LIBRARY RESEARCH AND GOVERNMENT FUNDING - A LESS-THAN ARDENT ROMANCE

Federal funding for library research, although disguised in the 1960s and 1970s as science information research, nevertheless allowed both r esearch libraries and library education programs to study the phenomen a under which acquisitions and operational decisions could be made int elligently and cost effectively. This has now been almost completely e liminated, and it has been replaced by mathematical and sociological s tudies undertaken by individuals with neither a background nor interes t in libraries, and by the funding of examinations that determine only how libraries might serve a larger national priority in which they pl ay at best an incidental part.