Converging Information Technologies: How Will Libraries Adapt?


Copyright 1990 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 13, Number 3, Fall 1990. 
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                    CONVERGING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES: 
                        HOW WILL LIBRARIES ADAPT?
                           by Charles B. Lowry

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Charles B. Lowry is the Director of Libraries at the University of Texas
at Arlington. He is the editor of Library Administration and Management,
the official journal of the Library Administration Management
Association, a division of the ALA. He is currently a member of the
Board of Directors and Treasurer of the AMIGOS Bibliographic Council,
Inc., an affiliate of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). He has
served as an AMIGOS representative to the OCLC Users' Council, and also
a member of the Board of Directors of SOLINET. He is principal
investigator for a Federal Library Technology and Demonstration Grant at
UTA.

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This article is based on an earlier version published in the March 1988 
issue of Library Administration and Management, and is used with 
permission of the American Library Association.

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ABSTRACT: This article addresses issues facing academic libraries in the 
next decade as converging information technologies continue to transform 
the way libraries serve patrons. Discussions include economic dilemmas,
electronic publishing, scholarly workstations, and electronic books. The
article concludes that libraries will play a significant role in the
acquisition, organization, and services for new electronic information
technologies.


Until very recently, libraries have been fundamentally nineteenth-
century institutions that could be characterized as labor-intensive
craft workshops. As such, their organization has centered around
specialized skills and knowledge applied to complex manual filing
systems. This organization is based on the storage and retrieval role
which libraries undertook as part of the task of managing information
represented in the print-form codex, the bound volume as it has existed
for centuries.

Today, the library is being transformed into capital-intensive,
high technology light industry. The increased use of technology in
libraries over the past ten or so years is unprecedented in scope and
impact. Library managers are being asked to purchase the latest
information technologies while forecasters are saying that the future is
uncertain and that books and libraries may be things of the past. This
presents library managers with the somewhat ugly dilemma of having to
predict the future while at the same time planning to pay for it and
accept that the effects of information technologies may be so profound
as to eliminate the need for libraries and librarians as we know them.

It is a curious fact that the contemporary discussion of information so
rarely touches upon the library.... Perhaps the library has [not] become
the missing link between the computer and the public because in the
minds of computer enthusiasts, it is too closely associated with print-
on-paper to seem part of the technology that fascinates them. But the
library's commitment to books hardly precludes its use of electronic
apparatus; a great deal of the material that has gone into the major
data bases was formerly embodied in the reference books that have long
been the librarian's major tools. Accordingly, libraries have followed
where their reference sources have led; they can and do use
computers...[1]

What Roszak says should be modified in two important respects. It
applies equally, perhaps more, to academic libraries. Moreover,
libraries and librarians are increasingly being seen as key "players" in
the "information age."[2]

Economic Dilemmas

Thus far the dialog on the future configuration of academic
libraries has focused on a particular set of needs defined by graduate
education and scholarly research and publication. This is largely due to
the double bind in which libraries, particularly research libraries,
find themselves. On the one hand, new information technologies are add-
on costs, which can be wrung from existing budgets only at the expense
of the traditional library mission. Research faculty seldom accept the
argument that library automation and CD-ROM reference tools must be
acquired at the expense of the journal collection. At the same time,
during the last fifteen years the cost of print-form materials has
escalated out of all proportion to the Consumer Price Index, in a kind
of price revolution. This trend has been aggravated by the unfavorable
rate of exchange for the U.S. dollar against European currencies and the
Japanese yen, which has added to increases in the cost of scientific and
technical journals for at least ten years.[3] In the concern over the
dramatic increase in journal costs, little has been said about book
costs which also have raced ahead of the CPI.

The solutions offered for these problems are manifold. Some call
for increases in budgets for print materials to meet the increased costs
as well as to buy the same proportion of an ever-larger publication
universe each year. On the other side, a radical technology-based
restructuring of scholarly publication has been suggested in which the
academy would regain control of the information which it produces. Like
it or not, libraries will spend more money for journals and books, but
purchase fewer of them.

