The book

This page is where I posted draft chapters of my book on international and comparative librarianship, International and comparative librarianship: concepts and methods for global studies, while I was writing it . The chapters were published here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The book has been completed. It was published in June  2019 and  launched at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Athens, in August 2019. The publisher is De Gruyter-Saur, Berlin and Boston.

See publication details here, and here is the table of contents. You will be able to see (and buy!) copies at the De Gruyter-Saur stand at IFLA World Library and Information Congresses.

Suggestions and comments on the book will be welcomed. I can be contacted at PeterJLor(at)gmail.com, or of course via comments on my blog posts.

Reviews and author interviews

I’m pleased and gratified to note that a number of favourable reviews have appeared to date:

Lesley Pitman, in Focus on international library and information work 50(2):25-26, 2019.

Kathleen Ladizesky, in Alexandria 29(3):235-236, 2019.

Anna Bilotta, in AIB studi 59(3):465-476. Dr Bilotta wrote a substantial and scholarly review article, “La biblioteconomia comparata e l’apporto di Peter Johan Lor: una strategia di ricerca per l’analisi di influenze, divergenze e consonanze [Comparative librarianship and Peter Johan Lor’s contribution: a research strategy to analyse influences, divergences and consonances”], focusing on my book and also reflecting on the field of comparative librarianship more generally.  (DOI: 10.2426/aibstudi-11973)

Recently my attention was drawn to another, generally favourable review, by Elena Maceviciute, and published in Information Research 25(3), online at http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs696.htmlAt the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in August I was interviewed about the book.

In January 2020 the editor of IFLA’s Library Theory and Research Section Newsletter, Rebecca Vargha, interviewed me about my career and my book. The interview appeared in the IFLA Library Theory and Research Section’s Newsletter, February 2020, pp.3-5 which is available here.  A brief YouTube video of the interview can be seen here.

Draft chapters posted 2016-2017 (now superseded: use at own risk!)

A huge amount of revision and rewriting has taken place since the draft chapters  were posted here, so that they are quite superseded.  Seven additional chapters were added. The publisher has asked me not to update the draft chapters posted here or to post the later chapters. I am honouring this request because the publisher needs to recoup their considerable investment.

• Chapter 1 , From local to global: the expanding horizons of libraries and related information organizations (2016-06-29). This is an entirely rewritten draft of the old Chapter 1 (draft dated 2012-01-31).
• Chapter 2 , A field of study and research (2016-07-11). This is an entirely rewritten draft of the old Chapter 2 (2012-02-06),.
• Chapter 3,  Conceptual exploration (version 2016-11-21). Entirely new.
• Chapter 4, Preparing for research: metatheoretical considerations (draft version 2017-01-11, extensively rewritten, replaces old Chapter 3)
• Chapter 5, Methodology in comparative studies (draft version 2017-04-03, extensively rewritten, replaces old Chapter 4)
• Chapter 6: Method: procedures, techniques, instruments (draft version 2017-05-12, extensively rewritten, replaces old Chapter 5)