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Papers representing the proceedings of the February 1977 Information Science and Automation Division (ISAD) institute on the topic of a national bibliographic network are presented. In the late 1960s, the application of data processing technology to library functions was, for the most part, an amateur, hesitant effort. Developments coming to fruition at that time that would ensure the success of library automation were the successful initiation of the MARC distribution service from the Library of Congress and the inauguration of shared cataloging services by the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). National bibliographic network policy is explored from several significant perspectives.
These papers represent the proceedings of the February 1977 ISAD institute on the topic of a national bibliographic network.
In the late 1960s the application of data processing technology to library functions was for the most part an amateur, hesitant effort. It was viewed as an interesting experiment that at some time in the undefined future might perhaps bear fruit. As late as 1971 the major issue was Ellsworth Mason's skepticism that automation could prove viable in a library context. Ironically enough, at the same time, two developments were coming to fruition that would ensure the success of the rites of passage from promising puberty to virile adulthood for library automation. These were, of course, the successful initiation of the MARC distribution service from the Library of Congress and the inauguration of shared cataloging services by the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC).
It need only be recalled how hesitant and full of doubt were the steps being taken in the late 1960s in applying computer technology to appreciate the boldness of the steps taken by Fred Kilgour and the OCLC. They developed not just another automated system but one based on the most sophisticated form of that technology--an online, interactive, teleprocessing system initially serving some fifty Ohio libraries. In the intervening five years, OCLC has expanded from fifty libraries to some 1,20D and now supports approximately 1,600 terminals. The unquestioned success of OCLC has dramatically served to extinguish any doubt regarding the economic viability of automated library systems. If it has crystallized any doubts, these are with respect to the viability of systems conceived on any substantially smaller scale. The nontechnically related doubts still linger. Several observers have expressed concern over the direction developments such as OCLC are taking as related to bibliographic control in the United States.
But this is not meant to be a panegyric for, nor a damnation of, the accomplishments of the OCLC. It is only meant to illustrate the rate of development that we have witnessed in this most recent decade and to note that further developments can be expected to be more rapid and that perhaps their consequences will be less discernible, or benign. As further perspective: these papers represent the third ISAD institute on networks and networking. As an indication of how far we have come we might recall that the first such institute, held in 1974, concerned itself with: the benefits to be derived from joining into a consortium established to promote cooperative activity; the responsibilities imposed on individual consortium participants (in short, the sociology of consortia); and the methodology for selecting an appropriate cooperative consortium to join. The emphasis at the time, as reflected in the subtitle of the institute, was "Alternatives in Bibliographic Networking." The second institute, held one year later, in 1975, concerned itself with "Networks--the Present and Potential." This institute sought to identify and describe the technological components and organizational structure of automated networks. By 1976 bibliographic networking was a reality, no longer a portent for the future.
By 1977 the efficacy of extended, computerized library networking has been firmly established. The questions before us now relate to the nature of a national network, which we are told is rapidly emerging, and the place of individual libraries within it. In a sense we are no longer exploring the potential of a "global bibliographic village" created by a telecommunication network, the benefits to be derived therefrom, and the responsibilities exacted upon the villagers. The questions are no longer those of the benefits and obligations of citizenship. Rather, the questions now relate to the rights of citizenship, or, in other words, what should national bibliographic network policy be?
In the last several years ISAD has sought to present institutes that would address two major professional needs: first, to serve as a means of providing continuing education regarding the rapidly evolving ambience being shaped by the application of technology to librarianship; and second, considered equally important by the program planning committee, to fulfill a need for public fora in which the consequences of the application of technology can be openly discussed while decisions and policy are still malleable.
We shall attempt to explore national bibliographic network policy from several significant perspectives. It is hoped that the variety of viewpoints will provide a sufficiently stereoscopic view that at least a beginning will be made toward informed dialogue.