Libraries will also turn to technology to ameliorate their
declining ability to add to local collections by sharing resources, and,
at the same time, continue the rapid assimilation of information
technology into the model of the academic library. Technology will also
be used to better exploit locally held resources, which are of greater
importance to the largest number of academic library clientele -- the
undergraduates. Their information needs are more limited than those of
the graduate student or research scholar -- to find something, not
everything, on a subject, and to find it in their home library.

Technological Transformation

Discussion in the professional literature of librarianship has
emphasized the need to shift to a new paradigm for academic research
libraries. "The warehouse or collection-based paradigm still holds sway.
The centerpiece of this paradigm is the provision of items shelved
locally. A new access-based paradigm is emerging and gaining many
adherents. Its centerpiece is the provision of items wherever they may
be located. What happens between the user and the content of items is
beyond the boundary of either paradigm."[4] The Association of Research
Libraries has used four scenarios to describe research libraries on a
continuum from the traditional print-form-based organization at one
extreme to the "highly automated Academic Information Center" on the
other, the so-called "virtual library."[5]

There are two important tasks which must be undertaken to
successfully transform academic libraries to fit a new paradigm. The
first is to suggest in concrete terms the specific ways in which
libraries and librarians will mediate information technologies, and the
second is to develop the applications for those technologies. In the
work of this technological transformation, academic libraries must
cultivate the vital relationship with their computing center. They will
also draw on the technical assistance of library networks and consortia,
as well as the commercial library vendors. What follows is one library
manager's perspective on how the elements of the technology-based
academic library paradigm will look. It is but one potential view of the
future, where many are needed.

The presence of new technologies is one of the most significant
extra-institutional factors in librarianship today. Librarians should
take comfort in the fact that forecasting the applications of new
technology is a national pastime for managers in business, industry, and
government and that library managers are not alone in playing this
guessing game or funding it. It is relatively easy for librarians to
identify the technologies that are affecting us, since they are a
salient feature of every library, educational, or technology conference.
The real issue is not what they are, but how will they be applied in the
library environment of higher education and how soon. Moreover, it is
not so much any one technology but a convergence of several that the
library community views as having the most far reaching effects on the
library:[6]

(1) microcomputers with improved processor cycle time, memory
capacity, and access times;

(2) substantial improvements in the power of microcomputer
operating systems and other software/hardware engineering advances, such
as artificial intelligence, expert systems, and fuzzy technology;

(3) removable optical mass-storage media with dramatic improvements
in capacity and error rates including the digitally-coded video disks,
an offshoot of the analog video disk, and CD-ROM, the digital offshoot
of the audio disk;

(4) the R&D currently under way on optical mass-storage peripherals
for mainframes which portend vast improvements in storage costs over
standard magnetic storage;

(5) the optical memory card (OMC), which may well have the most
far-reaching effects of all as a medium with the potential for "acting"
like a book or magazine; and

(6) the emergence of telecommunications networks as a vital
backbone for sharing information, research knowledge, and library
resources, which include international, high-speed networks, wide area
networks, campus area networks, and local area networks.

With much being published in the computing and networking
communities about the potential use of networks to access information,
this article focuses on the alternatives of physical distribution by
card and disk, examining their potential through discussions of
electronic publishing and scholarly workstations and electronic books.

Electronic Publishing: Promise and Constraints

Much has been written about the emergence of electronic
publication, but only a little has happened and so far libraries seem to
be the customers. Change will probably accelerate over the next decade,
but will not completely transform publishing, individual information
habits, or libraries. New publishing formats will exist side by side
with traditional print and microform materials, because there are
numerous restraints that inhibit a wholesale revolution. Optical mass
storage media will facilitate electronic publishing and mounting of
databases, but it will take years for what is technologically feasible
to become widely available.

A significant restraint is the need to develop relevant standards
for text CDs which are required before anyone will blithely invest the
money for major production facilities. The lack of mass produced systems
will keep prices high. The National Information Standards Organization
(NISO) and the industry itself are the main source for establishing
standards which are essential if diverse computer systems are going to
be interfaced easily with laser-reading equipment, especially in LANs.

