Introduction to Changing times, changing libraries (Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute November 14-17, 1976)

Lacking a crystal ball, scientists, economists, political scientists, businessmen, educators, and other professionals are nevertheless trying to understand and possibly to forecast future developments. Since social change is inevitable, librarians must be ready and alert to understand, explain and cope with change during their professional lives. The specialists invited to the institute were asked to discuss from their own research perspectives: ( 1 ) three major causes of change government, economic conditions, and science and technology; (2) possible results of change in three areas of vital interest humanities (including leisure and morals), education and social institutions; and (3) the process of change and ways to create conditions for change. Librarian respondents were to point out various implications for librarians of the remarks made by each of the specialists, and to be ready with their own views on the topics if necessary.published or submitted for publicatio

Chancery Officials and the Business of Communal Administration in Republican Florence. Ventura and Niccolò Monachi, Chancellors of Florence (1340-48/1348-75)

This dissertation studies the chancery of the Florentine Republic by examining the administrative offices that constituted the institution and some of the notary-administrators who held principal positions within it. The scholarship on Florentine government often presupposes the existence of some kind of permanent bureaucratic workforce that provided stability for the city’s system of amateur, short-term political office. My dissertation instead suggests that the susceptibility to change in Florentine government extended also to its administrative organization. It can be found at the level of institutional dynamics, but it was also experienced by chancery officials themselves who continually had to negotiate the forces of instability in the performance of their duties, ultimately affecting their attitudes towards their work. The first half of this dissertation considers the institutional dynamics of impermanence within the chancery through an examination and description of the three main offices of the institution during the republican period: the notary of the priors, the notary of legislation, and the chancellor. The main contention of this section is that within the institution of the chancery there was an apparent tension between the semi-permanent, rationalizing force of a very few administrative agents and the impermanent destabilizing force of hundreds of administrative agents who cycled through the chancery. The second half of the dissertation then turns to look in detail at the lives and careers of two long-serving chancellors, Ventura Monachi (chancellor, 1340-1348) and his son Niccolò Monachi (chancellor, 1348-1375). In his lyric poetry, Ventura negotiates the incessant forces of unpredictability as both a notary-administrator and chancellor, while Niccolò’s book of ricordanze demonstrates how even a notary-administrator who operated as a semi-permanent official was vulnerable to the shifting political sands of the Florentine commune. This study contributes a new set of insights and perspectives to our understanding of the institution of the Florentine chancery through an examination of the relationship between socio-political dynamics and institutional form; the formation of an administrative habitus as evidenced by the exchange of symbolic capital in municipal poetry and communal art; and, the everyday functionality of an institution structurally based on a persistent tension between stability and instability.Ph.D.2020-11-16 00:00:0

National Library and Information Services: A Handbook for Planners (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio

Model Continuing Education Recognition System in Library and Information Science (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio

The Electronic Library: Bibliographic Data Bases 1975-76; Library Networks '74-'75 (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio

National and International Library Planning (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio

Evaluating Information Retrieval Systems: The PROBE Program (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio