The public library in the future: a British reaction to 'Buildings, Books and Bytes.'(Buildings, Books, and Bytes: Perspectives on the Benton Foundation Report on Libraries in the Digital Age)

THE BRITISH CONTEXT

The library situations in the United States and Europe have many features in common, but there are also significant differences, due partly to tradition and partly to different political situations and ideologies. The United Kingdom stands somewhere between the continent of Europe and the United States in library matters as in so many others. It should be noted too that there are wider differences within Europe, even within western Europe, than between the United Kingdom and the United States. My response therefore starts with a personal observation of the present situation in England.

In both the United States and the United Kingdom, public libraries have received a great deal of attention in recent years. In the United Kingdom, which is exceptionally well served with statistics of expenditure and use, thanks largely to the Library and Information Statistics Unit at Loughborough University (England & Sumsion, 1995; Sumsion et al., 1996; Sumsion & Creaser, 1996), several major reports have appeared recently, some of them produced at the instigation of the relevant government department of the time, the Department of National Heritage.

The reports deal with similar concerns to those in the Benton Report, but they are given greater point by recent government policy over the last decade or so, which has had several prominent features:

* minimal government

* reducing public expenditure

* "public sector bad, private sector good"

* payment for services good in principle

* concentration of power on central government and on unelected "quangos" (quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organizations).

As will be noted, these policies are motivated partly by economics, partly by ideology, partly by political considerations. The motives for most features are mixed--e.g., minimal government (ideological) means less public expenditure (economic), which means lower taxes (political). Most of them will be familiar across the Atlantic, except the centralization of power, which may appear (and not only to superficial observers) to conflict with the principle of minimal government, and which the British government is inclined to deny; the fact remains that many activities that used to be carried out at the local level, and many powers that were exercised there, are now the responsibility of bodies accountable only to central government--not, it may be noted, always to Parliament, to which quangos do not report. Local government expenditure has been "capped" in places at levels that make it difficult for local authorities to provide services approaching those of the past.

There is one feature of the United States that does not exist to the same extent in the United Kingdom--the tradition of community self-help. The British are generally good at giving to charities, but they are less used to supporting voluntarily local services such as schools and hospitals--and libraries. They expect these services to be provided from public funds, and many are moreover afraid that, if they do give extensively to local services, the government will see less and less need to take any responsibility for them. This may indeed be part of the government's intention as part of the process of weaning people away from the welfare state. As it is, however, most people wish their libraries etc. to have more funding and, even if they are willing to see local rates raised to achieve this, rate-capping makes it impossible.

The British are also reluctant to pay directly for public services they have received as a right--in the case of public libraries, for nearly 150 years. Libraries can and do charge for reservations of books on loan, for overdues, and (not very logically) for the loan of sound recordings; these charges are accepted. Many also make charges for some so-called "value-added" services to local business ("so-called" because "value-added" is a poor term for additions to basic library operations and services that are themselves value-added, in that selecting material and organizing it for use adds value). These are often little more than public relations exercises; they do something to help business but, at best, usually only recover marginal costs. Also, over 40 percent of public libraries that offer Internet services charge for them (compared with 3.6 percent in the United States). In any case, all these things combined do not bring in sums that are sufficient to make good reductions in funding (as noted above, they may even be used as an excuse for reductions).

There is debate on these issues in continental Europe as well, but it has been less intense. Similar economic and political pressures on public services exist there, but they are not so acute, as their governments are not so ideologically driven as the previous British government. Interestingly, the pressures are greater in some countries of eastern Europe, as they begin to work on the immense task of developing new economies from the wrecks of the old communist ones. This applies even to countries like Hungary which have strong communist elements in their governments; there is no going back to the old ways. As they try desperately to keep services going, they apply measures that are unthinkable in the United Kingdom, such as charging an annual fee for membership to public libraries. The public service ideology may be intact, but it is made in practice to yield to hard economic reality. The debate taking place in Britain is in fact of more interest to these countries than to western European countries.