No significant discussion of standards has begun for the OMC
technology, which is just making its debut but as yet has had no real
impact on libraries and little on publishing. Optical memory cards
(either ROM -- read-only-memory -- or WORM -- write-once, read-many), 
which look much like credit cards, are among the least well-known of the 
optical storage technologies, and, therefore, deserve some technical 
discussion as background to better understand the potential 
applications.

It appears that Drexler Technology Corporation has a commanding
lead in the development and marketing of OMCs with its LaserCardTM, and
is presently licensing the development of various applications and
related hardware. Because it remains photosensitive after manufacture,
any capacity which is not used can be written on later. A CD-ROM
typically holds about 500 or more megabytes or the equivalent of 40,000
pages of text with the result that optical disk systems are relatively
large and expensive to pre-master. The LaserCard presently has a 2-
megabyte capacity or the equivalent of 800 pages of text or 200 pages
with graphics. Drexler's research indicates that the capacity can easily
be pushed to in excess of 20 megabytes for a single card, and
anticipates peripheral costs can be kept low, particularly for flat-
screen reading devices. As a comparison, a typical 3 1/2-inch floppy
disk holds about 800 kilobytes or fewer than 250 pages of text.

Obviously, the OMC fits neatly in between the huge storage
capabilities of the optical disk and the minimal capacity of the floppy.
It has conspicuous advantages over CD-ROM: (1) relatively simple
production technology with no pre-mastering requirements and quick turn-
around time for production; (2) a psychological edge because of a data
capacity which is more in accord with print formats; and (3) the
potential for inexpensive local applications and simple peripherals.[7]
Drexler has not yet paid real attention to the book and journal
publishing industry, but the features of the OMC -- compact, easy to 
use, portable, updatable -- seem ideally suited for exploitation.

How will this technology spread? The first step will be for a
publisher or group to define the specifications and develop a prototype
peripheral. The next is to find applications which will be profitable in
the short term and serve as a bridge to new products. Experimentation in
the library and publishing applications of CD-ROM in recent years
illustrates these characteristics[8]

Any estimate of the rate of application for these new technologies
will be tempered if we also remember that there are technological
obstacles, as well as the lack of standards. Here we can speak primarily
of problems with CD-ROM peripherals, since OMC peripherals are still in
the research and development stages. Among them is the lack of a high-
speed optical character recognition device for converting print
information into digital format, but rapid progress is being made with
scanning technology. In addition, existing machine-readable files in
word processors cannot always be easily reformatted for transfer to this
new medium. High resolution needs for individual material in scholarly
books and journals will require expensive display systems which most
people will not purchase for personal use and which are only now being
developed. Another restraint is that optical disk-based systems are
equipment intensive, which means capital intensive. Moreover, presently
they are usually marketed as stand-alone systems with restrictive
licensing arrangements so that capital expense is proliferated. LAN
applications are so far few and experimental.

On the other side of this argument, Gary Kildall, Chairman of
Digital Research Incorporated, a few years ago predicted: "Today a CD-
ROM just costs $4 per disk for 1,000 copies, $2.50 each in quantities of
10,000, and less than a dollar each for 100,000 copies. Thus, printed
books could be replaced by electronic systems within fifteen years. We
are moving very quickly to a point where the printed page is going to be
an artifact of the past- -- it's going to be history."[9]

Kildall further argued that economics would dictate the abandonment
of the book since it costs less to print an optical disk, and the
equivalent of 200 printed books can be contained on one CD-ROM. But
let's examine the economics for a moment. At the same time, a typical
medium-sized scholarly press could produce 1,500 copies of a 192-page
book containing almost a half-million characters of information for
about $3.70 per copy, or a 352-page book with almost a million
characters of information for $5.50 per copy. Both book and CD
publishers will charge several times current production costs, but $800
worth of equipment and a microcomputer are not necessary to read a book.
Finally, no one believes that CD-ROMs will be published as substitutes
for printed works totally utilizing their massive storage capacities.

