(3) seminar on research in metropolitan public libraries

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ht. Libr. Rev. (1974) 6, 17-22 INTAMEL MEETING 1973, INDIA (3) Seminar on Research in Metropolitan Public Libraries H. C. CAMPBELL? The purpose of this Seminar is to study various methods which can be utilized in conducting research in the field of metropolitan public library services. In order to do this, participants have been asked to prepare research proposals dealing with particular metropolitan areas in West Africa, India and South Asia. These proposals will be presented and the aims of the research and the methodology that is to be used will be discussed. Working groups will review area proposals, and will present recom- mendations for future action on the part of the local sponsor, as well as on the part of INTAMEL. CONTEMPORARY STRATEGIES IN EDUCATION The following are 21 elements taken from the conclusions of Learning to be, the world of education today and tomorrow an enquiry into the role and purpose of education, published by UNESCO, 1972. Education should be dispensed and acquired through a multiplicity of means. The important thing is not the path an individual has followed, but what he has learned or acquired. An over-all open education system helps learners to move within it, both horizontally and vertically, and widens the range of choice available to them. The education of pre-school-age children is an essential pre-condition to any educational and cultural policy. The concept of general education must be markedly broadened, so that it definitely includes general socio-economic, technical and practical knowledge. Educational action to prepare for work and active life should aim less at training young people to practise a given trade or profession than at equipping them to adapt themselves to a variety of jobs, at developing their capacities continuously, in order to keep pace with developing production methods and working conditions. It should help achieve optimum mobility in employment and facilitate conversion from one t Toronto Public Library, 40 St Clair Avenue East, Toronto 290, Canada.

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Page 1: (3) Seminar on research in metropolitan public libraries

ht. Libr. Rev. (1974) 6, 17-22

INTAMEL MEETING 1973, INDIA

(3) Seminar on Research in Metropolitan Public Libraries H. C. CAMPBELL?

The purpose of this Seminar is to study various methods which can be utilized in conducting research in the field of metropolitan public library services. In order to do this, participants have been asked to prepare research proposals dealing with particular metropolitan areas in West Africa, India and South Asia. These proposals will be presented and the aims of the research and the methodology that is to be used will be discussed.

Working groups will review area proposals, and will present recom- mendations for future action on the part of the local sponsor, as well as on the part of INTAMEL.

CONTEMPORARY STRATEGIES IN EDUCATION

The following are 21 elements taken from the conclusions of Learning to be, the world of education today and tomorrow an enquiry into the role and purpose of education, published by UNESCO, 1972.

Education should be dispensed and acquired through a multiplicity of means. The important thing is not the path an individual has followed, but what he has learned or acquired. An over-all open education system helps learners to move within it, both horizontally and vertically, and widens the range of choice available to them. The education of pre-school-age children is an essential pre-condition to any educational and cultural policy. The concept of general education must be markedly broadened, so that it definitely includes general socio-economic, technical and practical knowledge. Educational action to prepare for work and active life should aim less at training young people to practise a given trade or profession than at equipping them to adapt themselves to a variety of jobs, at developing their capacities continuously, in order to keep pace with developing production methods and working conditions. It should help achieve optimum mobility in employment and facilitate conversion from one

t Toronto Public Library, 40 St Clair Avenue East, Toronto 290, Canada.