NETWORK BREW: HINTS FROM A MISTY CRYSTAL BALL
A LOOK BACKWARD
This paper is basically an attempt to perform witchcraft. That is, we are trying to address the future, to prognosticate, and to advise on our directions and movements in this wonderland of information, bibliographic records, and libraries. I would like, however, to begin with a short look backward. About a dozen years ago a book was published which caused a considerable stir among the groups in which we move, even though it was authored by a person whose prior professional training and experience were largely outside the field. The book was Libraries of the Future, by J. C. R. Licklider.(1) I suspect that many of us who read it a decade ago reacted with that now somewhat quaint expression "far out," and perhaps speculated that the author was not unfamiliar with a few of the more potent mind-expanding drugs.
Today the book is no longer a shocker. A good deal of its terminology and many of its concepts have become comprehensible to a wide cross section of people working in information science and librarianship. A look backward at some of Licklider's concepts and divinations might serve as a rough measuring stick against which you may judge the omens and portents of the future as we see it today.
Licklider used the term "procognitive systems" in some senses at least as equivalent to what we call networks. He identified elements of information processing which would play important roles in shaping these procognitive systems of the future. These elements included such now-familiar building blocks as random access memory, parallel processing, cathode ray displays with light pens, and time-sharing computer systems with remote user stations.
His discussion of specific problems and techniques, with respect to both hardware and software, seems in retrospect to be less significant than his conceptualization of the structure of procognitive systems and his presentation of the conditions and requirements for achieving them. Of particular note is the awareness throughout Libraries of the Future of the totality of factors involved in the development of these systems and of their interrelatedness. In his view, the nurturing of these complex structures depends on (a) the future course of technology--for which the outlook is good--and (b) our social values, philosophy, and programs, where the prospects are considerably more uncertain. He writes:
...information processing systems lack the sex symbolizing and attention-compelling attributes of rockets....procognitive systems will have to prove their value in dollars before they will find widespread demand.(2)
In the same vein, Licklider goes on to say that the potentially contributory disciplines--the library sciences, the computer sciences, the systems sciences, and the behavioral and social sciences--are on the whole not effectively conjoined. A series of developments will be necessary, he postulates, for the realization of the envisaged systems. These include (1) the overcoming of disciplinary barriers. (2) the development of the concept of relevance networks, (3) the availability of fast processing and advanced memory systems, (4) advanced displays and controls for man-computer interaction, (5) the development of procedure-oriented, field-oriented, and user-oriented languages, (6) advancement in the understanding of machine processing of natural language, and (7) the implementation of multiple-access computer systems. At another point he casts a brief look at the human engineering factors in man-machine interaction, and concludes that these had received scant attention relative to their importance in procognitive system development. Ten years later it is not difficult to reach the same conclusion.
From this necessarily brief and wildly selective summary of a quite stimulating work, we can come to some meaningful observations about the course of bibliographic networking. Licklider's forecasts in general hold up well after a decade. Reasonably sophisticated access, at a price, to databases extensive in size and decidedly useful by any standard is commonplace. The utilization of intelligent terminals, complete with a battery of peripheral devices in the way of printers, cursors, and other bells and whistles, is by no means unusual. Financial and technological limitations on machine storage capacity have become less threatening, and remarkable advances have come to pass in facilitating the transmittal of information through telecommunication channels. (It should be noted, however, that one of the knottiest problem areas on the current networking scene is the fashioning of protocols for adequate and precise identification of the data to be transmitted over these same channels.)
Moving into areas of networking somewhat more beset with difficulty, we pass along to considerations of overall system design and social and behavioral aspects. A good deal of work remains to be done in systematizing links among various segments of information, such as optimum transferability of data from hard copy to microform to digital form. We have only begun to work toward convenient interface and linkage of information represented by full text, by abstracts, by index terms, by a bibliographic record (as on a catalog card), and by data descriptive of a library or archival collection. Some tricky problems lie ahead with regard to confidential information and the privacy of personal and institutional data in a cooperative milieu. In working with two emerging library consortia, I have had abundant opportunity to observe the varieties of attitudinal response to cooperative objectives and the strains of coping with additional workload demands as library staff members begin to be faced with network tasks.