Another factor is that public libraries in Britain have an exceptional tradition, so that decline is felt more keenly than it would be in, for example, Spain or Italy. British public libraries still compare favorably with the best in Europe (Hanratty & Sumsion, 1996), excepting those in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, many of which are better. Since of all European countries the Nordic ones are the most keen to maintain public services, even if it means high taxes, there is less reason for debate there, at least on financial grounds.

Public libraries in Britain, although they have been using computers since 1960, are also quite backward in their use of information technology; a survey in December 1995 (Ormes & Dempsey, 1995) showed that, while many larger libraries were connected to the Internet, fewer than 1 percent of service points (as opposed to library systems) were connected.

Restructuring and "rationalization" have been very popular in public services as they have been in industry. The aim is often to reduce expenditure and streamline administration (this is not always achieved), but the result is often to combine public library services with other departments to form departments such as Culture. The chief librarian then ceases to be what used to be known as a "chief officer"; (s)he has less authority, has to report through a superior officer, and may have less access to the local council to make a case for more funds. The fact that several chief librarians have been elevated to a superior post does not change the situation; indeed, some nonlibrarians have been appointed to be chief librarian. The net effect of all this is that public librarians have lost a good deal of status and power in recent years.

In the pursuit of efficiency, or in a desire to put pressure on services under their control, many authorities have imposed reviews on libraries--sometimes two or three within a few years. Yet another current factor in Britain is another round of local government reorganization (British governments embark on one every decade or so), which changes many local authority boundaries. As a consequence, some library authorities are effectively being deconstructed and recomposed: a disturbing and disruptive process.

These changes and pressures in combination generate a sense of excitement in some public librarians and a feeling of resignation, not to say exhaustion, in others. It is not easy to maintain a high level of motivation under all the circumstances. It is to the credit of public library staff that most of them have made great efforts to maintain and develop their activities, and services in many libraries have in fact improved. Several public libraries have used TQM (rarely a full-blooded TQM program, but the principles and some of the techniques) to improve performance, and service-level agreements have had success in raising standards as well as in proving to be a good public relations exercise.

Public libraries can improve their efficiency up to a point and have done so. But beyond that something has to give: stock, or services, or both. Over the United Kingdom as a whole, libraries have not done as badly as might be supposed from the well publicized reports of a few conspicuous examples (Sumsion, 1996), but the last few years have not been good ones (Sumsion et al., 1996; Sumsion & Creaser, 1996). Over the last decade, numerous public library branches have closed, opening hours in many libraries have been cut, in some libraries acquisitions have dwindled to a trickle in one or two years, and book issues are showing a downward trend. It is not surprising that some senior librarians have taken early retirement, on good financial terms admittedly, but often largely from frustration.

British public libraries are not in immediate crisis, if by crisis is meant the prospect of rapid erosion to the point of eventual nonexistence. But there is widespread concern about their future. This concern is not confined to financing, but most public librarians are so engaged in coping from year to year (not to say month to month) that there is less discussion among them about where public libraries are going than one might expect. Another reason for this is that they have much less of a tradition of writing about their concerns than academic librarians; also, they have their present jobs to preserve, and statements that might appear critical of present policies are risky. Though public librarians react to reports, they do not in general instigate debate. The debate has largely been stimulated and kept alive by staff in departments of library and information studies, the Department of National Heritage (from a mixture of motives, not all of them sinister), some from the then politicians Opposition, the Library Association, and some sectors and individual members of the general public.

Two British reports in particular, which have incidentally yielded a mass of data of varying interest and utility, have generally concluded, as did the Benton Foundation report, that public libraries were very widely appreciated. According to the Comedia (1993) report, the public library "is by far the most popular and widely used cultural institution in contemporary society" (p. 1). In fact, 60 percent of the population use public libraries at some time during the year, 30 percent once a fortnight. Among functions they serve, in addition to the core one of making books available, are picture lending, story-telling, and providing space for public meetings. The great strength of the public library, according to Comedia, is that it does so many useful things all together: "the sum is greater than the parts [but this is also its weakness, since] public libraries suffer from trying to be all things to everybody" (Summary, p. [3]). The report emphasizes that public libraries need to sort out their priorities, since, valuable though most of their activities are, they cannot sustain all of them--but does not suggest any reduction of functions. So should public libraries go on giving an ever-wider range of services in a more and more diluted way, or be selective and do a few things well--and if so what things?