OMC, by contrast, may come closer as the storage medium to
fulfilling Allan Kay's enthusiastic 1968 vision of a notebook-sized
computer or "electronic book" (which he called "dynabook").[10] 
Drexler's LaserCard with its book-size capacity can be mass-produced 
virtually overnight for a price well under $5. "A moderate-speed laser 
recording system operating at 100 kilobits per second could produce one 
2-megabyte LaserCard on demand in less than three minutes, and these 
same optical memory cards could later have data added to them by low-
speed laser recording."[11] 

Publishers will continue using multiple formats so that a transition 
will be orderly and will likely take a much longer time than predictions 
would imply. It is not likely that publishers will willingly destroy 
their current print product line. On the contrary, they have 
traditionally attempted to market their "product lines" so that library 
customers will purchase the same information in several formats.

In addition, libraries and publishers will be faced with
significant new questions about copyright far more complex than those
faced in developing the last revisions in copyright law. Copyright
holders are concerned, even afraid, of licensing electronic publication
because of fear of losing distribution control. And some potential
publishers have a very strong, perhaps irrational, commitment to print.
Scholarly monographs and current issues to scholarly journals that have
small audiences may not be produced cost-effectively unless publishing
patterns are changed -- for instance, one issue per year of a journal
instead of quarterly on OMC, and two to three books on a compact disk.

Attitudes of librarians, information specialists, and users, as
well as publishers, could restrain a sudden shift to CD-ROM or OMC
technology. Librarians, for instance, will be faced with the same
professional and ethical questions with optically recorded publications
as they are with online searching -- do we buy information for the 
library user, or do we assume that CD-ROM publications will be available 
only to those who can afford a notebook-style computer to read them?

The Message Will Determine the Medium

Many of us in the library community believe that the salient
feature of publishing in the future will be variety. Paper publication
formats familiar to us all will coexist with an array of other
publication media, which may include digital optical media (CD-ROM, OMC,
etc.), magnetic storage, digital paper, data strips, and online. Online
availability will in turn be affected by large mass-storage optical
devices and bubble memory, and the capacity and ubiquity of networks.
The logic will be to select a type of publication medium which fits the
use and economics of the information being published. To rephrase
Marshall McLuhan, the message will decide the medium on which it is
produced. How will such decisions be made?

Faxon President Richard Rowe has offered a model for selecting
candidates for CD-ROM or online distribution. Figure 1 shows an expanded
version of this model, which is applicable to selecting those candidates
for print, online, OMC, and CD-ROM.[12] The chief driving factors in
Rowe's model are timeliness and market demand. If we add to market
demand the concept of added value for producing the publication in
machine-readable form, then many print publications will not for the
foreseeable future be candidates for CD-ROM -- for example, textbooks,
mass-market paperbacks, best sellers in hardback, manuals, and scholarly
monographs. The added value to the user must be significant. Current
issues of humanities or social science scholarly journals will probably
not be candidates either, but they may as a substitute for microform
backruns. By contrast, current issues of technical journals with their
high value due to timeliness may well be carried online.

Keeping in mind the Rowe model and the concept of added value, we
may briefly speculate on the current candidates for CD-ROM applications
that libraries may expect to buy. It may be that most of the profitable
applications have already occurred -- databases, reference tools, and 
some journal backruns.

OMCs, on the other hand, could make a more sudden intrusion into
traditional publishing markets, if the obstacles of licensing costs,
hardware development, copyright, and market strategies are managed with
any speed. Moreover, the path of development may be quite different. At
present textbooks frequently are accompanied by tutorials and study
guides on floppy disk with their limited capacity. Once devices are
available for microcomputers to read OMCs, then students will readily
embrace their use, and publishers will exploit their greater capacity
for these and other applications. For instance, an accounting textbook
could include an OMC which has data for problems to be loaded into a
spreadsheet. Scholarly book and journal publishers might enter the
market experimentally with OMC versions in a pocket of the traditional
print version of their works. Gradually, as these limited uses spread
familiarity of OMC applications, peripheral equipment could become
cheaper and mass market applications in publishing books and magazines
might be tried.

In sum, we will more likely have evolution than revolution, over a
number of years. Libraries will need to adapt to these changing
environmental facts.

