Session Number
03
Description
Instead of assuming that cooperation is desirabie and then considering how to cooperate, librarians should analyse their aims and functions and consider how cooperative approaches compare for cost-effectiveness with 'going it alone' and dependence on a central service.
The acquisition function of libraries must be largely fulfilled by local provision. This must be supported from other sources, but cooperative acquisition schemes are expensive to administer and less effective than central provision or state-funded concentration of resources on a few libraries.
It has yet to be proved that cataloguing and classification in most libraries need be detailed, or that libraries cannot provide their own simple records more cheaply than they can obtain complex ones from elsewhere. If they do need to use external records, most of these will be generated by a national centre and obtained through a centre which may be cooperatively managed or commercial.
Availability to local users could be improved if libraries opened their doors wider to non-members. For interlibrary lending and photocopying, central coollections, limited perhaps to care collections of journais, have distinct advantages over cooperative systems based on union catalogues, which are better used to provide a supporting system involving as few libraries as possible. Local cooperative systems can provide 24-hour access to a limited range of urgently needed material, but in most countries regional systems have little or no advantages. On-line access to holdings may however change the situation somewhat.
For book storage, regional solutions are inferior to local stores, which may be shared with other local libraries, and to national repositories linked to national interlending systems.
The automation of 'housekeeping' operations can benefit from the joint use of systems, whether already in use elsewhere, designed commercially, or developed cooperatively.
The psychological urge to cooperate is strong, but cooperation is not a panacea for the ills of libraries, and other solutions need to be identified and examined.
Is Cooperation a Good Thing?
Instead of assuming that cooperation is desirabie and then considering how to cooperate, librarians should analyse their aims and functions and consider how cooperative approaches compare for cost-effectiveness with 'going it alone' and dependence on a central service.
The acquisition function of libraries must be largely fulfilled by local provision. This must be supported from other sources, but cooperative acquisition schemes are expensive to administer and less effective than central provision or state-funded concentration of resources on a few libraries.
It has yet to be proved that cataloguing and classification in most libraries need be detailed, or that libraries cannot provide their own simple records more cheaply than they can obtain complex ones from elsewhere. If they do need to use external records, most of these will be generated by a national centre and obtained through a centre which may be cooperatively managed or commercial.
Availability to local users could be improved if libraries opened their doors wider to non-members. For interlibrary lending and photocopying, central coollections, limited perhaps to care collections of journais, have distinct advantages over cooperative systems based on union catalogues, which are better used to provide a supporting system involving as few libraries as possible. Local cooperative systems can provide 24-hour access to a limited range of urgently needed material, but in most countries regional systems have little or no advantages. On-line access to holdings may however change the situation somewhat.
For book storage, regional solutions are inferior to local stores, which may be shared with other local libraries, and to national repositories linked to national interlending systems.
The automation of 'housekeeping' operations can benefit from the joint use of systems, whether already in use elsewhere, designed commercially, or developed cooperatively.
The psychological urge to cooperate is strong, but cooperation is not a panacea for the ills of libraries, and other solutions need to be identified and examined.