The popular esteem in which public libraries are held is evident too from the surveys carried out (or used by) the government-commissioned Aslib report (Review of the Public Library Service, 1995). This states that three-fifths of the population (24 million people) use them, half as regular users (p. 113). Much of the report is concerned with the potential use by public libraries of information technology (IT); its exploitation is regarded as vital if public libraries are to remain relevant to their communities, and the report believes that IT is capable of transforming their services. To this end, major investment is needed to link them to the information superhighway. Among other suggestions are regional library centers to help "to form tighter-knit regional groupings to share resources; develop joint ventures, and bid for funding" (p. 26); "kiosks or microlibraries" (p. 26) in such places as shopping centers, telecenters. or "electronic cottages" (p. 31); proactive information services (p. 31); and improvements in services to children and adults engaged in lifelong learning (p. 31). Dynamic leadership will be called for.

There are several suggestions in the Aslib report as to how all this is to be funded, none of them likely to provide anything approaching the required sums. There is expressed willingness on the part of some people to pay for some services, but it is not clear how far this expression would be converted into practice; and, while charging full costs for some services--and this is very rare--might support those services, it would do little to solve the bigger issues of funding. As for greater public funding, there may be plenty of public support, and there are regular pleas and protests, but when it comes to the crunch, what Galbraith (1992) calls "the culture of contentment" (the fact that a majority of people have been getting better off and want the process to continue) makes it very hard for parties who want to gain or stay in power to go against the trend by imposing higher taxes. No party has had the courage to tell the public that they cannot logically complain about an erosion of public services and demand lower taxes.

The previous government's response to this report eventually appeared in February 1997 (United Kingdom, Department of National Heritage, 1997) (interestingly, while the Aslib report related to England and Wales, the government's report relates only to England). It looks at first sight an unimpressive document, mixing statements of the obvious--"Public libraries provide opportunities for learning and self-improvement, for businesses, the local community and in developing young people" (p. 4)--and injunctions to do what is already done--"Public libraries should ensure that the needs of the disabled are taken into account..." (p. 4)with recommendations that are virtually impossible to fulfill without more money--"Public libraries should be open when their users want them to be" (p. 4). There are few proposals as to where money might come from except that: "Public libraries should increase financial and other support from outside the public sector" (p. 5). Public libraries are also "encouraged to make more use of volunteers" (p. 4) and to "apply for a Charter Mark" (p. 5) to recognize the quality of their services--fourteen of these have already been awarded to public libraries.

However, there are positive things in it--i.e., basic performance measures are put forward, and every library will be obliged to produce an annual Public Library Plan (p. 5). Most importantly, the document is generally supportive; it states the government's belief in the electronic role of public libraries and, to the relief of librarians (Usherwood, 1997; Hare & Daines, 1997), it does not suggest any fundamental change to the structure of current public library services.

Attempts are being made to ensure that all public libraries are connected to online services. The Library and Information Commission, set up by the government two years ago, joined forces with the Library Association, under the umbrella of a new organization called Information for All, to make a 50 million [pounds sterling] bid to the Millennium Commission to connect all public libraries to the Information Superhighway (Information for All, 1996). Unfortunately, the commission decided in February 1997 that the bid should not even be "longlisted" giving as its reason that it "would not have as distinctive an impact as other bids received." The validity of this judgment cannot be assessed without knowing more about the other bids, though it seems doubtful if the commission fully appreciated the likely impact of such an extension of public library capabilities. Information for All will now consider alternative ways of achieving the objective. Meanwhile, there is some compensation in the above-mentioned DNH document (United Kingdom, Department of National Heritage, 1997), which states that: "Public libraries will benefit from that part of the 300 million [pounds sterling] of National Lottery funding that the Government plans to direct towards the wider introduction of information and communication technology after the millennium" (p. 4).

