Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: sources and methodologies for the history of libraries in the modern era
- 1 Libraries and the modern world
- Part One Enlightening the Masses: the Public Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Two The Voluntary Ethic: Libraries of our Own
- Part Three Libraries for National Needs: Library Provision in the Public Sphere in the Countries of the British Isles
- Part Four The Nation's Treasury: Britain's National Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Five The Spirit of Enquiry: Higher Education and Libraries
- Part Six The Rise of Professional Society: Libraries for Specialist Areas
- Part Seven The Trade and its Tools: Librarians and Libraries in Action
- Part Eight Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
- 47 Introduction: the digital revolution in society and in libraries
- 48 Automating the library process
- 49 Informatisation: libraries and the exploitation of electronic information services
- 50 Libraries and librarians in the Information Age
- Bibliography
- Index
47 - Introduction: the digital revolution in society and in libraries
from Part Eight - Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: sources and methodologies for the history of libraries in the modern era
- 1 Libraries and the modern world
- Part One Enlightening the Masses: the Public Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Two The Voluntary Ethic: Libraries of our Own
- Part Three Libraries for National Needs: Library Provision in the Public Sphere in the Countries of the British Isles
- Part Four The Nation's Treasury: Britain's National Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Five The Spirit of Enquiry: Higher Education and Libraries
- Part Six The Rise of Professional Society: Libraries for Specialist Areas
- Part Seven The Trade and its Tools: Librarians and Libraries in Action
- Part Eight Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
- 47 Introduction: the digital revolution in society and in libraries
- 48 Automating the library process
- 49 Informatisation: libraries and the exploitation of electronic information services
- 50 Libraries and librarians in the Information Age
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At the beginning of the twenty-first century it is apparent that developments in information technology over the last fifty years – and the ‘information revolution’ these have made possible – have changed and are changing libraries and librarianship profoundly. As a term ‘library automation’ implies a rather mechanical process, one in which existing operations carried out manually are made more efficient by the introduction of machine-based techniques. Gutenberg's introduction of printing with movable types into Europe in the fifteenth century could also best be described as the ‘automation’ of a previously existing process, that is, the mass-production of identical copies of texts in medieval scriptoria. But Gutenberg's invention, by creating a new information ‘platform’, was to transform discourse and the exchange of ideas fundamentally. It also provided the necessary basis for the emergence of modern libraries, a process driven (though this is often overlooked) by the new medium of print. In the same way, it is now a truth universally acknowledged that the development of digital information and network services will transform both the information process and the organisation of knowledge in libraries.
Modern librarianship increasingly focuses on two aspects of library management: preservation and access. The preservation of ‘legacy’ collections in a variety of media (both analogue and digital) is now recognised as a primary task for libraries. Of equal importance is the provision of improved access to a knowledge base that is both analogue and digital through the development of electronic information services. British libraries, often by seizing on opportunities presented by developments in the United States, can be said to be at the forefront of such developments in Europe.
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- The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland , pp. 609 - 612Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006