Today, we are living in the midst of a profound transition resulting from the digitisation of information, and all components of the information chain are in a state of flux. The parts played libraries and other information services are changing, and in many instances the boundaries which have demarcated the roles of these players have become blurred. Library collections, although ordinarily thought of in terms of books and serials, actually contain a very broad range of materials: manuscripts, archives, photographs, recordings, movies, and much else. This book elaboratively discusses the astonishing richness of materials as sources of information; the important distinction between library materials and the activity of collection development; the role of collections as part of the retrieval process; ways in which library materials are used; the tendency for any given library’s collection to contain materials that are preprocessed for ease of use; the significance for collection development activities of the technical medium of materials; and the tendency for libraries’ collections to conform to the cultural values of its social context. For librarians, information scientists, managers, students and anyone dealing with the issues of library collections, this work is destined to become an authoritative reference tool.
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