Let us imagine a consortial scene. We find ourselves as flies on the wall of a station wagon or bus or train after a day's meeting of several representatives from each of a number of libraries participating in a fledgling network. Half a dozen staff members from Library A are wending their way home after a long, solid day's work. (Some of you who have gotten your feet wet in cooperative programs can probably recite the dialogue by heart, or add variations on the theme.)
"Do you think that group in Zilchville will ever get its act together?"
"Not a chance; they're so loaded with money they'll never really be interested in cooperation."
"Say, Ms. X (Director of Library B) really has a tough time manager her staff. Those kooks are a bunch of prima donnas."
"Yeah, what a contrast to Y Director of Library C!. He's got his staff so terrified they only speak when he waves the baton."
"Right--just wait till they get unionized!"
"Did you notice how the Head of Special Collections at Library D went to sleep for most of the afternoon, once we'd agreed that rare books wouldn't have to be included in the database for two years?"
"Where do they get off, making us check NUC before we submit a TWX request?"
"They sure have a lot of nerve; I've seen the serial record file at C, and you wouldn't believe the garbage that's in there!"
I would concur, then, with Licklider in his prediction that the major obstacles to be overcome in the development of information systems lie in fusing the necessary contributions from a wide array of disciplines and in the psychological, social, political, and economic hurdles to be encountered in an era of rapid change. In the remainder of this paper we shall explore a few more of these hurdles.
NETWORK TOPOLOGY, OR RAMPANT SEMANTICS
"The national network." "The national library network." "The national bibliographic network." What neat phrases! They have been too often used as a palliative, as easy answers to tough questions. They should serve as the jumping-off point for consideration of bibliographic policy issues.
Some questions arise from the very nature of the terms. The national network: should we think and plan in terms of one national network? What we have now, and for better or worse, for the indefinite future, is a host of networks, consortia, and cooperative programs with varied objectives, different bases for membership, wide ranges in the pitch and intensity of cooperative activity, and a motley pattern of governance and funding. The quilt may not be entirely crazy, but it is far from resembling the symmetrical double wedding ring pattern my grandmother and her sewing circle used to construct.
The national network: do we stop at the U.S. borders? A fair amount of network planning has already embraced components within Canada, and, in fact, some of the more imaginative thought and decisive action in networking evolution has occurred north of the Great Lakes. What relationship should planning and cooperation on the North American continent have to worldwide bibliographic services? An up-to-date report from the LC perspective comes from Lucia Rather.(3) Within the United States, what influence should the semiartificial boundaries of state lines play in a "national" system? State governments acting as funding channels have already helped shape our bibliographic configuration, with salutary effect in some cases and questionable results in others. With due regard for the meteoric achievements of OCLC, the lack of effective governance participation by non-Ohio institutions now verges on the absurd. It remains to be seen whether a single state can develop and maintain a bibliographic network that serves both as a data utility and as the focal point for achieving the ultimate objectives of library and information services within the state. The Washington Library Network has embraced these two major roles; its progress should be most interesting.
The national library network: will the system be based (and should it be) on connections among libraries? OCLC, after its initial development in Ohio, has followed a policy of distributing data principally through arrangements negotiated with networks or groups of libraries rather than with individual institutions, and the Library of Congress about a year ago enunciated a similar guideline with respect to access to LC's online data services. In other words, will network centers and data utilities interact at a system level which will replace, for the most part, more direct patterns of interinstitutional contact?
As the last in this series of semantic queries, we might question the precise title "The National Bibliographic Network." Although the phrase is useful for analytic and conceptual purposes, it concentrates on means rather than ends and should be considered in an ever-present context of our intended objective, to bring information to people.
The conceptual balloon of a monolithic, all-encompassing, total national bibliographic network is not difficult to deflate. We may consider it briefly from two perspectives: (a) is it likely to happen? and (b) should it happen? The answer to each question, I believe, is no.
American society honors by symbol and shibboleth the ideals of political freedom, of economic laissez-faire, and of individual choice and diversity. Realities, to be sure, differ significantly from these ideals. As ideals which affect us, however, they are not likely to be abandoned with haste, and we may assume their potency for the immediate future.