Scholarly Workstations and Electronic Books

These advances have made the so-called information or scholarly
workstation an imminent possibility, but one dependent on a number of
related factors, including: (1) lower costs; (2) user-friendly and user-
transparent operating systems, which will also provide access to remote
resources across the numerous networks; (3) the appearance on CD-ROM,
OMCs, and/or other mass-storage devices of large amounts of information
formerly available only in monographs and journals; (4) the local
availability of highly refined subsets of large databases which are now
residing primarily in the magnetic storage of mainframe computers and
their peripherals currently accessed through long-distance dial up; and
finally (5) the development of peripherals and library applications for
OMCs without which they will have no role in the emerging paradigm.

Such a workstation will have a great appeal to researchers in
industry, academics, and business. Picture, if you will, the scholar or
student who is able to take notes from backruns of journals on CD-ROM
and books on OMCs by downloading appropriate sections and bibliographic
citations to a WORM device for her own PC, and then to combine available
information with her own research by reformatting it through the use of
word processing, spreadsheets, statistical packages for manipulating
data, built-in machine-readable thesauri and manuals of style, graphics
packages, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. All this is available through
the workstation, because of telecommunications access to the resources
of the local campus library and a developed national network.

At the 1987 EDUCOM Conference and again at the 1988 CAUSE
Conference, keynoter John Sculley of Apple Computer, Inc. previewed
Apple's vision of the future workstation called "Knowledge Navigator" in
a tantalizing film dramatization, illustrating the combination of
"hypermedia," simulation technology, and artificial intelligence with
modern telecommunications. Active development efforts are under way, but
there are numerous practical obstacles. There is a great deal of
difference between a microcomputer and a workstation, which will have
enhanced interfaces and concurrent use of applications and be tailored
to specialized environments. "Ideally, the environment provided by the
logical workstation would be an extension of the user's natural
activities. For researchers within a university environment, it would
correspond to a scholar's workstation; for a library cataloger, it would
be a cataloger's workstation."[13]

Such a research tool has terrific appeal and a large potential
future, but in the author's view primarily with a small, sophisticated
audience. There is a large amount of pressure among micro-computer
manufacturers to create a large market of home as well as business and
educational applications. There is plenty of evidence that the home
market is saturated, if not artificially created, and a NeXT in every
home seems unlikely. On the other hand, research libraries will contend
with advanced workstation users[14]

It should not take long, however, for at least some versions of
these technologies to begin affecting popular reading of the general
public. For any new electronic medium to gain a market among general
readers commensurate with current book and magazine publications, it
must assume the characteristics of both, including cheapness,
portability, low maintenance, durability, addressability, high
resolution graphics, and ease of use. That is, it has to be as simple as
a book to read, as versatile as a book in its presentation of
information, and you have to be able to take it on a commuter train or
to the beach without plugging it in. For this to happen, we would need a
new product similar to Kay's dynabook -- a powerful, thin, and 
lightweight notebook computer with a high-resolution, flat screen and a 
simple, intuitive user interface. References to a similar device, called 
"smart book," have appeared in more recent literature.[15] Moreover, 
there must be at least one "low end" version that cannot be much larger 
than a book, with a cost of about $200, so that libraries could 
circulate such devices and large numbers of individuals could buy their 
own to read electronic publications.

The new optical recording technology in combination with computers
and software will likely diffuse gradually and by the end of the decade
become a dominant force in information. We have already seen a picture
of the scholar using the information workstation to take notes on a
"writable" card or compact disk. There are many other positive forces.
The growth of video disks will be fueled by the previously unavailable
combination of video, digital, and audio capabilities in a single
medium, commonly referred to as "hypermedia." We will see it applied in
fields like interactive training and education and database search
retrieval. Moreover, read-only memory media are comfortable to both the
publishing business and to libraries since the products we currently
deal with -- books, magazines, records, microfilm, and even online
databases -- are distributed in read-only form.

The scholarly workstation and electronic book are distributed
systems oriented towards microcomputer technology owned and used by
individuals. Libraries may expect to maintain a role in relationship to
users of such systems similar to the one they now hold with traditional
print material and microformats. That is, they will likely provide
information and reference services, some equipment support, including
scholarly workstations in the library for patrons to use non-circulating
electronic materials and electronic books to circulate. And finally,
libraries will likely purchase much of the material published on CD-ROM,
OMC, or other formats.

How soon will this happen? One should expect that time will be
available to plan for, fund, and implement these technologies because,
as already indicated, there are a large number of obstacles which stand
in the way of their sudden adoption.

