Community information policy and provision Available to Purchase

In this session I want to take the conference theme — ‘Information for decision‐making’ and attempt to examine how the development of community information provision in public libraries in Great Britain can and does assist improved decision‐making both by the general public, including certain groups of people in particular, and library staff. I am conscious, in talking to an audience which I suspect is, in the main, comprised of colleagues from special and academic libraries, that there is a view amongst some of you at least, that ‘community information’ is one of those ‘harebrained schemes’ which are nothing to do with ‘real’ librarianship and are contributing to the decline in standards of public library services. I hope to convince those people, and indeed all of you, that community information is one of the most significant developments that public libraries have ever undertaken.