In the new Labour government, the Department of National Heritage has been superseded by a Ministry of Culture, Media, and Sport, with a seat in the Cabinet, and therefore higher status. It remains to be seen whether public libraries will benefit and, if so, in what ways?

RELEVANT CURRENT TRENDS

True to its subtitle Libraries and Communities in the Digital Age, the Benton Report is concerned largely with the potential impact of electronic technology on libraries and their potential users. It is true that technology is having massive effects on society and on libraries that serve society, and there is a good deal of literature devoted to these effects. But there are other trends that cannot sensibly be ignored. Some but not all of them are themselves influenced by technology, but they are nonetheless separate trends. Any report that does not take account of these trends is, in my view, incomplete. Having outlined the present situation in the United Kingdom, this discussion will now examine some of these unmentioned trends.

Political and Economic

One of the most visible macro trends is globalization, given a massive boost by information technology. Many national governments now have little power over their economies. Not only are trade and industry globalized, all professions will need increasingly to operate in the world and not just in their own countries. Much publishing in the more common languages has always aimed at an international market. Likewise, most of the large secondary databases are international in coverage (though with a heavy bias toward the developed world) and in their market. Some of the world's major research libraries too have had an international body of users; much of the use of the British Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and the Library of Congress is by foreign users. But their accessibility has been mainly limited to consultation. This is changing. Not only their catalogs but the catalogs of many other libraries are becoming globally accessible and so is their stock. Nor do libraries any longer have to think only in terms of their own stock, and countries too do not now need to plan for total national self-sufficiency (Line, 1996a). Tomorrow's public librarian will need to have not only a national and regional but a global awareness.

Another macro trend is toward social instability, in mature democracies as well as other regimes. This is due to the diminishing power of national governments and the almost universal acceptance of market forces as an essential feature in any economy that is to grow or compete with the economies of emerging nations. The social damage caused by large-scale unemployment and by widening gaps between rich and poor may destabilize economies, just as the huge gap between rich and poor nations is in danger of destabilizing international politics--and eventually the political systems of advanced countries as pressure is placed on them by poor nations.

Setting aside the longer-term possibility of economic destabilization, public libraries will have to operate in more and more dangerous neighborhoods, serving as safe havens for customers but also working at rather greater risk to themselves. Another effect is that their clientele will include more unemployed--the "unemployed" consisting not only of people who are unwillingly out of a job but of people who have retired early (a rapidly growing number in Europe), which will include many well educated and intelligent people. Both groups will seek not only entertainment but ways of using and updating their skills and abilities and of learning new skills.

Technological

Libraries are affected more profoundly by information technology than any other sector of activity except publishing, since the very material that they handle is fundamentally affected by information technology. It opens up new possibilities, but by enabling others to do many things that libraries do, it may limit their options: examples are the increased capacity of the private sector to do much of what libraries have done, the ability to transfer information almost instantly from almost anywhere to almost anywhere, and the consequent ability of individuals to bypass libraries for an increasing amount of the information they want. The World Wide Web is responsible for changes in the provision and dissemination of information that would have been inconceivable only five years ago. It is of course these developments that are the chief concern of the Benton Report. This article will return to them later.

In fact, the whole information world is in some confusion. Few publishers are bold enough to predict where publishing is going or can even say what "publishing" means when anyone with a computer can produce and distribute material. The future of indexing and abstracting services is less and less certain. Boundaries between publishers, the book and periodical trade, database producers, and libraries are now very fluid, and there is little sign yet of where new boundaries will fall. As new technologies develop, new ways of using them are found. New modes of information packaging are sure to develop; some CD-ROMs show innovative features, and there will be more to come when successors to CD-ROMs appear. New modes of online use will also emerge.

