Book Review: Le patrimoine: histoire, pratiques et perspectives

i n c reased interest in health information with IT and the Internet (or intranets) playing a leading role. I found this an excellent overview only marred by the IT focus limiting the geographical coverage – with the honourable exception of Vietnam. Alan Gilchrist’s chapter is entitled ‘Research and Consultancy’, but really covers only research. He initially describes the diff e rences between the two but then explains that the results of consultancy are kept confidential and thus writing a chapter on this area is nearly impossible. My exper i e n c e in ‘grey literature’ has been the same, with many project evaluation reports being unavailable, meaning the same mistakes occur. The context of LIS re s e a rch is well presented, covering funding, funders, and ‘the big issues’. The latter includes electronic libraries, internet, electronic publishing, user domain, information retrieval, management issues and value for money. Clearly, very IT focused. H o w e v e r, even within this it is interesting to note the re t u r n to the user, i.e. issues of how people search rather than the IT per se. Given the remit, the geographical focus is clearly Europe and North America, with a heavy bias to the UK. Beryl Morris’s chapter on teamwork is again very subject focused but with a good overview of the issues. Financial and organizational context is clearly laid out. The changing nature of the re q u i red skills is pre s e n t e d ; while IT is mentioned, here it is clearly the leadership, political and communication skills that are needed to survive. Other issues such as staff security are included and the chapter ends with an excellent section on ‘Keeping-up-to date with the literature’. Jagtar Singh’s section on ‘Librarianship and Information Work in S.E. Asia’ is the last and worth waiting for. He defines this area as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. He clearly separates the last three countries as being smaller and less developed. The subject covered range from publishing; library services; reader/user education; public, academic, school and special libraries; automation and networks; training and education; management and pre s e r v a t i o n . Jagtar warns the reader of the difficulty in obtaining what literature there is. While much of the literature is clearly f rom India, the geographical coverage for each subject are a is excellent (including IT developments and re f e re n c e s lacking from some other chapters) with explanations when this is not possible. The social context of LIS is clearly laid out with a call for government leadership in this area. Given the nature of the book, Paul Sturges’s epilogue can really do no more than state what is obvious from the chapters – the world is changing rapidly and thus so is the profession. For all of the above criticism, I have found the book an invaluable tool in my subject areas and for re f e rences for the Pacific Islands. Not only is it highly readable and intro d u c e d me to subjects I had previously only touched upon. My one criticism is the poor geographical coverage overall. While the SE Asia chapter (and certain others) to some extent offset this, a move back to more than one geographical chapter may be necessary if the series is to be truly re p re s e n t a ttive of ‘Librarianship and Information Work Wo r l d w i d e’. If I am not asked to review this book again next year, I will unfortunately be forced to purchase it.