Even though the title is Scientific Libraries, the book is about academic libraries and some national libraries that support scientific research. Tomas Lidman uses his extensive experience gained while working in national and university libraries to provide examples from those sectors of the trends and developments in libraries and librarianship over the past 30‐40 years.
Rather than a subjective picture of library development, his stated aim is “to provide a well‐documented list of references and authors full of insight”. The methodology he used was to draw upon his own and his colleagues experiences and to conduct a literature review in the subject area. Results of the literature review are presented in the bibliography at the back of the book.
The book is intended for library students as an introductory textbook and/or an ordinary reader with a special interest in libraries, or someone looking to understand why libraries look like they do today.
The book is organised chronologically, starting in the late 1960s with a description of the exponential worldwide growth in information flow and corresponding increase in number of students entering tertiary education. He moves on to discuss the implications of the move from “cards to computers” in the 1980s and the ensuing effect of globalisation on research and information provision on both the education of librarians worldwide and the organisation of libraries themselves. From this decade he explores the “decade of optimism 1990‐2000”, a decade characterised by “financial stability and recovery”, and consequently leading to a more qualitative approach to performance measurement of academic libraries. The rise of the Internet, and the part played by libraries in the early years of the 1990s and subsequent commercial interest in selling digital copies of library collections are then discussed. The concept of the electronic library and the feeling of ambivalence toward it by the library profession during this era, followed by a period of negotiation over electronic content between libraries and publishers of scientific information is also explored. Publishing on the Web has led to collaborative initiatives on national and international levels, and Lidman looks at leading developments in this area of such collaborative programmes as the Conference for European National Librarians (CENL) and The European Library (TEL).
The final third of the book looks at “harvest time 2000‐2007” which is characterised by coordination efforts in many countries looking at integrating libraries, archives and museums under a cultural heritage preservation imperative. The changing role of national libraries, growth in importance of information literacy in higher education, and the challenges faced by libraries in the future are discussed which complete the book.
The book contains an index, an excellent bibliography, a description of the author's career, a list of abbreviations and list of illustrations.
Lidman's prose is conversational and his tone is informal, the content draws heavily on personal experience. One has the feeling Lidman is telling a story.
My only criticism is that the title of the book is misleading. The phrase “scientific libraries” is vague and does not automatically relate to academic and national libraries in the mind of the reader. I was expecting to read about libraries associated with scientific and research organisations rather than academic and national libraries. The closest Lidman comes to providing a definition of “scientific libraries' is to say: This book … is a kind of summary of my life‐long engagement and interest in the need for scientific information among researchers and students”.
The book is interesting from the perspective of reading a history of academic and national libraries from the late 1960s to today, and also a general perspective on trends and developments affecting the library profession during this period. It is refreshing to read a book with a distinctly European flavour and citing examples of European libraries and developments within the European library field, rather than the North American or British. One has the feeling that one is listening to a lecture by a learned colleague in the library profession who is delivering a personal account of how it has been over the years spanning his career, and in relation to academic and national libraries.
