In an attempt to define the need of special librarians for continuing professional education to maintain and upgrade their skills, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) undertook an examination of the relevant literature. The scarcity of literature led the SLA to identify two areas for further research: 1) what educational methods would best…

Special libraries in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area who were members of the University of Southern California (USC) School of Engineering Industrial Associate program were surveyed on their use of the USC program and other similar programs. The questionnaire was designed to discover the attitudes and needs of the Industrial…

Special libraries can be expected to accept and approve the National Program for Library and Information Services although certain aspects of the program are antithetical to the nature of the special library. Traditionally independent, special libraries tend to have a local rather than national orientation and to resist standardization. Although…

Revised versions of the talks presented at the symposium are presented here. A preliminary discussion paper opens the manuscript, exploring the implications of changing patterns in teaching, research, and scholarship, the new demands of the marketplace and libraries' resultant collection development, the changing technologies, future staffing,…