Lifelong Learning, Self-Directed Learning

There is one major trend whose implications for libraries are still being grasped: the move to lifelong learning. The content of most academic courses, in science especially, begins to go out of date within five years, and after ten years much of it is obsolete. The elements in higher education that are of permanent value, apart from a solid core of basic knowledge, are a general level of culture and, especially, the knowledge of how to learn.

In today's unstable job market, where some jobs are declining and new ones are coming into being, and where lifelong employment in one sort of job, let alone with one employer, is very much the exception, the ability to update existing knowledge and gain new knowledge is vital. One major consequence is that lifelong learning will not only be necessary but will become more important than a first degree. Some large firms have recognized this and created what are effectively their own academies to educate and re-educate staff. One would expect institutions of higher education to play a large part in the process of lifelong learning at higher levels: in the case of large firms, a supporting role, in the case of smaller ones, a main role. If they do not play a role, they will be missing a huge opportunity. If they do play a role, it will certainly involve a great deal of remote learning for which the technology is gradually becoming more adequate. The whole system of qualifications will need rethinking.

The shift to lifelong learning is one fundamental change. Another change, more closely connected with information technology, is a shift from teaching to learning. This is being forced on academic institutions by financial constraints--teachers typically account for about 70 percent of a university budget in the United Kingdom--and enabled by IT. It is also good in principle since self-instruction is a much more effective form of learning than being taught. Personal instruction has a very important place, but its importance is largely supportive and inspirational rather than as a means of imparting knowledge.

Self-directed learning and telecommunications together enable distance learning, which for some reason has received more discussion in the literature than self-instruction itself (e.g., "Libraries and Learning," 1996; "Perspectives on...," 1996; Stephens, 1996). Self-instruction ties in with two other related trends: an emphasis on individual responsibility--the onus is on the learner to learn rather than on the teacher to teach; and the extension of the "customer is king" policy to the public sector--people want and expect a choice and will shop around or keep demanding until they get what they want.

These two trends--lifelong learning and self-instruction--mean that learning at all levels will be vital and will need to be only remotely linked to academic institutions. These institutions will have to do some fundamental rethinking--i.e., they will have to reengineer themselves. The implications for public libraries are also potentially profound. They could become centers for self-instruction and lifelong learning for all levels of society, from the specialized graduate who wants to update him/herself to the technician who wants to learn new skills, and the manual worker who wants to improve him/herself. This has always been a function of the public library, but never, until now, has there been such an opportunity to fulfill it.

POSSIBLE USES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The idea that electronically stored publications will supersede printed ones is perhaps less dominant than it was a few years ago. It is not necessarily true that economics will force libraries to hold less and access more, since it is by no means clear that access is cheaper except in the short term. Holdings are never likely to give way completely to access (Line, 1996b)--few information media have ever been totally superseded: even stone tablets still exist in the form of tombstones and walls with inscriptions. Each new medium is added to existing ones, taking over a few of their functions and finding new functions that only they can perform. Since books are very efficient at conveying some types of information and are uniquely convenient, they will continue to be issued. If the contents of such books as (to take three recent examples) Dawkins's (1995) River out of Eden, Schama's (1995) Landscape and History, and Pinker's (1994) The Language Instinct were available only online, so many people would want to download them, print them out in a decent format and on decent paper, and bind them into a compact form, it makes more sense to produce them in this form in the first place. Dawkins and Schama would benefit from more pictures and diagrams, and Pinker would also benefit from sound; this suggests that they should also be available on CD-ROMs. There is no reason, other than perhaps economic, why we cannot have such books in more than one version. Either books or CD-ROMs would be superior to online access. Conventional materials, "hand-held" electronic media, and online access will all be needed; it is not a case of either/or but of the best balance among them.

Since printed books will continue to be produced in large quantities, they will continue to be the core of the public library service, but they will have to be supplemented increasingly by CD-ROMs. Much of the use of computers by public libraries will be (is already) for exploiting these resources by enabling users at home (or elsewhere) to search library catalogs, suggest items for purchase, and make reservations and renewals. This may incidentally result in fewer visits to the library.