The Library as Information Laboratory

It is certain that the role and function of the library will be
transformed by converging technologies as advanced student users and
research faculty frequent the library less, while paradoxically using it
more through telecommunications networks from their own workstations.
Telecommunications networks which are being developed nationwide may
have as profound an effect on scholarship and the distribution of
information as any other technology discussed here. On the other hand,
some users will be less adept at exploiting the complex systems and will
need assistance from librarians who will assume an expanded role in
teaching about access to information. Some information technologies will
not be distributed but accessed by going to a central library site.
Typically print materials, but also some materials converted to optical
digital format for preservation purposes, will not be economical to
maintain online.

The relevant technologies are to some extent already in place in
our libraries or available to us. At the local level, this convergence
of technology will include the library's integrated system serving all
of its functions, but with a broadened capacity to access additional
data. For instance, research libraries are already purchasing numeric,
bibliographic, and textual machine-readable data files (MRDFs). These
include securities information from the Center for Research in Security
Prices (CRSP) from the University of Chicago and cultural information
such as the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) from Yale, as well as
MRDFs which result from local scholarship.[16]

In the near future, multitasking workstations and local area
networks will allow the patron to use the online public access catalog
and to "window" and search data files stored on optical disks and loaded
into jukebox devices including quantitative data, bibliographic
information, back files to major high-use bibliographic databases,
periodical indexing systems, and significant reference tools which are
already appearing in CD-ROM (e.g., Bowker's Books In Print or Grolier's
Academic American Encyclopedia). Similarly, the National Agricultural
Library and LaserData are cooperating in an experiment with an optical
disk version of the Pork Industry Handbook.

In general, these applications are well suited to library-type
centralized environments and may not be cost-effective for the
occasional user due to hardware and updating expense.[17] Indeed, most
researchers will prefer that the "information agency" -- library -- take 
care
of the acquisition, housing, and access to these expensive new formats,
so long as that access is felicitous. This means patrons will want to
use the new electronic information, freely copying it in a way that is
analogous to print materials and photocopy.

Libraries and library agencies will probably serve as publishers
for electronically "reprinting" from their own collections large stores
of print-form materials. Preservation of the greatest part of the
published information of the last century is a well-known challenge and
library space is becoming one as well. Experiments such as Cornell's
digital preservation project are groundbreaking. However, many libraries
will likely participate since costs for equipment are declining rapidly,
while speed and dependability are increasing. Kurzweil now markets a
system for less than $10,000 that will scan the average print page in
about nine seconds and store it in ASCII in about a minute. In a bit
more time this system will store both text and image. For less than
twice that cost Kurzweil has a system that will scan, read out, and
store a page in ASCII in nine seconds. The next important phase of
development will be to build an interface with CD and OMC WORM storage,
completing the development of a low-cost system, which will make the
conversion of less needed print collections to electronic form
economically feasible. For preservation it is already desirable. Once
"reprinted" electronically, distribution of copies on demand becomes
economical, cost-effective, and fast.

A key to further dramatic progress or delay is the development of
the next stage -- making optical disks erasable and re-recordable, which 
is probably five years away from market. Assuming the technology is
perfected by the mid-nineties, we may see the typical undergraduate
around the year 2000 carrying writable CD-ROMs and OMCs along with a
paper notebook into the library to use workstations which are tied to
the library central system and have the capability of exploiting the
full panoply of the electronic information formats described here. Such
a student will be able to take notes on a writable CD-ROM or OMC, read
the notes on a computer notebook, and produce a new finished work on a
personal information workstation at home.

The academic library can play a significant role, in conjunction with
the computing and networking communities, in the acquisition,
organization, and services for new electronic information technologies,
analogous to its present role with print materials and online access.
Moreover, this will be a more dynamic role for the library as an
institution, and one may argue that libraries are the primary
information agency ideally equipped to fill it.

Libraries will be integral to the electronic networks represented
by national library utilities like OCLC, WLN, and RLIN, as well as
regional networks like AMIGOS and SOLINET and locally emerging networks
in the individual states, all of which are an important part of the
strategy to make national networks work.

