Fremont Rider’s 1944 book, The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library, had a major impact on research library thinking. The issues raised by Rider, such as research library economics, collection, acquisition and management policies, and library cooperation still resonate today, although his technology solutions have long since been outdated. Rider’s thoughts and predictions on research library growth influenced, rightly or wrongly, generations of administrators and librarians, particularly in the United States. The article outlines Rider’s thesis and traces trends in research libraries from the 1930s to the present day when libraries will have to become much more proactive in their institutional roles to tackle the new paradigms for the creation, distribution and access of information. We return to the question of what is the future of the research library and its economics in the digital era - no easy Rider?
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) (1967) On Research Libraries. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
2.
ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) (1979) Scholarly Communication: The Report of the National Enquiry. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press .
3.
Axford, H. William (1962) ‘Rider Revisited’ , College and Research Libraries, 23 (4): 345-347 .
4.
Baker, Nicholson (2001) Doublefold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. New York: Random House .
5.
Campbell, Robert (2004) ‘Libraries: Do they have a Future in Academia - or only a Past?’ , Serials, 17 (1): 9-14 .
6.
Cox, John (2004) Aggregators and the Primary Journal. Worthing: ALPSP .
7.
De Gennaro, Richard (1977) ‘Copyright, Resource Sharing and Hard Times: A View from the Field’ , American Libraries: 435 .
8.
Greenstein, Daniel (2004) Library Stewardship in a Networked Age, URL (consulted December 2004): http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub126/green.html
9.
Hey, T. and Trefethen, A. (2003) The Data Deluge, URL (consulted December 2004): http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/%7Eajgh/
10.
Houghton, John , Steele, Colin and Henty, Margaret (2003) Changing Research Practices in the Digital Information and Communication Environment. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training . URL (consulted December 2004): http://www.cfses.com/documents/Changing_Research_Practices.pdf
11.
McMullen, Haynes (1955) ‘American University Libraries, 1955-2005’ , College and Research Libraries July, 16: 288 .
12.
Metcalf, Keyes (1954) ‘Spatial Problems in University Libraries’ , Library Trends558 . (Quoted in Wilson and Tauber 492.)
13.
Molyneux, R.E. (1986) ‘Patterns, Processes of Growth, and the Projection of Library Size: A Critical Review of the Literature on Academic Library Growth’ , Library & Information Science Research, January-March, 8: 5-28 .
14.
Molyneux, R.E. (1994a) ‘More Hortatory than Factual: Fremont Rider’s Exponential Growth Hypothesis and the Context of Exponentialism’, in D.E. Williamset al. (eds) For the Good of the Order: Essays in Honor of Edward G. Holley. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press .
15.
Molyneux, R.E. (1994b) ‘What did Rider do? An Inquiry into the Methodology of Fremont Rider’s The scholar and the future of the research library’ , Libraries & Culture, 29: 297-325 .
16.
Molyneux, R.E. (1996) ‘Fremont Rider’s Legacy’, ARL: A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions October, 188: 6. URL (consulted December 2004): http://arl.cni.org/newsltr/188/fremont.html
17.
Piternick, George (1963) ‘Library Growth and Academic Quality’ , College and Research Libraries, 24 (3): 223-229 .
18.
Ratcliffe, F.W. (1980) ‘The Growth of University Library Collections in the United Kingdom’, in James Thompson (ed.) University Library History. London: K J Saur .
19.
Rider, Fremont (1944) The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library. New York: Hadham Press .
20.
Seaman, David (2004) ‘Mass and Malleability: The Collaboration Imperative: Trends for the Digital Library “Access 2004: beyond Buzzwords” ’ , CARL Workshop on Institutional Repositories, October 15, Halifax, Nova Scotia. URL (consulted December 2004): http://library.acadiau.ca/access2004/speakers/seaman.html
21.
Stam, David (1992) ‘Plus Ça Change... Sixty Years of The Association of Research Libraries’, Association of Research Libraries Newsletter, URL (consulted December 2004): http://www.arl.org/arl/plus.ca.html
22.
Steele, Colin (2004) The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The Politics of Scholarly Communication, URL (consulted December 2004): http://www.lub.lu.se/ncsc2004/
23.
Steele, Colin R. (ed.) (1978) Steady-State, Zero Growth and the Academic Library. London: Bingley .
24.
Steele, Colin R. (1970) ‘Blanket Orders and the Bibliographer in the Large Research Library’ , Journal of Librarianship, 2 (4): 273 .
25.
UGC (University Grants Committee) (1976) Capital Provision for University Libraries. London: HMSO .
26.
Wilson, Louis Round and Tauber, Morris F. (1958) The University Library. Second edition. New York: Columbia University Press , 492.