Public librarians are bound to explore how they can make use of the extension of computers into society. Providing access to information in electronic form for those who do not have computers with modems is one obvious role, fully in line with the traditional (and basic) function of equalizing access to recorded knowledge. Pervasive though computers may become, and though the percentage of households owning computers will certainly grow from the present 25 percent in the United Kingdom, there will always be people who do not have these--just as there are people who do not have cars or television and, of those who do have them, there will be many who do not have modems. Increasingly people will have access at work. Of the people who do have access, 74 percent have it only at their place of work or study, and much information is not related either to people's work or their study. Those who own computers with CD-ROM drives will not purchase all CD-ROMs they would like to use any more than even the most avid book buyers acquire all the books they might wish to read. If a wide selection is ever to be accessible, public libraries are an obvious place to provide them if only for consultation (whether the lending of CD-ROMs will ever be allowed and, if so, based on what conditions, is not clear).

Another obvious role is to assist users in gaining direct access to electronic information. On the one hand, search software and navigation aids continually improve, reducing the need for help; on the other, the sheer volume of information keeps on increasing, and help is beginning to be needed even in the selection of navigation aids. Some people will enjoy searching the Internet, just as some people enjoy exploring large collections of books, and some will have time and inclination for both and others will not. One can imagine libraries providing their own simple systems for inexperienced users, or users who want to use only small parts of the information universe--just as libraries now provide printed guides, and, where necessary, personal guidance, for their book users. Libraries may humanize an otherwise impersonal information world.

New forms of information access and storage will appear from time to time (the intervals seem to get shorter), and librarians clearly have to be alert to what is happening and explore how they might make use of new developments.

The public library will still be a place, and it makes sense to use that space as a combined center for the future provision of, and access to, printed material, audiovisual and electronic media such as CD-ROMs, and access to remotely stored electronic material, together with the expertise that is necessary to organize both material and access. But it will be more of a centrifugal place than it is now, reaching out to the community it serves. One of the means of reaching out is by remote workstations in shopping centers and other public places (the Aslib report's "micro-kiosks"). This idea may not have been greeted with much enthusiasm by the Benton Report sample, but the reason for that may simply be unfamiliarity.

Public libraries have always supported learning. They serve schools in various ways, sometimes supplying school libraries, sometimes having to act as substitutes for them. Self-instruction is becoming more common in schools, at least at the secondary level, where pupils are often given small projects to do. A public library can offer better access to electronic sources and a lot more expertise than most schools will be able to offer. All schools will need to be linked to local public libraries.

Support for learning is however not the same as making it a central feature of the service. Public libraries can have a brilliant future as centers of lifelong learning, offering the same sort of facilities as those suggested for universities, perhaps at a "lower" (i.e., less academic) level. This suggests a further blurring of roles, this time between the academic library and the public library. The academic learning/research/information resource center of the future could serve people with "academic-type" information, whether or not they were members of the academic institution--they might be in industry or business or members of the wider public. The public "library" would remain a source of general culture and recreation but could also act as a purveyor of information on less academic matters--on matters as varied as building regulations, language instruction, social problems, and so on. They could serve too as two-way communication channels between the public and local and national government, attracting and using input from the public as well as serving them with official information.

Serving as a meeting and discussion center is perhaps in itself of marginal relevance to the public library as such, but the more people that are brought in the more use is likely to be made of it. The library then acts as a cultural as well as an information center. As noted earlier, the role of safe haven in busy towns and cities--a place where mothers can take small children and old people can feel safe--is appreciated by the public.

To fulfill these roles, and to gain the necessary financial support, public libraries will need to be linked with one another, with other types of libraries, and with libraries in other countries. They will also need to be closely connected with other sectors--to form alliances (not mere links) of two types. One is with other public services such as education, culture, and recreation. The merging of British public libraries into larger departments need not be seen as a relegation to lower status; it can be an opportunity. In fact, while the overt reasons may be to save money, the trend to dissolve boundaries is a sign of deeper undercurrents of change, which the library can turn to its advantage. Moreover, and crucially, it is hard to see any other way of obtaining the money needed. The other necessary alliances are with the private sector, especially television.

