Library Statistics For The Twenty First Century World

The International Federation of Library Associations began a global statistics project in relation to worldwide libraries in 2006. The results are reported here from all over the world and there are several papers specifically on public libraries and university libraries.

An international collaboration between IFLA, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed standards for new library indicators for the twenty-first century. The existing international library statistics were developed nearly 40 years ago. This book presents the first results using the new statistics, and look forward to the next steps. It also contains other initiatives and developments in the fields of library statistics, benchmarking and indicators.

An international collaboration between IFLA, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed standards for new library indicators for the twenty-first century. The existing international library statistics were developed nearly 40 years ago. This book presents the first results using the new statistics, and look forward to the next steps. It also contains other initiatives and developments in the fields of library statistics, benchmarking and indicators.

Discusses the changing environments in which libraries operate and the future of libraries focusing on core functions, enabling technologies, the information universe and user communities.

Libraries are experiencing a technological revolution that goes well beyond anything that has existed since the invention of printing. Not surprisingly, the digital library, with all that it portends for the future of the book and the periodical, but also with all that it implies for the kinds of information that will be collected and disseminated, will necessarily preoccupy those responsible for libraries in the new century. Everything from copyright, access, and cost to the nature of the reading public itself is now up for re-examination.'Books, Bricks, and Bytes' brings together an extraordinary array of authors at the cutting edge of these concerns, not only within the United States, but experts drawn from Germany, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and India. James H. Billington discusses the Library of Congress in the information age; Ann S. Okerson outlines two models for securing scholarly information; Donald S. Lamm discusses the shaky partnership of publishers and librarians hi this new environment; Klaus-Dieter Lehmann provides a framework for maintaining the intellectual heritage of the past in a digitized future. Each contributor shows hi concrete detail and vivid illustration that the library as a world of holdings is increasingly valued as an incomparable place to access information. In his preface to the book, Stephen Graubard reminds us that whether or not one believes in the reality of the information revolution that is said to be overtaking the world, it is obvious that the libraries being built today do not resemble those marble sanctuaries constructed hi the Victorian age or in the early twentieth entury. This is a work that shows how libraries have been transformed from "refuges" from the external world, to places that reflect the social and intellectual values of specific societies. The idea that the library is a public trust and public resource is at the center of this unusually fine collection at the cutting edge of professional and public life.