friends and strongest champions has passed away, in the person of Thomas Greenwood, the kind‐hearted and generous advocate of libraries, who won the respect and regard of every English libiarian. From one of his own periodicals the following particulars are abstracted:—
MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of…
Abstract
MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.
Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields…
Abstract
It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.