CONCLUSION

It is not difficult to think of things for public libraries to do and keep them in existence. This should not however be our main aim--which should be to ensure access to all kinds of information for everyone. If this can be done in other ways, they deserve to be looked at, and if they are more likely to be cost-effective, it would be foolish to preserve the "public library as we know it" for sentimental or other reasons. That said, it is hard to see any other sort of institution that would combine all the desirable functions that public libraries perform. Even if some functions come to be done elsewhere as well as they are done in the library, that does not mean that the library should abandon them if they fall within its range of roles.

There is little in the above comments that is not mentioned or adumbrated in the Benton Report or indeed in the Aslib report (ASLIB, 1995). My vision is similar, but I would place more emphasis on the (self-)educational role of libraries. I share the view too that continued pressure and publicity are needed to ensure that public support is accompanied by greater understanding and translated into action. Libraries need champions. In Britain, the Library and Information Commission, while it cannot act as an overt champion, since its role is purely advisory, may build on the various reports and make a good public case for support.

The case for the public library may be very powerful, and governments may be persuaded to make supportive noises, but while new opportunities are there to be grasped, expenditure on public services is not increasing in line with inflation, and libraries have to compete for funds with other services such as health and education, to which even the most passionately dedicated librarian would find it hard to give a lower priority. The more closely associated with other public services libraries--in particular education--can become, the better they are likely to fare, but the financial problem will remain.

FINAL NOTE

Since the text of this article was completed in the Spring of this year, the election of a Labour government in May has led to some changes. The Department of National Heritage has been superseded by a Ministry of Culture, the Media and Sport, with a seat in the Cabinet. A rather more sympathetic attitude to libraries can be expected but, for the immediate future, tough controls over public spending will continue. The new government is making education a high priority, and this may have a spinoff for libraries.

REFERENCES

ASLIB. (1995). Review of the public library service in England and Wales for the Department of National Heritage, final report. London, England: ASLIB.

Benton Foundation. (1996). Buildings, books, and bytes: Libraries and communities in the digital age. Washington, DC: Benton Foundation.

Comedia. (1993). Borrowed time? The future of public libraries in the UK. Bournes Green, Gloucs., England: Comedia (see also my review in The Bookseller under the title "What's wrong with libraries?", 20 August 1993, 35-36).

Dawkins, R. (1995). River out of Eden. London, England: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

England, L., & Sumsion, J. (1995). Perspectives of public library use: A compendium of survey information. Loughborough, England: Loughborough University, Library and Information Statistics Unit. London, England: Book Marketing Ltd.

Galbraith, J. K. (1992). The culture contentment. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Hanratty, C., & Sumsion, J. (1996) International comparison of public library statistics. Loughborough, England: Loughborough University, Library and Information Statistics Unit.

Hare, G., & Daines, G. (1997). Reading our future. Public Library Journal, 12(2), 31-32.

Information for All. (1996). About the millennium libraries bid. Available from: <http:// www.ukoln.ac.uk/informall/bid-details.html>.

Libraries and learning. (1996). [Interview with Nicky Whitsed and Philip Adams]. Electronic Library, 14(5), 424-426.

Line, M. B. (1996a). National self-sufficiency in an electronic age. In A. H. Helal & J. W. Weiss (Eds.), Electronic documents and information: From preservation to access (18th International Essen Symposium, ... 1995. Festschrift in honour of Patricia Battin) (pp. 170-193). Essen, Germany: Universitats-bibliothek (Publications of Essen University Library).

Line, M. B. (1996b). Access versus ownership: How real an alternative is it? IFLA Journal, 22(1), 35-41.

Ormes, S., & Dempsey, L. (1995). Library and Information Commission public library Internet survey. First public report. Available from: <http://www.ukoln.bath.ac.uk/public/lic/html>.

Perspectives on ... distance independent education (issue topic). (1996). Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47(11) .

Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: William Morrow & Company.

Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and history. London, England: HarperCollins.

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