Library Review

RATCLIFFE, F.W.

1986 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012810

It is difficult to recall ten years later the depth of feeling roused among university librarians in Britain by the report of a University Grants Committee Working Party on Capital provision for university libraries. Anger, indignation, incredulity and despondency were among the immediate reactions to the Atkinson report, nor were these reactions confined to university librarians alone. The academic community at large reacted violently to the proposals, and in so doing identified the wellbeing of universities unequivocally with that of their libraries.

WINKWORTH, IAN; ENRIGHT, BRIAN

1986 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012811

The fifteen years before Atkinson represented for many British university librarians a golden age, as the number and size of universities expanded, young men received promotion long before they might reasonably have expected, and funds for collections and buildings to house them became available on a scale never before seen in most British universities. The thesis of this contribution is that the golden age provided an opportunity for the testing of attitudes and approaches to academic librarianship which before had always been constrained by financial circumstances, and that in that test the traditional philosophies were found wanting. The Atkinson Report was a turning point when the reluctant academic library community was reminded of reality.

CAMERON, KENNETH J.; ROBERTS, MICHAEL

1986 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012812

Recession, inflation, cuts these and related keywords have dominated the international literature of librarianship in recent years. The academic library community has been implored to change its mission, redefining its basic priorities, and substituting service for stock, access strategies for holdings strategies, collection management for collection development, undergraduate needs for postgraduate needs or viceversa, and management skills for professionalism. While the production of prescriptions, frequently radical ones, has become an industry, analysis and, above all, measurement of the underlying problem has been strictly limited. Descriptions of cuts have tended to paint a qualitative rather than a quantitative picture. Statistical analysis of aspects of recession has usually been restricted by timespan, subject coverage, type of material, or a combination of these.

BATE, JOHN

1986 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012813

ATKINSON was mainly about space. However, certain very important general principles emerge in the report, firstly that the allocation of limited resources among universities cannot be decided without making assumptions about the role and operation of libraries. The report was not concerned with these assumptions, although it noted, secondly, that in deciding how much space should be allocated for readers, much depended on local circumstances and teaching patterns.

JONES, GRAHAM

1986 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012814

The establishment of the University Grants Committee in the Britain of 1919 called for fundamental thinking as to the character and priorities of academic communities and the minimum levels of provision staffing, research facilities, literature support, social amenities, and so on necessary for any new foundation to be ranked as more than a primarily vocational training centre. Without assumptions and positions on these matters the Committee could not have done its work. Yet as regards libraries, almost no serious debate can be found in print among scholars of that day, and none among librarians.