In addition, libraries will continue to have strong relationships
with major commercial vendors of information technology as well as the
publishing giants and scholarly presses. The Linked Systems Project and
the Open Systems Interconnect will provide the technological standard
for the linking of local libraries to numerous emerging networks and to
one another through the backbone of NREN, the National Research and
Education Network.[18]

Finally, the recent formation of the Coalition for Networked
Information is a promising sign of the increasing cooperation among the
academic library, computing, and networking communities. David Roselle,
President of the University of Delaware, announced the formation of the
Coalition at the close of the National Net'90 Conference in March of
this year. A joint effort of the Association of Research Libraries,
CAUSE, and EDUCOM to promote the use of information resources on
existing and proposed networks, the Coalition recognizes that the
creation of NREN is essentially a collaborative effort.

========================================================================

Footnotes

1  Theodore Roszak, The Cult of Information, the Folklore of Computers
and the True Art of Think-ing (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), p. 172.

2  Roszak, pp. 173-74, remains concerned that libraries are not part of
the discussions by futurists of the "information society." In his
critique he attributes this to economics as well as the gender
identification of libraries as female institutions. His critique is true
in some measure. However, libraries and librarians are part of
discussions of information workers by some, for instance John Naisbitt,
Megatrends, Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (New York: Warner
Books, 1982).

3  Adrian Alexander, "Serial Pricing in the International Market:
Fifteen Years of Faxon Experience," Library Administration and
Management 4:1 (Winter 1990): 27-32

4  Charles Martell, "Mysteries, Wonders, and Beauties," Editorial in
College and Research Libraries 51:3 (May 1990): 179; and similarly
Robert C. Heterick, Jr., "Networked Information: What Can We Expect and
When?," CAUSE/EFFECT, Summer 1990, pp. 9-14.

5  Duane Webster, "Organizational Futures: Staffing Research Libraries
in the 1990s," in Minutes of the 105th Meeting of the Association of
Research Libraries, October 24-25, 1984 (Washington, D.C., Association
of Research Libraries); and Heterick, p. 13.

6  John C. Gale, "The Information Workstation: A Confluence of
Technologies Including the CD-ROM," Information Technology and
Libraries, June 1985, pp. 137-39; C. Peter Waegemann, "Optical Disk
Systems," The Records and Retrieval Report 3 (January 1987): 1-16; Laura
Brennan, "Optical System Said Capable of Housing More Than 1 Trillion
Bytes of Informa-tion," PC Week, 17 March 1987, p. 11; "A Real Space
Saver, Light-Sensitive Disk Provides High-Density Storage," Machine
Design 56 (February 9, 1987): 72-73; Laura Brennan, "The Hi-Lite Card Is
Large Storage In Small Package," PC Week, 24 March 1987, p.16; Clifford
A. Lynch, "Linking Library Automation Systems in the Internet:
Functional Requirements, Planning, and Policy Issues," Library Hi Tech
7:4 (1989): 7-18; Clifford A. Lynch, "Access Technology for Network
Information Resources," CAUSE/EFFECT, Summer 1990), pp. 15-20; James R.
Hill, "T-1 Goes to Col-lege," Network World, 25 January 1988, pp. 42-47;
and Eric Rumsey, "The Power of the New Microcomputers: Challenge and
Opportunity," College and Research Libraries 51:2 (March 1990): 95-99.

7  Robert B. Barnes and Frank J. Sukernick, "Files on a Card: Small
Format, High Capacity, Digital Storage/Retrieval," Journal of
Information and Image Management (October 1986): 38-39; Robert Barnes,
"The Magic Card, Possibilities for Publishing," Presented to the Society
for Scholarly Publishing Eighth Annual Meeting, San Francisco (May
1986); Bradford N. Dixon, "Making Mir-acles," CD-ROM Review, 1 October
1986, pp. 20-24; Ron Barney, "Getting It All on Disc," CD-ROM Review, 1
October 1986, pp. 26-27.

