ARCLIB BULLETIN
ARCLIB BULLETIN
NO.5 JANUARY 1996
CONTENTS
ARCLIB-L ELECTRONIC EMAIL FACILITY
PRODUCT REVIEW: APId by Catherine Tranmer
CARDIFF CONFERENCE RESUME by Margaret Black
CLERMONT FERRAND IN THE SPRING by Catherine Tranmer
INTO
THE 21ST CENTURY NOW - THE ARCHITECTURE LIBRARIAN AS MEDIATOR
by Sylvia Harris
NEWS
AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Conference 1996 goes to Liverpool in July
The 1996 ARCLIB
conference will be held in Liverpool, at Liverpool John Moores University on 10-12
July.
The theme for the conference is 'Finding and meeting users needs'; this gives
us the chance to look back at user education,
which was a theme of the very first ARCLIB conference in 1988. Much has changed
in the Library world since then and it will be
useful to look, for example, at the demands placed on the user education effort
by the growth of CD-Rom and other electronic
services. It should also be interesting to see approaches to meeting users needs
in the new Learning Resources Centre at John Moores. Apart from user education,
topics to be covered include user surveys and the related issue of performance
indicators; marketing the library; and making a case for more resources. Details
and booking forms will be sent out shortly.
French Conference also in July
In the latter
half of 1995 reports reached us that the 1996 seminar of the French architecture
school librarians would be, in part
at least, an international event (see Catherine Tranmer's report on Clermont-Ferrand
1995, on page 5). This caused some
excitement in ARCLIB circles, especially since the seminar will this year be held
in Paris. The bad news, however, is that this too
will be in July, which creates logistic and financial problems for most of us.
Exact dates for Paris are not yet known.
What price July 10-12??
Committee News
At last year's AGM in Cardiff Sylvia Harris relinquished her place on the ARCLIB
Committee. Ian Mayfield, who was due to stand
down at the same time, agreed to serve for one more year. Volunteers to replace
Sylvia (admittedly a hard task) were conspicuous
by their absence: at the AGM John Thomas of South Bank University allowed himself
to be pressed into service but subsequently a willing volunteer has emerged, enabling
John to exercise his opt-out clause! The new member, whom we are pleased to welcome,
is Chris Hagar of Newcastle University. Chris is a relatively new member and we
look forward to getting to know her better.
Sylvia's departure was appropriately
timed, coming as it did during the excellent conference which she arranged at
Cardiff last July.
A resumé of the conference appears on page 4; it is hoped that full proceedings
will appear in due course. We are pleased to say
that Sylvia's talents are not lost to ARCLIB: see the next two items!
ARCLIB Represented on RIBA Professional Literature Committee
During the
discussion which followed Stanley Cox's thought-provoking paper at last year's
conference (see p. 4), it was suggested
that ARCLIB should be represented on the RIBA's Professional Literature Committee.
To his great credit, Stanley took up this suggestion with the Committee, who gave
their approval. Since Sylvia Harris has worked with Stanley Cox at the Welsh School
of Architecture for a number of years, it seemed appropriate to ask Sylvia to
represent the Group on this Committee, a proposal to
which she agreed.
To have a voice 'on the
inside' represents a major achievement for the group and should provide valuable
opportunities to make our views known. Sylvia reports that the Committee proposes
in future to circulate its book list to ARCLIB members rather than
(or perhaps as well as) to Heads of schools, in order to enhance the prospect
of its receiving due consideration. Having achieved representation on the committee,
it's important that ARCLIB shows its mettle by means of a vigorous response from
the membership - so, when you get a copy of the list, please try to ensure that
Sylvia gets plenty of feedback. Let her know your views both about the items included
and others which you feel might usefully be added.
Sylvia may be contacted on 01222 874000, extension 5975; e-mail harris@cardiff.ac.uk.
Sylvia Here, Sylvia
There...
Another ARCLIB
responsibility taken on recently by Sylvia Harris (good job she's left the Committee!)
is that of representing
ARCLIB at ARLIS Committee meetings. More on this in a future issue.
