THE LONG ARM OF THE LIBRARIAN Available to Purchase

Inaugural professorial lecture delivered at Lancashire Polytechnic in May 1990. The roots of polytechnic libraries can be found both in the development of the Mechanics′Institute movement in the 19th century and in the earlier development of university libraries. However, modern pressures,including changing learning methods and the development of the information society, lead to the changing model of the polytechnic library, centred on the user. The role of the academic library in the future will therefore be different from that in the past.