8  Barnes and Sukernick, pp. 36-39; and Barnes, ibid.

9  Ron Jeffries, "Good-bye, Gutenberg!," PC Week, 12 November 1985, p.
95.

10  Frank Rose, "Pied Piper of the Computer," New York Times Magazine, 8
November 1987, p. 56 ff.

11  Barnes and Sukernick, p. 40.

12  Adapted from Figure 1 in "The Faxon Company: A Technicalities
Profile," Technicalities 6 (May 1986): 5. Used by permission of The Oryx
Press, 4041 N. Central Avenue at Indian School, Phoenix, AZ 85012-3399.
Copyright 1986.
13Michael Bauer, "The Emerging Role of Workstations in the Library
Environment," Library Hi Tech 6:4 (1988): 37-40.

14  Roszak (pp. 51-64) provides a critical discussion of the
relationship between computer firms and American education. See also Pat
Molholt, "The Information Machine: a New Challenge for Librarians,"
Library Journal, 1 October 1986, pp. 47-52; Anne G. Lipow and Joseph A.
Rosenthal, "The Researcher and the Library: A Partnership in the Near
Future," Library Journal, 1 September 1986, pp. 154-56; Patrick R.
Dewey, "Electronic Bulletin Boards: Applications in Libraries," Library
Journal (November 1986): 10-19.

15  Jeffries, p. 95; "Portable CD-ROM Com-puter," CD-ROM Review 2
(March/April 1987): 7; and Katie Blake, "The Electronic Book, Library Hi
Tech 6:1 (1988): 7-11.

16  Gary S. Lawrence, Joseph R. Matthews, and Charles E. Miller, "Costs
and Features of Online Catalogs: The State of the Art," Information
Technology and Libraries, June 1985, pp. 409-16, 440-44; Molholt, pp.
47-52; Ray Jones, " The Data Library in the University of Florida
Libraries," Library Trends, Winter 1982, pp. 383- 96.

17  Pamela Q. J. Andre, "Evaluating Laser Videodisc Technology for the
Dissemination of Agricultural Information," Information Technology and
Libraries, June 1985, pp. 139-47; Bryan G. Lewis, "Encoding Databases on
Optical Disks," Information Technology and Libraries, June 1985, pp.
147-49; Mary Ann O'-Connor, "Applications: CD-ROM Goes to Work," CD-ROM
Review, 1 October 1986, pp. 28-35; Nancy Melin, "The Book on Library
Uses," CD-ROM Review, 1 October 1986, pp. 36-38; Bradford N. Dixon, "The
Impact of CD-ROM on On-line Data Bases," CD-ROM Review, 1 October 1986,
pp. 52-53; Janet M. Tiampo, "CD-ROM Disc Titles," CD-ROM Review 2
(March/April 1987): 49-54.

18  Clifford A. Lynch, and Edwin B. Brownrigg, "The Telecommunications
Landscape: 1986," Library Journal, 1 October 1986, pp. 40-46; "Who Owns
Whom: Corporate Buying Fever Hits Library Marketplace," American
Libraries, July/August 1985, p. 462; Richard W. McCoy, "The Linked
Systems Project: Progress, Promise, Realities," Library Journal, 1
October 1986, pp. 33-39.

========================================================================

For further reading:

Baron, Joel H. (Faxon Company). "Scholarly Publishing in the 21st
Century, 'A New World Beckons.'" Keynote speech presented at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Conference Marking the
University's 25th Anniversary Year, April 1990.

Byrd, Gary D. "An Economic 'Commons' Tragedy for Research Libraries:
Scholarly Journal Publishing and Pricing Trends." College and Research
Libraries 51:3 (May 1990): 184-195.

Dougherty, Richard M. "Turning the Serials Crisis to our Advantage: An
Opportunity for Leadership," Library Administration and Management 3:2
(Spring 1989): 59-64.

Metz, Ray. "The Impact of Electronic Formats and Campus Networks on
University Libraries in the United States." Computers in Libraries, May
1990, pp. 30-31.

Rosser, James M., and James I. Penrod. "Computing and Libraries: A
Partnership Past Due." CAUSE/EFFECT, Summer 1990, pp. 21-14.

Scepanski, Jordan M. "Library 1995." Library Administration and
Management 4:2 (Spring 1990): 74-76.

Tompkins, Philip. "New Structures for Teaching Libraries," Library
Administration and Management 4:2 (Spring 1990): 77-81.

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