Membership News
ARCLIB membership
continues to grow. There are now only five UK and Irish Schools of Architecture
which are not current members. The latest recruit is the Prince of Wales School,
whose Librarian is Alan Powers. We hope to meet Alan at future conferences. Associate
membership has also expanded, extending to our first overseas member. Sidsel Moum
of Oslo. Latest associate member
is Felicity Gilmour of the National Monuments Record Centre in Swindon.
A full list of all full and associate members is given in the membership list
which you should receive with this Bulletin. On the subject
of the list, the Committee has discussed the possibility of selling the list,
following a number of enquiries from prospective purchasers (publishers). After
considering practice elsewhere (e.g. ARLIS), the Committee agreed that a price
of £20 for a straight listing or £40
for labels would be appropriate to start with. We should, however, be glad to
hear members' views on whether the list should be sold
at all and, if so, whether this price is about right. Views to Ian Mayfield on
01705 843239 (email mayfield@libr.port.ac.uk).
Comings and Goings
Well, mostly
goings actually, with a coming in prospect. We were sorry to hear that Mary Nixon
has left the RIBA to join the British Society. Mary has been a regular at ARCLIB
conferences, which she says she has much enjoyed. Her successor is not known at
time of writing.
At the University of North London, Linda Gray is on maternity leave. In her absence the job is being done by Kate Jones (email kjones@unl.ac.uk). Our good wishes go to Linda for the big event.
ARCLIB-L ELECTRONIC MAIL FACILITY
Long-standing ARCLIB members
(or at least those who were active electronically) will remember that at an early
stage we attempted
to set up an electronic mail facility for members, based on the Vax machine at
the University of Portsmouth. This never really worked well, for reasons which
never became clear.
However, there is now an electronic mail facility available which appears to be
robust and reliable. Based in Venice, it is an
international facility, which has a wide readership. This has some disadvantages:
a call for nominations to ARCLIB Committee members posted by Julia Barrett elicited
at least one response from overseas! However, provided that messages intended
only for
U.K. readers are clearly labelled as such, this facility is a useful means of
contacting many ARCLIB colleagues at once - and, of course, it gives us the wider
contacts too.
Many ARCLIB members (19, according to Catherine Tranmer) use the list already. For those who don't but would wish to do so, instructions for joining and sending messages are as follows:
To subscribe (i.e. to receive
a copy of any message sent to the list), send an email to:
listserv@icineca.cineca.it with the following text:
subscribe ARCLIB.L <your name and surname>
If you are not familiar
with listserv, you should read the file which you will receive after your subscription.
To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send
your message to:
ARCLIB-L@ICINECA.CINECA. IT.
PRODUCT REVIEW: ARCHITECTURAL PUBLICATIONS ON DISC (APId)
There has been considerable
discussion about the relative merits of the two bibliographic databases in architecture,
i.e. Avery Index and APId. Colleagues are understandably anxious to reach an informed
decision about which of the two to buy (since few can afford
to buy both). Considerations extend not only to content and price but also to
networkability. We had intended some time ago to
publish a review of Avery (the first of the two to appear); however, our reviewer
has not delivered as promised. However, some comments on Avery appear in a review
of APId, which Catherine Tranmer has written for the AJ. This is expected to appear
on 15 February, but the Bulletin is happy to bring you, with the permission of
the AJ's Editor, this exclusive preview of Catherine's review.
APId (Architectural Publications Index on Disc) RIBA Publications, quarterly updated,
1995. COVERS ARTICLES 1978-1995
Price £700 per annum (RIBA members/educational institutions £560)
CD-Roms are now almost commonplace,
offering previously undreamed-of facilities to researchers. The technology has
been successfully used in libraries to automate paper indexes of periodical article
references, and the resulting databases have been
greeted enthusiastically by librarians and library users alike, since not only
do they save the searcher the burden of ploughing
through annual volumes of paper indexes, but, at a relatively low cost, they offer
different ways of accessing bibliographical references which paper cannot offer.
The cost and connection difficulties associated with older online searching of
remote databases often
meant that academic libraries in particular were unable to take much advantage
of computerised databases although recently the development of the lnternet has
made online searching easier.