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profession or branch of a profession to another. Lifelong education, in the full sense of the term, means that business, industrial and agricultural firms will have extensive educational functions. The normal culmination of the educational process is adult education. Literacy training is only a “moment”, an element, in adult education. The new educational ethos makes the individual the master and creator of his own cultural progress. Self-learning, especially assisted self-learning has irreplaceable value in any educational system. The accelerating and multiplying effect of new techniques of reproduc- tion and communication is basic to the introduction of most educational innovations. Widespread and efficient use of new technologies in education is only possible if sufficient change takes place within the system itself. One of the essential tasks for educators at present is to change the mentali- ties and qualifications inherent in all professions; thus they should be the first to be ready to rethink and change the criteria and basic situation of the teaching profession, in which the job of educating and stimulating students is steadily superseding that of simply giving instruction. Teaching, contrary to traditional ideas and practice, should adapt itself to the learner; the learner should not have to bow to pre-established rules for teaching. Any system according educational services to a passive population and any reform which fails to arouse active personal participation among the mass of learners can achieve, at best, only marginal success. Every individual must be in a position to keep learning throughout his life. The idea of lifelong education is the keystone of the learning society. The dimensions of living experience must be restored to education by redistributing teaching in space and time. All children must be guaranteed the practical possibility of receiving basic education, full-time if possible, in other forms if necessary. Expansion of higher education should lead to broad development of many institutions capable of meeting more and more individual and community needs. Access to different types of education and professional employment should depend only on each individual’s knowledge, capacities and aptitudes, and should not be a consequence of ranking knowledge acquired in school above or below experience gained during the practice of a pro- fession or in private studies. The teaching profession will not be in a position to fulfil its role in the future unless it is given, and develops itself, a structure better adapted to modern educational systems. Education is developing continually to the point where it is becoming a function of the entire society: larger and larger sections of the population should therefore take part in it.

DEFINITION OF A METROPOLITAN AREA FOR PUBLIC LIBRARY RESEARCH PURPOSES

There is no consensus among public librarians, social scientists, urban

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and regional planners and relevant policy makers concerning an appropriate international definition of the term “metropolitan area”. The irreconcilable nature of some of the differing conceptions arises because an effort is made to assign boundaries in a two dimension space while, in the same space an indefinitely large number of phenomena (demographic, economic, social, cultural, etc.) need to be considered. There can therefore be no simple consensus as to what phenomena should be selected as the basic component of a metropolitan area, and library research must grapple with this matter.

However, if we are to work in the realm of the practical rather than in that of the ideal, it will be necessary at this seminar to select a concept which seems appropriate for our purposes in discussing metropolitan public library research. The concept which should be selected should be one that is most widely accepted amongst librarians, researchers, planners, policy makers and local government officers. Two basic areas might be considered in defining a metropolitan area, the trade urea of the metropolis and the labour market area. The use of the trade area principal however, is not recommended for adoption at this seminar because available data does not generally give sufficiently precise information as to the actual boundaries of the trade areas, and the trade areas are likely to be very much larger than the standard census areas with which most librarians have to work. The labour market area principle on the other hand is a more useful one for our purposes. Although it is not always easy to find the kind of travel data necessary to give the labour market area idea a sound application, it is proposed that in principle we adopt it as a general basis for comparative metropolitan public library studies.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE URBAN CORE OR NODEI

We are all familiar with the fact that urban conglomerations are the major foci of the spatial distribution of activity in developing industrial economies. At advanced levels of industrialization, complexes of inte- grated industries develop and require large and highly accessible conglomerations of workers and consumers. Historically these industrial complexes have sprung up mainly in the larger cities. In the process, these cities have drawn nearby population centres into their orbits or have given rise to nearby satellite centres. The main labour supply area for establishments in the centre, or node, is located around the node and includes the residents in the satellite and surrounding areas. A signi-

1 I am indebted to Dr F. Ricour-Singh, Geography Section, Census Statistics Division, Ottawa, Canada, for the above concepts and criteria in the delineation of a metropolitan area.

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ficant proportion of satellite residents seek jobs located in the centre or in other satellites. Thus the node and its satellite comprise an integrated labour market area in which daily travel to the node is economically feasible for a significant portion of residents of the satellite. This con- cept of an integrated labour market area in terms of daily travelling patterns in and around major urban centres, is the major criterion used to locate the boundaries of census metropolitan areas in many countries of the world. It is a concept of intrinsic value to librarians, planners and policy makers in urbanized regions. To social scientists in a variety of fields, these labour market areas comprise a major portion of the zone of immediate influence around large cities.

A city is called a metropolis when it is assumed to perform certain functions for other population centres. For example, it may be the main supplier of a wide range of goods and services for the other centres, it may house the national or regional head offices of many key industrial, commercial or business establishments, or it may be a major location of jobs for a significant portion of the residents in other centres. These are the metropolitan functions which a city performs for other centres and for which it is called a metropolis.

