THE IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS

One of the major services of the ‘Parry Report’ was to highlight the interdependence of the university libraries and the national libraries. Indeed, its recommendations on the national library, which drew from some quarters the charge that it had strayed beyond its brief, must have been amongst the most powerful of the influences which brought into being the Dainton Committee; certainly its chapter on the functions and role of a national library provided a ready‐made agenda for much of Dainton's work. The Dainton Report itself, through its valuable statistical investigations, establishes beyond question the significance of the national library services to all university scholarship and, in the process, fully vindicates the Parry Committee's decision to look at university libraries in the full national context. The Dainton statistics show that the academic sector accounted for over a quarter of all applications made to the NLL and for nearly 40% of the applications to NCL (a figure which is sharply increasing) and that academics and students account for over two‐thirds of the total BM readership. Clearly, then, the Dainton recommendations must be regarded as of very great significance for academic communities in general, and for university libraries in particular.