In paper format the Architectural
Periodicals Index (API) has always been very popular with both librarians and
library users, having assisted the quest for knowledge, precedents and material
for student projects for over 30 years. Although its US equivalent, the
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, is bigger and indexes more periodicals,
many of them are not easy to find in the UK. Avery uses different terminology
(gas stations etc.) and spelling (theaters) to our practice and takes up more
room on library shelves
(more than five times the space API consumes). API, on the other hand, is indexed
from the stock of the British Architectural Library
at the RIBA, so we know that all items in it are accessible. It is constructed
in our own language, to a highly professional indexing standard, has useful 'people
and places' indexes at the back of the annual volumes and, more recently, includes
books added to the BAL's stock.
Both these indexes have recently become available on CD-ROM, and inevitably the
comparisons are interesting. It has to be said
that neither employs particularly good software, and one wonders whether the producers
of either seriously examined any other
similar products before deciding to write their own software (Avery) or utilise
a commercial text retrieval package not tailor-made for
this type of product (APId). Much current CD-ROM database software is fast, user-friendly
and effective, and those of us who have
been using other databases in the area of the Built environment, especially ICONDA
(International Construction Database) and Urbadisc, now find that the two architecture
ones we have been waiting for do not compare favourably with these for different
reasons. Avery is very quick, but is often ineffective because in free text searching
it cannot search strings - this means that a concept like 'urban design' is difficult
to search for because the software will retrieve' urban' AND 'design' resulting
in large numbers of irrelevant references. It is also irritating to retrieve references
from obscure magazines, but for simple searches it is quick and easy. Some academic
libraries have networked it, and report that students are using it happily with
a minimum of guidance. It is easy to print
out (3 refs per A4 page), and to download references for use later, but in common
with the printed version, updates are quite slow to appear. At an initial cost
of £765 + a subsequently lower annual charge of £385 it works out
cheaper than APId, within 2 or 3 years. *
APId is much more sophisticated,
and offers many facilities which would take too long for many users to get to
grips with.
The Idealist software employed by APId has apparently won prizes, but it is overcomplicated
for this purpose, and as a result
distracts the searcher from finding the information required. It operates in Windows
(the other products mentioned operate in DOS),
so it looks good, being well-designed with appropriate use of colour and fonts,
and the references are easy to decipher. Additionally there is a valuable synonym
control which allows the user to retrieve both synonyms and alternate forms/spellings
of keywords.
What it is not is quick and easy - in fact it seems slow, taking over 30 seconds
to load (when 6-12 seconds is the norm on other CDs). Default searching also seems
sluggish - a search on 'Scarpa and Venice' took less than 1 second to process
on both Avery and ICONDA, but 13 seconds in expert search mode on APId; 'solar
heating' took 5 seconds on ICONDA (806 references), less than 1 second on Avery
(139 references), but APId (600 references) had to be interrupted after 4 minutes,
when it still had not finished processing. Unaccountably, retrieved records are
listed in chronological order starting with the oldest, but this can be reversed
with a bit of fiddling around.
There are alternative options
or faster searching but all the bells and whistles mean getting side-tracked into
learning how to use the software instead of tracing information sources. Use the
'Print' button and each of your references will be printed on a separate A4 sheet,
which seems wasteful; download them, and the results are visually confusing and
require editing in your word processing package to become intelligible. (There
are other options for downloading, but these are time-consuming to create.) Furthermore,
unless users have special needs, good basic default formats should be the norm
in a package like this. Trying to teach Customers
to use this package is not easy, even for our university, which uses the same
software in a more simple form for its own databases. The 60 page user manual
is very detailed, but the reality is that users don't really want to read about
it, but to do it, reflecting the necessity for good on-screen instructions. On
the brighter side, there will be four updates per year of APId, to make it much
more current than Avery, and it can be networked at no extra charge (provided
you have a 32 bit network which many of us do not!).
So those of us in higher
education who have long awaited the release of this package feel a bit disappointed
that a better job has
not been done with API. The frustrating thing is that the information behind the
software is so important, and is keenly sought by
users in the academic world, but they don't want to jump through hoops to get
it. Perhaps RIBA Publications will be prepared to
take our comments into account and amend and simplify future versions.
Catherine Tranmer
Architecture & Planning Librarian
Oxford Brookes University
*Avery on Disc (COVERS ARTICLES
FROM 1979-1995)
available from Thompson Henry, tel: 01322 24615
[Postscript: Since writing
this in December, I have discovered that some customizing of APId is possible.
