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Diva Andrade: Librarian, Head of the Section of Acquisitions and Exchange of the Service of Libraries and Documentation of The Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Waldomiro Vergueiro: Professor in the Department of Librarianship and Documentation, School of Communications and Arts of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a visiting researcher in the Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University, UK
Introduction
A great variety of elements has been traditionally used to evaluate libraries, among which the size of the collection has always had genuine pre-eminence. For years librarians have tried to define the ideal size for libraries or collections. The answer to the question "How good is your library?" seemed to be very closely related to its physical dimensions. For decades professionals accepted the myth that only huge, Alexandrian libraries were the model to be emulated[1, p. 60]..
What is the ideal size for a library? Should a collection be judged on its size alone? Should collections grow indefinitely? These and other related questions have been on the minds of the professionals for a long time and have never been satisfactorily answered.
In spite of librarians' tendency to consider numbers as almost synonymous with quality, the times have forced changes in this concept. Numbers are still important; if, as Broadus said, "we can agree on the units to be counted"[2, p. 149], they must be seen in relation to many other aspects of library provision, as "it has yet to be demonstrated conclusively that the size of a library collection alone can be taken as a measure of its worth"[3, p. 147]..
Some authors believe that libraries are now going through a total shift in their perspectives, moving from a focus on ownership to one in which access and service are accorded priority[4, 5]. Declining resources are only one of the factors which are driving libraries towards the "facilitation between the client and knowledge regardless of physical location or ownership"[6]. Undoubtedly, this shift in philosophy is bringing new challenges to librarians; given existing resource levels, they will probably need to have a different professional background in future, one with a greater understanding of accounting and budgeting, in order to manage - and even to justify -...