Collections development: librarians, users and collections between new roles and professional principles

Abstract

The essay follows a different and parallel analysis that became evident during a previous research on library science criteria and methods for collection development, conducted in order to ascertain the reliability of online catalogues as information sources with reference to authors and works for the scientific monograph assessment. Starting from a reconstruction of the Italian librarianship debate of the second half of the twentieth century around issues of library collection development, developed through the comparison with international literature, the paper examines the different actors’ roles and the changed conditions of bibliographic collections during transition from cultural to librarianship management of Italian libraries’ heritage.