For example, it is possible
to remove the one record per page print option, and keep only the 'print out all
marked records without page breaks' and 'print out all records without pagebreaks'
print options. It is also possible to remove buttons which are not required. If
anyone would be interested,
I am prepared to write up the alterations we have made here, in order to simplify
APId application.]
Ian Mayfield adds: At Portsmouth
we plumped for APId because, being an RIBA product, it gives a closer match to
the journals we have or can get easily; and because I wasn't impressed with a
brief view of Avery - not least the fact that there appeared to be no specific
means of searching for a named architect (but it was a brief look and maybe I
missed it). At Portsmouth we have a central library with a site library in the
School of Architecture. For this reason we network APId so that it can be accessed
from the Architecture Library. Networking presented no real problems except that
it is very, very slow.
We should be glad to hear from any reader who has Avery and would be willing
to write a full review for the next Bulletin.
Finally, colleagues may be interested to know that it is possible to search Avery
in a rather crude fashion via the Internet:
the URL is http://www.ahip.getty.edu/ ahip/text_multdb-form.html
The 1995 seminar, on the
theme of the role of publishing in architecture, was held in Cardiff on 4-6 July
and organised by Sylvia Harris of the Welsh School of Architecture. Sylvia ensured
we were extremely well looked after, wined and dined and entertained, and she
arranged for exhibitions and displays to be available for us to view between listening
to a wide range of speakers who approached the theme from many different angles.
Stanley Cox described the work of the RIB A Professional Literature Committee,
of which he is chairman, and he went on to list his concerns about professional
literature which include reading lists which fail to be short, up to date and
co-ordinated with examinations. He questioned if architects buy or read books
and asked how they obtain information, especially when, in times of recession,
the practice library is often the first thing to go. He wondered if RIBA should
be meeting these needs.
Maggie Toy was an architect before entering publishing and becoming managing editor
of the Academy Group. She argued that although a photograph of a building cannot
take the place of a visit, it can spark off the interest to make that visit. Books
are
important for pictures, text, critical analysis and the transmission of a range
of ideas. She described various architectural series published by Academy - one
based on RIBA drawings including lesser-known architects, and one from the TV
series 'Building Sites'. She believes it is not the task of the publisher to educate
architects but to make material available.
Dr Catherine Cooke, an expert on Russian architecture who moved to the Open University
from Cambridge with the ambition of
teaching everyone about architecture, believes there is a need for architectural
understanding for all students of the built environment, and architectural publishing
should be aimed at a wider audience than just students of architecture. She suggested
that books on architecture should be available in DIY stores and supermarkets
to spread the 'value added' message. The problem of communication was mentioned,
how architects often find drawings easier to understand than text, and how publishers
must use the most accessible form in order to be read.
An ex-student from Brighton,
Sacha Cole, talked about the journal 'Archetype', which he founded in October
1993 as a result of frustration with the lack of communication between schools
of architecture; the fact that many articles were not written for students,
but over their heads; and because he found college too restrictive with no room
for debate. So far Archetype has been published irregularly, with the aim of twice
a term. It is free to students, financed by sponsorship and advertising and is
shortly to appear on the internet as well as in its printed form to be a forum
of debate for 9000 students of architecture, and to show them alternative options
for their skills.
Paul Finch, editor of Architects'
Journal, spoke of present and future prospects of architectural publishing. In
a brief history of AJ,
he explained how in the last 20 years, as an increasing number of journals have
been competing in the same field, AJ has become a hybrid journal with 60% of its
readers not being architects. He talked of partnering between publishers and professional
bodies and of the impact of technology. He believes that AJ has an aesthetic quality
of its own, more effective than a screen image, and that
journals are reflectors and sponges rather than influences.
'Retrospective on diffusion
and insularity' was the daunting title of Christopher Powell's talk. A lecturer
at the Welsh School of Architecture, he claimed that academic journals have more
keen contributors than readers and the aim is often to get published
rather than read. He talked of diffusion of ideas through journals and insularity
in the readership. He said the function of publishing was to help designers by
providing inspiration, ideas and technical information. He concluded by explaining
with the aid of charts how the diffusion of ideas in earlier centuries was much
slower than today.
