UB And Jagiellonian University Produce Book On Libraries And The Democratic Process

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- For nearly 50 years, librarians in Poland were educated, professionally trained and required to work under a central-government library system that severely restricted the collection of vast amounts of published material and limited public and scholarly access to even these restricted collections.

To assist the librarians of Poland in their transition to an entirely new philosophy and practice in their field, librarians at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, and the University at Buffalo have jointly edited a book titled "The Role of Libraries in the Democratic Process."

The book, published this spring by Jagiellonian University Press, is a collection of essays by librarians and library professors at both schools that explores issues pertinent to the Poles. Among them are the role of libraries as a vital force in democracies, the development of balanced collections, theories of scientific librarianship, contemporary library trends and philosophies that promote full participation of the electorate in a library system.

Articles appear in Polish or English, with summaries in the alternate language.

The book is one result of a three-year, library-faculty exchange program between UB and Jagiellonian, with whom UB has had a wide-ranging exchange program for five years. It was co-edited by Maria Kocójowa, professor and chair of Jagiellonian's Department of Library and Information Science, and George S. Bobinski, dean of the UB School of Information and Library Studies.

Bobinski points out that Polish libraries have had to adjust to a whole new way of life in the past five years, and that the book is expected to offer new perspective and ideas to Polish librarians -- ideas that we take for granted.

"They were centrally administered under complete government control," he said. "Academic and research libraries were inaccessible to many scholars, and even those permitted physical access were denied access to a great many journals, books, magazines and newspapers.

"Collections were very unbalanced -- weighted heavily toward Marxist and pro-government texts and excluding material critical of those texts," said Bobinski. "That began to let up in the late '80s. Although many Polish librarians didn't agree with this philosophy, they were educated and trained in this system, and asked for assistance in re-educating themselves to accommodate the democratic process."

Contributors to the book are faculty members of both institutions and practicing librarians from both countries. Several, including Kocójowa and Bobinski, participated in the ongoing exchange program.

€ Public Libraries in the U.S. -- A Unique and Vital Force for Democracy, by Bobinski, who helped initiate the exchange

€ Community Computer Networks and Libraries and Benefits of Networked Information by A. Neil Yerkey, associate professor of information and library studies

€ In the Transfer of Information Science, is the Linguistic Barrier at the Same Time a Barrier to Democracy? by Wanda Pindlowa, professor of library and information science who spent the spring, 1994 semester at UB as an exchange scholar