The National Electronic Library: A Guide to the Future for Library Managers

The National Information Infrastructure will bring information to the doorstep of every household. Librarianship must respond to this development through the National Electronic Library. Librarianship as a profession must set the information agenda if it is to be a viable and influential entity in the electronic environment. Traditional library services are being redefined by technology, and the concept of the National Electronic Library must combine the roles of the academic institution, public enterprise, and library education. This professional reference is a guide to assist librarians in planning for the future.

The volume maintains that the growing electronic environment is driving a cultural transformation in which libraries must examine and understand what libraries have been, what they are, and what they need to be. Libraries need to participate actively in this transformation in order to remain the central providers of information and related services. The book explores the National Electronic Library as a concept and formal organization. Library services, collections, and the physical facility are examined in terms of present and future needs based on the rapidly changing electronic environment, and the volume relates the future management of information to administrative structures, constituencies, public and technical services, collection development, education, and strategic planning.

Addresses the development of the National Electronic Library and provides practical advice to librarians for effectively utilizing the National Electronic Library.

Library Journal

A note of anxiety sounds throughout this collection of 12 articles, edited by the dean of university libraries at the University of Northern Colorado and author of The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Reference Service and Bibliographic Instruction (Greenwood, 1995). It is struck each time the authors-almost all academic library administrators-begin a sentence, "Libraries must . . ." or "We need to . . . ." They do so frequently as they imagine how libraries, particularly academic libraries, will manage technological and organizational change in the face of the entity looming in the book's main title. The result is a stylistic monotone that detracts from an otherwise informative collection of speculations and prescriptions for a national, cooperative, and effective information resource. Five articles (Joy Reed Hughes and Karyle Butcher's "The Revolution Personified: The National Electronic Library"; Alan Charnes's "Consortia and the National Electronic Library"; Thomas Peischl's "The Academic Institution and the National Electronic Library"; Agnes Griffen's "The Public Enterprise and the National Electronic Library"; and Faye Vowell's "Library Education and the National Electronic Library") comprise the first part of the book and characterize the National Electronic Library in terms of the existing library and information environment, e.g., consortia, public library service, and library education. The second part more interestingly addresses library facilities and organization. The functions of public and technical services are considered in light of a need for change. A mildly self-serving contribution by three architects nicely describes the ramifications of design for service and includes interesting historical references, although the illustrations were not seen. If not as carefully argued as we would hope for from a purported "guide to the future," the articles at least provide food for thought and, accordingly, are recommended to interested professionals.-Dean C. Rowan, Whittier P.L., Cal.

GARY M. PITKIN is Dean of University Libraries at the University of Northern Colorado.