'Giving it all away - publishing
on the internet' by Jonathan Moberley from Ellipsis London Ltd., caused great
interest. The two
speakers have a background in publishing, including guides to contemporary architecture,
and are planning to publish 'The history
of architecture' on CD-Rom as, being cheaper to produce than a paper version,
more funding can go into the content and structure
of the information.
They demonstrated a CD-Rom showing panoramic views of cities and another of an
interior view of the inside of a model of a new concert hall, both made up of
lots of photographs joined together, and both views not possible on the printed
page. Ellipsis now has
a home page on the internet - http://www.gold.net./ellipsis/. The advantages include
no distribution costs and lots of feedback, it enables experimentation and allows
the structure to grow and take shape according to need, also bits can be sliced
off for CD-Roms, books, etc. They listed 7 ways of making money from the internet:-
sponsorship, advertising, exhibition work, paper view (pay per page), closed access
subscriptions, open access subscriptions (paid for by institutions) and research
grants.
Richard Hayward and Sue
McGlynn from Oxford Brookes University and Keith Silver from Spons Chapman Hall
were there to speak about 'Urban Design International - a new journal with electronic
dimensions'. The work of the Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford was described,
and as a result of the need for more networking, which was discovered after researching
into the profiles of ex-students, something electronic was considered to network
good -practice. The journal is intended to be interactive , with people contributing
ideas. It is the first electronic journal for Chapman Hall/Spon and they generously
agreed for ARCLIB members to be able to subscribe at student rate for the first
year. The advantages of electronic publishing are desk access, being easy to search
and rapid to publish.
A member of ARCLIB, Dr John Thomas, Faculty librarian for architecture and civil
engineering at South Bank University in his paper entitled 'The librarian publishes'
gave a personal account of his experiences in publishing. John has written a number
of books and articles on the subject of church architecture.
The final afternoon consisted
of a guided tour of Cardiff Bay, including a visit to Paul Koralek's new Quest
Centre.
My third ARCLIB seminar was certainly as enjoyable, interesting and informative
as those in Belfast and Edinburgh, where Karen Latimer and Pamela Masters set
such high standards. The fact that everything ran so smoothly and everyone enjoyed
it all so much showed how much work and preparation Sylvia must have put into
organising the event, and all of us who attended appreciated it very much.
Margaret Black, Subject
Librarian for the Faculty of the Built Environment
University of the West of England, Bristol.
CLERMONT-FERRAND IN THE SPRING
Report on the seminaire
of the French documentalistes, 29-31 March 1995
The seminar was attended by Ian Mayfield and Catherine Tranmer and was held in
the interesting town of Clermont-Ferrand, which combines the towns of Clermont
and Montferrand. The former is the larger industrial town known for its Michelin
tyre factories, the
latter a mediaeval town with many interesting buildings. Local architectural features
include the construction of many building in the black volcanic stone of the area
(where Volvic water comes from), and a particularly interesting local version
of romanesque church architecture. The seminar was well-organised by Pompeya Bellot
and her staff at the Clermont-Ferrand school, and we foreigners
were made particularly welcome.
After an official welcome by the Head of School, Jaques Faye, and a repeat of
her Edinburgh paper about the need for a European association of architecture
librarians by Mariagrazia Ghelardi (Florence), the programme devoted the first
day to the rights of authors, the first paper being a two and a quarter hour marathon
by Mme de Faultrier-Travers, a lawyer, who spoke continuously and without notes
in French which was too rapid for us! She explained the new French copyright law,
the European directives concerned with document loans and the regulations pertaining
to electronic databases. She was followed in the afternoon by Mme Palluel, who
spoke about authors' rights regarding audiovisual materials. It would appear that
we share the same problems of control over library users' copying recorded and
photographic material.
The following speaker, M. Rollin, of SCAM (Societe Civile des Auteurs Multimedia),
advocated, amongst other things, that librarians should stand next to photocopying
machines and record what students copy!
Needless to say, this caused something of a storm amongst the audience.
The second day was a day of visits. In the morning there was a choice of a guided
tour of the old town of Montferrand, or one to the cathedral and the old market.
