The FUTURE PUBLIC TECHNOLOGICAL LIBRARY SERVICES: SHOULD A NEW PUBLIC TECHNICAL LIBRARY SERVICE BE BASED ON The TECHNICAL COLLEGES? Available to Purchase

The topic I wish to present is not a simple one and the position is confused by discordant voices each advocating different solutions to quite different problems. I will present to you certain facts which seem to me to be important, and some possible interpretations of these facts. The whole is designed to provoke discussion of the problem of improving our technical library service. The essential thesis is that the future lines of development of public technological library services will be mainly influenced by factors outside the control of the library profession but which must be appreciated if librarians are not to act like King Canute and attempt to stop the incoming tide. Lest my reference to this anecdote should conjure up a picture of a spot on the English coast and a twice‐daily tide, let me urge you to treat the world as our stage and the next few decades as our unit of time.