This collection of 11 papers seeks, inter alia, to recover technical services staff from “invisible anonymity”. The image of libraries and librarians is a leitmotiv in all the…
Abstract
This collection of 11 papers seeks, inter alia, to recover technical services staff from “invisible anonymity”. The image of libraries and librarians is a leitmotiv in all the essays and they challenge us to consider that the most stereotypical librarians, cataloguers and indexers, have actually done more with technology and created greater access to information than any other group of staff. “They have furthered and expanded the mission of the library — making it more than a repository for books and serials — converting it into an information centre where data of all kinds is available, regardless of its form.”
In the last few years there has been a great upsurge of interest in text‐based computer systems and a 60 per cent annual growth‐rate is predicted over the next few years as…
Abstract
In the last few years there has been a great upsurge of interest in text‐based computer systems and a 60 per cent annual growth‐rate is predicted over the next few years as systems improve and the cost of storage decreases. Commercial database systems are expensive at the input stage and with more and more documents being originally produced in electronic form it is tempting to consider applications which can use these as a resource available for searching, selection, transmission and archiving. It is especially so where “total information” can be handled, with words, numbers and illustrations.
This is an interesting book, if only because it comes from South Africa which tends to be cut off professionally because of its economic, political and (alas!) its cultural…
Abstract
This is an interesting book, if only because it comes from South Africa which tends to be cut off professionally because of its economic, political and (alas!) its cultural isolation. Six of the seven contributors are from the University of South Africa, a correspondence university which caters for all sectors of the community. They do not baulk at the problems of South African society.
In Information: The Key to Effective Management published by MCB University Press (1989, ISBN 0 86176 443 9), Bob Norton and Malcolm Peel argue that the role of information within…
Abstract
In Information: The Key to Effective Management published by MCB University Press (1989, ISBN 0 86176 443 9), Bob Norton and Malcolm Peel argue that the role of information within management is in the throes of dramatic transformation. It is vital that managers act on the implications of this change if they are to maintain their market position. While information technology continues to expand at an experiential rate, it is an extension of what has gone before and should be understood in this light. Managers need to learn to take advantage of the resources available to them in order to remain well placed — yet they suggest that the librarian is still well positioned within the overall situation.
This step‐by‐step guide to searching the literature of librarianship and information science begins by defining the subject area and discussing the nature of the literature. A…
Abstract
This step‐by‐step guide to searching the literature of librarianship and information science begins by defining the subject area and discussing the nature of the literature. A concise and ordered search strategy is detailed, after which the reader is guided through the principal sources, such as encyclopedias, bibliographies and journals. Having considered these the author discusses sources of information relating to the broader contextual issues of libraries, for example schools. Additional sources are also indicated and the book concludes by proposing methods whereby the reader can keep up to date. The characteristics and coverage of each source are discussed and the author makes a critical evaluation of each text.
WILFRED ASHWORTH, PIRKKO ELLIOTT and SIMON PUGH
Kenneth Cooper, Chairman of the Working Party appointed jointly by the Library and Information Services Council and the Research and Development Department of the British Library…
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Kenneth Cooper, Chairman of the Working Party appointed jointly by the Library and Information Services Council and the Research and Development Department of the British Library, held a Press Conference on 19 February to introduce its report, published that day. The meeting took place in his office and, in the event, was attended by representatives of only NLW, the LA Record, and three national newspapers — a cosy occasion!
This series of brief guides is designed to stimulate thinking and to assist in the planning process, thus, allowing library managers to approach their tasks in an organised and…
Abstract
This series of brief guides is designed to stimulate thinking and to assist in the planning process, thus, allowing library managers to approach their tasks in an organised and logical manner. It does so admirably.
Having a job where there are no set hours, days or places of work may sound too good to be true, but that is exactly what happens at a UK training and development company. All 30…
Abstract
Having a job where there are no set hours, days or places of work may sound too good to be true, but that is exactly what happens at a UK training and development company. All 30 employees of the Training Exchange operate on the principle that they are there for the customer – and it works.
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Giambattista Piranesi's disturbing images of fantasy prisons set out in his Carceri d'Invenzione have had a profound impact on cultural sensibilities. The chapter explores…
Abstract
Giambattista Piranesi's disturbing images of fantasy prisons set out in his Carceri d'Invenzione have had a profound impact on cultural sensibilities. The chapter explores Piranesi's distinctive visual language and situates it in an eighteenth-century penchant for ruins and what they might signify. The macabre fantasy structures bear little relation to actually existing prison buildings, but they do herald a new aesthetic combining both terror and beauty to sublime effect. The chapter examines the relationships between narrative and visual methods by considering that scholarship in art history which has sought to address the relationships between ‘word’ and ‘image’.
Much of it belongs to what was once the ‘new art history’ in the 1970s, and which had become critical of how conventional approaches in the discipline had tended to see art as the visualisation of narrative. For example, Norman Bryson's (1981) study of French painting in the Ancien Régime explored the relationships between ‘word’ and ‘image’ by examining the kind of stories pictures tell, drawing a distinction between the ‘discursive’ aspects of an image (posing questions on visual art's language-like qualities and relationships to written text) and those ‘figural’ features that place the image as primarily a visual experience – it's ‘being-as-image’ – that is entirely independent of language.
The focus on language is symptomatic of the ‘linguistic turn’ that has had such a profound influence on intellectual thought since the 1960s, and this chapter will concentrate on one strand in it. In particular, it will introduce the approach Jacques Derrida developed and defined as ‘deconstruction’, which in some important respects revealed the limitations of language, and seeks to create the effects of ‘decentring’ by highlighting how signification is a complex, often duplicitous, process. The chapter then situates Piranesi's images in an account of landscape, not least since he was a leading exponent of the veduta (a faithful representation of an actual urban or rural view) that had achieved the status of a distinctive and popular genre by the eighteenth century.