An Auvergnat lunch at a traditional mountain inn preceded a spectacular drive
through the volcanic landscape and visits to three of the special romanesque churches
mentioned above. The first was set on a man-made platform in the small town of
Orcival which is built from the black volcanic stone. Conferees were bemused by
M.Trilloux, a writer on the symbolism
of religious places, who acted as guide, and who introduced us to the church,
built on an ancient Druid site, by using his dowsing
rods to demonstrate the location of energy lines and centres. Following our return
to town, the School of Architecture offered us
supper and a chance to see contenders from the local festival of celebrated short
films.
The final day's round of papers included updates on the cooperative projects which
the French documentalistes are engaged in.
We learnt that their database, ARCHIRES, is included on the 1995 Urbadisc CD-ROM,
but needs a special password to allow
access. Since at present the schools, on the whole, do not have Internet access,
participants were interested to hear about the cooperative server in Grenoble,
set up by the University and Science park and to which the Grenoble school has
access. The new database software, Isaplus, issued by the Ministere de l'Equipment
for use in the schools' documentation centres was discussed,
and we heard how the completion of the Grande Bibliotheque de France will allow
the creation of a Grande Bibliotheque d'Art (and architecture) in the old building
once its contents have been moved to the new.
The final discussion session finished with the proposition that the French should
host an
international conference in 1996, possibly in June or July. Watch this space,
and keep your dictionaries handy.
Catherine Tranmer/Ian Mayfield
INTO THE TWENTYFIRST CENTURY NOW: THE ARCHITECTURE LIBRARIAN AS MEDIATOR
The following is the text
of a paper presented to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries at the IFLA Conference
in Havana, August 1994,
by Sylvia Harris. It is reproduced by kind permission of the Editor of Art Libraries
Journal, in which it was previously published.
Architects are often unable
or unwilling to explore the information which is available to them, and their
failure to do so limits the
social value of their work. At the Welsh School of Architecture, architects of
tomorrow are given training in information research, and practising architects
have been given similar training through Continuing Professional Development courses.
Architecture libraries
have a vital role to play in encouraging and enabling architects to undertake
adequate research, utilising the potential of information technology to provide
ready access to a widening range of networked information.
My working life of the past
13 years has been spent in Wales, where I have been Architecture Librarian at
the Welsh School of Architecture, University College of Wales, Cardiff. The Library,
a collection of approximately 20,000 volumes of books, periodicals, reference,
technical and trade literature and a growing resource of audio-visual material,
is located in the School, at the centre of the campus and Cardiff, and is thus
well placed as a resource for both students, the academic community of the university
and architects in local practice.
Thomas Markus in the introduction to his newest book, Buildings and Power, states
'I take the stand that buildings are not primarily
art, technical or investment objects but social objects', whether they are good
to use or not 'depends on owners, designers,
institutions of all kinds ,and occupants, so this must be a question about society'(1).
The essential social role of architecture is of primary concern to a recession-afflicted
architectural profession in Great Britain. In a recent television broadcast Frank
Duffy, President of the RIBA said 'what architecture is, is the assembling of
physical resources in order to achieve the future'. He asked 'Do we want to imagine
what kind of country we want to be in 2010 or no?(2) He claimed unequivocally
that the future of the whole of society will not be achieved without architects.
The tasks ahead for the
RIBA as it sets about to 'redesign our collective future'(3) embrace changes in
professional orientation and concerns in particular the relationship between architects
and the public, architectural education and attitudes to information.
These have been detailed in a number of strategic studies published in the last
two years.
To take the first, the subject
with which I am directly involved, Duffy would like to reverse the findings of
the last decade which demonstrate the difficulties architects encounter assessing
the knowledge-base available to them. Both Margaret Mackinder and Heather Marvin
who researched the role of information, experience and other influences during
the design process found, as
Mackinder says, 'a general unwillingness on the part of architects to consult
written sources of information partly due to the
pressure of time'(4). My own research in 1989 when I interviewed local architects
about the use of information in office design showed 'the use of a narrow band
of favourite sources'(5) .The currency of the 'fast-track' method of building
which characterised the late 1980's mitigated even further against architects'
willingness to use the broad spectrum of information available in the design process
and
it is this trend which is rightly seen as limiting the potential that architecture
can offer society.