Size is an important indicator and determinant of whether a city might be performing metropolitan functions, and most delineation rules in the various national censuses for identifying metropolises depend on size. However, there is little in existing research reports which can provide a firm basis for evaluating a number of alternative population sizes as a possible minima in the identification rule for metropolises. Rather than defining minimum population with respect to administra- tive boundaries, it seems to be more realistic to define minimum population as the number of people within the urbanized core. The urbanized core of the census metropolitan area is defined as the con- tinuous built up area containing the largest incorporated city. This area may be the largest incorporated city, where there is no adjacent muni- cipality, or a group of adjacent municipalities with an aggregate popula- tion of approximately 100,000.

CALCULATION OFJOURNEY TO WORK AREA

Having delineated the urbanized core, rules are needed for delineating the remainder of the metropolitan area. If, as is recommended, journey to work data is used, the rules can be focussed on analysis of these data. Using the labour market approach to determine the size of the metro- politan area, it would consist of all those rural municipalities (plus enclosed urban municipalities) for which the proportion of resident

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workers travelling to an urbanized core exceeding 100,000 in popula- tion, exceeds the proportion commuting to alternative urbanized cores. On this basis it would then be quite simple to calculate the maximum distance which workers will travel to the edge of a built up area of a central city. All rural municipalities whose population centroids fell within the commuting radius would become part of the metropolitan area. For example the maximum commuting distance to a central city in North America which has a population of over 1 million might be assumed to be the rate of travel by automobile, say 55 m.p.h. multiplied by the amount of time considered normal for a trip, say 50-60 minutes giving a value of commuting distance of approximately 45 road miles in direction served by a four-lane highway. Such calculations can be worked out and form part of the basic means of defining the scope and size of the metropolitan area under consideration.

ASSISTANCE IN SECURING RESEARCH FUNDS

At its meeting in Milan in May 1972, the General Assembly of INTAMEL clearly stated that any project with which it would be associated must be intimately concerned with problems of metropolitan areas. The Association does not feel that it is competent to work on matters of public library development that are not related directly and actively to the provision of public library service in the metropolis.

The Association has some experience in securing financial and other support from national, regional and international bodies in develop- ment of research projects in public library work in metropolitan areas. Many of the member associations of IFLA receive research grants to carry out studies or research, both in connection with their own services, and on behalf of others. For this reason the Association will assist its members in every way possible who are concerned to secure financing for research projects in their own countries. An initial contact has been made with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, whose purpose is to finance library and information science research in developing countries. The IDRC, which has contri- buted an amount of approximately $10,000 in 1972 to INTAMEL, has indicated that research proposals which it will finance must be directed towards general problems that are of primary concern to public libraries of a particular region or area in the entire world. For this reason research proposals should provide comparative data from various locations to ensure that, in principle, neither the problems recognized nor the solutions proposed are location specific. In addition, the IDRC is concerned with ways in which the services of metropolitan public

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libraries can assist in the development of the educational requirements of the rural hinterland. The IDRC has stated the research proposals which it will support must lead to positive action in social and economic development rather than to research that is primarily descriptive of the present state of affairs.

CO-ORDINATION OF RESEARCH

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has instituted a programme for the co-ordination of research in the field of documentation and libraries. UNESCO has stated that although a great deal of research (fundamental, applied and develop- mental) is now being carried out all over the world much of this effort is not fully used because in most countries the information on research projects completed, in progress or planned, or on research reports, needed to obviate unnecessary duplication and national and inter- national level, is often lacking. Better information on current research and its results would help to improve planning of research and would make it easier for many countries to decide on the main lines of research to be followed. With this in view the Secretariat of UNESCO has started an international register of research projects and reports under the name of ISORID (International Information System on Research in Documentation). UNESCO has published guide lines for national information transfer centres which would be set up as a part of ISORID. Such centres might also assume the function of national or regional centres for research and training which is part of the UNESCO pro- gramme. In view of this important role of co-ordination which is being undertaken by UNESCO, INTAMEL should endeavour to ensure that any of the research projects in which it is engaged should be fully announced to ISORID.