THE NATIONAL LENDING LIBRARY FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
| Pages | 13-31 |
| Published date | 01 January 1957 |
| Date | 01 January 1957 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026240 |
| Author | D.J. URQUHART |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
THE
NATIONAL LENDING LIBRARY FOR
SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY1
By D. J. URQUHART
Department
of
Scientific and Industrial Research
Summary
D.S.I.R. has been charged with the planning of a national lending library for
science and technology. The purpose of this library will be to help users of
scientific literature and bibliographical organizations to obtain the literature
which is not available locally. The library will take over from the Science
Museum Library the responsibility for providing a lending service and it will
also take over from that library some of its literature. The new library will
be located outside the London Area and will aim at providing
a
postal lending
service for all types of organizations.
The problems which
arise,
in planning this library include how to estimate
the future world output of scientific literature, how to estimate the future
demand for literature, the extent to which photocopies and micro-forms will
be used, and the use and possibility of developing new techniques including
data processing.
The author, after making several assumptions, comes to the conclusion
that the library may have to hold 12 to 18 million volumes in 100
years'
time,
that the site plan should provide for this material to be stored and issued in the
traditional form, and that the volume of interlibrary lending and the demand
on the new library is likely to increase more rapidly than the increase in
volume of world literature.
The purpose of the paper is to invite comments and suggestions while the
plans are still fluid.
Introduction
The Ninth Report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy (1) states:
'We are informed that
a
decision has been taken to place ultimate respon-
sibility for the National Science Lending Library on the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research and that the Department has been given
authority to start planning such a library. Now that the D.S.I.R. has been
specifically charged with this task, we hope that another year will not pass
without some concrete evidence that our recommendations are being put
into effect.'
The purpose of
this
paper is to let you know what some of us in D.S.I.R.
1
This paper
was
circulated for
discussion
at a meeting
of the
University and
Research
Section
of
the Library Association on 5 January 1956.
13
14 THE JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION
VOL.
13,
No. 1
are thinking about the creation of this library, and to invite your observations
and suggestions, now, before the blueprints are prepared.
The first thought about which we are all agreed is that we must plan a
library for the future—for at least the next 100 years if possible.
Inevitably the shapes of things to come can be but dimly perceived. In this
paper, whilst I have sought guidance from the past and the present, I have
had to make many guesses about the future. The resulting picture is then
purely a personal one. It carries no official stamp of
approval.
I hope that
others will attempt to correct and amplify my picture because we need the
best available picture of the future to guide us in preparing the plans for the
new library.
The decision to make D.S.I.R. responsible for the new library does not add
something new and peculiar to the responsibilities of D.S.I.R. The Depart-
ment of Scientific and Industrial Research Act 1956 (2) states that
'The Research Council shall be charged with the organization, develop-
ment, and encouragement of scientific and industrial research and with the
dissemination of the results of such research'
and it
is
charged to take steps to further the practical application of the results
of scientific and industrial research. This Act thus makes more explicit the
responsibility which was implicit in the original White Paper issued in 1915
(3) which led to the formation of D.S.I.R., for it was there laid down that the
purpose was
'To promote and organize scientific research with a view especially to its
application to trade and industry.'
Purpose
Since 1915 research activities throughout the world have increased the
volume of recorded scientific and technical information considerably, and an
important problem now is to ensure that this information reaches those who
can use it. Shorn of
its
complexities, the solution to this problem requires
1.
that users must know what exists,
2.
that users must be able to obtain what they wish to read.
It is the job of guides to scientific literature to provide the user with some
means of finding out what
exists.
Already even these guides occupy an appre-
ciable space, and they will grow in volume and complexity
as
scientific litera-
ture expands. Unless users know how to use those guides and have easy
access to them they cannot discover what literature they want.
In considering what 'easy access' means we have to remember that whilst
scholars have been content for over 2,000 years to travel to great libraries,
the user of science
is
seldom prepared to go far for his literature. He works in
the laboratory, the factory, the hospital, the farm, or the mine. He needs
scientific literature where he works or
lives.
He is hard pressed for time. He
may be creating a world in which the problem of how to spend leisure time
is affecting more and more people, but that is not his problem. His time is
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