It is apposite therefore
that attention is focused currently on architectural education and the need to
equip students with the skills necessary to face a rapidly changing and increasingly
pressured world. The information explosion from which architects are known
to take flight, like yeast in bread will grow. The vital and indeed transferable
skill of learning how to find out is one that can be taught using the library
as laboratory, to compliment techniques learnt in the studio and which at best
in the words of Julienne Hanson promote 'development of judgement, understanding
and self-knowledge, the combination of a personal philosophy, political awareness
and ethical viewpoint, which together add up to the beginnings of wisdom'. It
is her view that 'the long- term social good of the architectural profession can
only be served by a knowledge-base approach to design' (6).
I believe that the librarian
who facilitates the preservation, documentation and access to this knowledge has
a unique role in fulfilling these educative aims and in the Welsh School of Architecture
I have been encouraged to participate in the process. For the last two years I
have run a First Year Project providing early lessons in techniques of literature
searching and evaluation. Students are
required to write an essay on a twentieth century architect of their choice, demonstrating
the major contribution and philosophy
of the architect as illustrated in one significant building. Using sources of
information in the library, this allows an engagement with architectural precedent
and with ideas expressed in the past which perhaps can be given new relevance.
The essay carries a mark which contributes to the students' final assessments
and also forms part of the History and Philosophy examination at this level.
For most First Year students
architectural study begins after secondary education and unlike the study of physics
or history;
there is no coherent programme of relevant study towards the formation of an architect
before those developed in institutions of
higher education. This would suggest the need for schools of architecture to extend
their educative influence beyond the first
five-years of architectural.
In Cardiff the Welsh School
of Architecture maintains close links with local practices many of whom employ
its graduates. It found it natural therefore to expand its responsibility for
education into the working lives of its students when approached by a consortium
of six Cardiff practices last year to provide Continuing Professional Development
or CPD courses. I was invited to speak and chair a discussion group on a session
devoted to techniques for making efficient use of technical information. My talk
focused attention on useful resources in books and periodical literature and valued
the information that the architect carried in his or her head. The course provided
the opportunity to demonstrate in the library new electronic information on CD-ROM
both bibliographic (ICONDA) and full-text (CIS) and techniques for searching these
systems with which practising architects might not yet be familiar.
It is paradoxical that despite
recession the tide of information has not stemmed, nor the proliferation of research
relevant to architecture. However it has meant that few architects can now afford
the services of a full-time librarian to document and up-date
this information. Architects recognise that they have to develop strategies to
cope themselves. As Frank Duffy urges, 'Architects' knowledge needs to be brought
up to date, energised, set on fire through anticipating and serving the emerging
needs of this decaying society of ours'(7).
It is exemplary that engaging
with and cultivating the knowledge-base of architecture has been given centre
stage.
This I hope will allay what is tantamount to the guilt architects feel that time
spent reading is not time spent designing.
The urgency to harness new developments in information technology to design multi-media
information systems, which will provide
the architect with what he or she requires with speed and efficiency, is even
greater. There is also a growing recognition of the need
to share resources. One possibility debated by the Cardiff Practice Training Group
was the deployment via IT of a hierarchy of library provision advancing from personal
library to practice library, to group library, to the WSA library and to the British
Architectural library. It is hoped that residing here is the germ of what Ken
Allison has described as Architecture's 'unique possibility to link and resolve'(8)
which even more optimistically, could facilitate the exploitation of knowledge
born of research in related fields to truly fructify the
multi-disciplinary character of architecture that it touches all our lives.
Reviewing the progress of
the first nine years of the journal Architecture and Behaviour, the editor Kaj
Noschis in 1989 noted the difficulty of reaching architects as their interest
in behaviour had 'atrophied' in his words 'they are unprepared to receive what
to the
lay person would immediately appear Important"(9). Today Frank Duffy sees
the interest of users of buildings as of paramount
concern to architects. In his clarion call to the profession he has said 'the
architect's role as the defender of clients, users, society's interest in a supply
side-dominated construction industry is vital for everyone's future. Defending
clients' interests depends on knowledge as well as energy and inspiration, hence
the importance of architectural research'(10). Architecture libraries with historical
collections and which offer the possibility of multi-disciplinary networking are
able to present a diachronic view of research, providing
the threads of investigation begun in one decade and abandoned in the next, to
be re-utilised in another. They are also most likely to hold and reflect the pre-occupations
of current research, for example, those concerning green issues which offer a
key opportunity to address the increasing problems of global environmental resources
and pollution.
