Looking at libraries

When I first joined Aslib I was asked how I felt about visiting different libraries and watching the people at work in them. The idea appealed to me, particularly as I had already found out how co‐operative librarians could be when working in a library myself, and beset by problems of re‐organization. Whatever the public image of librarians may be, the characteristics that have impressed me most are an absorbed interest in their work, and a willingness to talk about it. This helped me enormously, as my job has been to find out about their jobs. The librarians I have met through my work at Aslib have all been friendly and helpful, and interested enough in research to let me loose in their libraries in order to talk to their staff at some length about the various processes used.