Transforming Libraries and Educating Librarians: : Essays in Memory of Peter Havard‐Williams

Citation

Bowden, R. (1998), "Transforming Libraries and Educating Librarians: : Essays in Memory of Peter Havard‐Williams", Library Management, Vol. 19 No. 7, pp. 438-440. https://doi.org/10.1108/lm.1998.19.7.438.3

Peter Havard‐Williams’ philosophy and views on librarianship and information science (LIS) were far‐sighted but always realistic. They influenced large numbers of librarians, and others, whether they were the cohorts of students through his department, other educators, colleagues in The Library Association, the Institute of Information Scientists, the International Federation of Library Associations, Unesco or the libraries in which he worked or had a hand in designing. PHW (from here ‐ only because this was always how he was affectionately known) was respected world‐wide; not only throughout the UK but equally well on all the continents via consultancies, conference papers and of course his students. He was a “guru” to so many always with time and ideas generously to give. His contributions to the development of international and national librarianship and information practices, in the fullness of time and a little further away from his untimely passing, call out to be assessed ‐ an exciting and stimulating task for someone ‐ meanwhile we have, within months of his death, this small volume of tributes, the title of which relates to only two of his many interests.

John Feather’s introduction makes clear: “This is not ... a collection of pious essays. There is substance in the work, which will, we believe, be of real value to the profession throughout the world”. The subjects addressed are those close to PHW’s own heart ‐ international librarianship and librarianship education and training. The essays divide neatly into two categories: descriptive and historical analyses of country or service situations and, forming the first half of this slim paperback, more wide‐ranging considerations of the development of PHW’s educational philosophy, the concept of the “culture of information” and information and its contribution to democracy in Africa. The contributors, as one would expect with professional friends everywhere in the world, are library educators and academic and children’s librarians from Algeria, Botswana, France, Korea, Pakistan and the UK. The book opens with the moving tribute paid to PHW at his funeral by Henry Heaney. Moving because those of us who knew him and worked closely with him and loved and respected him also knew of his weaknesses (and who of us do not suffer such handicaps?) and Henry’s reference to them helps to produce not an unreal hagiography but a true, recognisable and rounded picture of the man that is all the more lovable especially “… his overwhelming quality of concern for others” that distinguished all his works.

Ann Irving, first a student and then a colleague in his Department (which he created from nothing at Loughborough University), addresses the central core of PHW’s professional philosophy of education firmly rooted in Jose Ortega y Gasset’s Mission of the University. In illustrating the developments of his thinking over 30 years she relates his early and revolutionary views to the radical changes taking place today are now being accepted as current practice. As examples she cites his concern for the possible dominance of management abilities over, and to the detriment of, those unique and identifying skills of the information professional, his prescience in forecasting some of the “truths” revealed in the work that produced NVQs, especially at Level 5, to the internationalisation of LIS resources and to his foreseeing the development of the new learning and teaching strategies. She skilfully argues that PHW “… worked on the future for most of his career, always looking ahead for the next opportunity, and the new challenge”.

Challenging the concepts of the “culture of information” and the inability of many information professionals to understand the complexities of the issues involved as well as the cultural dominance of Europe and North America over LIS education in other parts of the world Michel Menou, in his essay on “Culture, information and the education of information professionals in Africa”, argues that “Professional education should find ways to produce African information professionals who are able to bring about change rather than call for it” as too many have been doing for more than two decades when it became fashionable, and correct, to challenge the library legacy left by the, then, relatively recently departed colonial powers. The calls are still being made but the changes are still negligible except in Botswana, where PHW held his last post and last exerted some considerable influence. Not least on Kingo Mchombu who, in the following contribution, takes the reader over familiar ground when he argues that “Democratization is an information‐driven process”. He expresses sonic innovative views in the context of the newly‐democratised African societies recently freed of the apparatus of one‐party states. He arrives, perhaps not surprisingly, at the depressing opinion “... people in Africa are more interested in seeing their lives improve, in the shortest possible time, than in implementing democracy”. Coincidentally, he supports Menou’s contention that European/US cultural norms and values cannot be transhipped wholesale and replanted without consideration of local cultural values. The two essays complement each other effectively.