A recent survey by Christopher
Powell and David Leighton(11), both lecturers in the Welsh School of Architecture,
conducted
because, in their reckoning, green building design 'enjoys much good will among
UK architects, as well as consumers and the
media', shows that better quality information and easier access to information
would provide greater incentives to environmentally conscious design. The survey
also highlights the need that architects have to work with clients who have parallel
concerns. Let us hope that all the means of information gathering and dissemination,
which include libraries and the media, will educate society in the broadest aspect,
cutting across national boundaries of their global responsibility.
There is currently a confluence of concern and a convergence of urgency both by
the architectural profession and by librarians to harness the opportunities afforded
by developments in information technology which will dominate how the architect
and the librarian will work in the future. Both the Joint Funding Council's Libraries
Review Group Report and the Report of the Steering Group on Architectural Education
note the sea-change in the need for information and IT and both recommend further
investment by funding bodies if the full potential in IT is to be realised.
A well-stocked library with
the latest electronic resources will not itself answer the problems of society
but it can provide a vital locus where the architect might find the patterns of
solution.'
Only time will demonstrate our measure of success but for now as we approach the
millennium at least we must address the
challenge of trying.
The philosopher's goal as
defined by Sir Isaiah Berlin can be ours too when he says 'If there is to be any
hope of a rational order on earth, or if a just appreciation of the many various
interests that divide diverse groups of human beings - knowledge that is indispensable
to any attempt to assess their effect and the patterns of their interplay and
its consequences, in order to find viable compromises through which men and women
may continue to live and satisfy their desires without thereby crushing the equally
central desires and needs of others - it lies in the bringing to light of these
models, social, moral, political(12) (and, may I add, environmental)'.
References
1. Markus, Thomas A. Buildings and power, freedom and control in the origin of
modern building types. London: Routledge 1993.
2. 'Architecture Armageddon -The collapse of British architecture'. Late show
special
broadcast on 11th January 1994. BBC2.
3. Duffy, Frank. 'The right time to recreate our profession'. Building Design,
21st January 1994, p.2.
4. Mackinder, M. Design: decision making in architectural practice. York: Institute
of
Advanced Architectural Studies. University of York. 1982.
5. Harris, Sylvia. The use of information in office design.
Unpublished preliminary report of a survey undertaken for the Welsh School of
Architecture in 1990.
6. Hanson, Julienne. 'Teaching skills is not enough for architecture to flourish'.
Architects Journal 29th September 1993, p.19. 7. Duffy, F. op. cit.
8. Allison, Ken. 'Why architecture is not a liberal art'. Architects Journal 13th
October 1993, p.17.
9. Noschis, Kaj. 'Getting architects interested in users'. Architecture and behaviour
vol. 5 no. 1 1989, p.9-16.
10. Duffy, F. op. cit.
11. Powell, Christopher and Leighton, David. Green design, green limits: a survey
of practitioners green attitudes and activities and what restrains them.
Cardiff: Welsh School of Architecture. UWCC.January 1994.
12. Berlin, Sir Isaiah. 'Philosophy's goal', in The Sunday Times Book:
Encore edited by Leonard Russell. London: Michael Joseph, 1963, p.35-45.
Bibliography
Fedeski, M. 'Self-elected
CPD events'. Architects' Journal. 2nd February 1994, p.19.
Follett, Sir, Brian (ed) Joint Funding Council's --1 Libraries Review Group: report.
Bristol:
HEFCE, 1993.
Kusnerz, P.A (ed) The architecture library of the future, complexity and contradiction.
University of Michigan, 1989.
Marvin, Heather, lnformation and experience in architectural design. York Institute
of
Advanced Architectural Studies, 1985.
Royal Institute of British Architects Steering Group on Architectural Education.
Report of the Steering Group on Architectural Education. London: RIBA, 1992.
Strategic study of the profession. Phase 1. Strategic overview. London: RIBA,
1992.
Strategic study of the profession. Phase 2. Clients and architects. London: RIBA,
1993,
Sylvia Harris
Library, Welsh School of Architecture University College of Wales Cardiff, Wales
This edition
of the ARCLIB Bulletin was edited by Ian Mayfield and published by him at the
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please, at the
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Email mayfield@libr.port.ac.uk