Still in Africa, and providing the bridge between the two parts of this volume, is Paul Sturges’s controversial essay on Malawi. He perceptively examines, in some detail, the ways in which Banda’s former government manipulated and controlled access to information to turn on its head the librarians’ much‐quoted credo that “information is power”. Sturges argues in a forceful conclusion: “This discussion of information in terms of economic and power relations subverts the facile equation of information and libraries with power”. He concludes that any tendency by governments to manipulate information “... cannot be defeated with a frontal attack by librarians flourishing their high principles”. There are significant lessons in his conclusions that the profession will do well to consider further especially in the light of IFLA’s new policy and the future work of its Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression.

The second category of contributions opens with David Baker’s on Ethiopia and LIS training. He describes in libraries there the paucity of services, lack of resources and of trained professionals ‐ situations that will be only too painfully recognised by librarians who have worked in the Third World. The programmes that he developed and describes ought to provide useful guidance, in the methodologies that he developed with the British Council, for application in similar situations in other countries. Especially useful is his message to beware of raising too high expectations of course participants, many of whom have to return to remote rural situations far removed from the concepts and resources advocated during their course.

African concerns give way to Asian and a consideration of South Korea’s LIS educational development in the decade since 1980. Not a happy picture emerges of a profession so new that it scarcely gets government or public recognition and of educational programmes reminiscent of the USA more than two decades ago and of current curricula in which education to enable librarians to assist the users of LIS services scarcely gets a mention. Pakistan is represented by Rafia Ahmad Sheikh’s examination of the origins, development and subsequent operation of the new archives course in the University of Sindh started in 1982 as the result of the commitment of a few enthusiasts. Algeria provides the subject for the penultimate essay, from which, hardly surprisingly, one learns that “Today’s library scene reflects the deteriorating situation of the whole country”. Not consequent upon this, however, is the reported lack of co‐operation between libraries and, as Line discovered and reported in 1983, even the existence of a certain amount of institutional jealousy. Not a situation unique to Algeria but one that continues to plague many libraries in the Third World where the relationships between “holdings” and “access” libraries still has to be conceptualised even before co‐operation difficulties can be overcome and inter‐lending services can be established to help to save scarce national resources. This in spite of IFLA’s valiant attempts through its Universal Availability of Publications Programme, now nearly 20 years old, to improve access to documents.

The last essay, in French, is a personal and moving tribute recognising a less well‐known aspect of Peter’s professional career ‐ a lifelong love of children’s literature and libraries. Genevieve Patte describes the beginning of the Bibliothèque de la Joie par les Livres and his involvement with it, his introduction of her to IFLA, the Loughborough Summer Conferences and Peter’s reading to French children of Winnie the Pooh and the adventures of Christopher Robin. She notes: “Cet homme a l’allure si sérieuse, vêtu de sombre et qui, avec ce fort anglais, lisait lentement, sans effet, imperturbable, avec le plus grande conviction, les raisonnements absurdes et merveilleusement enfantins de Christopher Robin avait profondement impressionné son auditoire.”

This is for the most part a stimulating book for all interested in education and international librarianship. It is not at all what, at first sight, it might appear to be ‐ a group of essays idolising PHW. The excellence of the quality, and the challenge, of the subjects addressed make its purchase a must for all librarians sharing these interests. PHW, had he been able to read these essays, would have been impressed by their quality, and the range of subjects addressed and the numbers of countries from which came the contributions. However, what would undoubtedly have satisfied him the most is the ability of the contributors (all except two his students) to observe intelligently, analyse methodically and put forward sensible proposals for LIS advancement. He, quite rightly, would have been proud.

It has been a pleasure to review this book in memory of my guru.