One implication of their prevalence is the resultant diversity of institutions and other forces or vectors in most segments of society; the bibliothecal community is no exception. I do not need to expound the varied panorama of libraries, which are the dominant organizational form for providing information, on the American scene, but we might mention some of the other forms and influences which abound: indexing and abstracting services, together with the vendors of data compiled by such services (Lockheed, SDC, and Bibliographic Research Service); publishers and publishers' associations, which are beginning to realize their stake in how bibliographic data are assembled, transmitted, and used, and which have a fair amount of that mystical ingredient called "clout"; equipment manufacturers and vendors, whose decisions on research, development, and marketing impose rather fundamental constraints on bibliographic network capabilities; commercial services of one kind or another which have developed to satisfy unfilled needs in the library and information field, such as private research agencies, book and serial jobbers, and consultant services.
To conjecture the actual and potential relationships of this myriad of organizations and services and to realize the vested and entrenched interests associated with them, are tantamount to the conclusion that a relatively rigid, encompassing, and stable bibliographic network on the North American continent is unlikely.
Although this concept of a national, or North American, bibliographic network is sometimes useful for political or fiscal purposes, we should recognize it as a semantic construct which tends to distort reality in at least two significant ways. In the first place, the term implies a solidity and a monolithic quality which will not be present in the foreseeable future and which is arguably not even a worthwhile objective. Secondly, the phrase may lead us to conclude that someone up there is fashioning a system which will soon overcome the many obstacles and problems we now face.
The developing cooperative library and information systems on this continent might be conceived as a multidimensional chess game in which the pieces have varying capabilities for planning and action in and on several planes of bibliothecal operations, all of which will evolve and be modified at varying rates of speed over the course of time.
What might be termed "superficial confusion" seems to be a likely characteristic of our bibliographic future. The phrase is not meant to be pejorative. The diverse and dynamic nature of our situation carries great advantages. It gives us the opportunity to experiment and to change; it provides to some extent the capacity to tailor the superstructure of information control to match particular, local circumstances, building on the potential of feedback and response between the information community and those who use its products and services. In a similar vein, this state of "superficial confusion" more easily accommodates change, in particular the sort of change which has little or nothing in its origin to do with libraries or information dissemination --for example, economic recession, expansion, or inflation.
The utilization of technology is serving as a catalyst in drawing the various segments of the information field together as never before. In the process, we need to examine and to appraise our diversity in order to retain and to support its valuable features, while looking critically at those which are ill-suited to maximizing our resources. For example, the precise identification of a corporate body called the National Research Council as an agency functioning in Washington, Delhi, Canberra, or Ottawa has become more significant than in times past. On the other hand, I suspect that most of us are willing, after due consideration, to forego the benefits which may have accrued from the appearance of subject headings in red capitals on our catalog cards.
STANDARDS AND THEIR KIN
A word or two, then, about standards, recognizing that the topic will be addressed more definitively later in these proceedings.(4) A good deal of loose thought and sloppy action is swept under the carpet labelled "standards," and here again there is need for some close scrutiny. The question of how the library and information community can achieve adherence to and conformity with promulgated standards is an interesting topic but one that usually generates little light.
Standards relevant to bibliographic networking range along a continuum from what might more properly be called guidelines to extremely precise definitions of, for example, machine-readable records. Perhaps the most overlooked fact about standards is the degree to which they do not remain constant. Think of those which affect your work: the rules for cataloging library materials; the MARC formats; filing rules; reduction ratios and formats for microforms; romanization tables; the International Standard Bibliographic Description; and a host of others.
One of our notable areas of nonsuccess is the extent to which we have not recognized the pace and the inevitability of change, especially with regard to bibliographic standards, and the creaking mechanisms we have devised for coping. Are we doomed to the throes of catalog code revision every ten to twenty years, supplemented by quarterly jolts announced by LC's Cataloging Service? Is this the best possible way in which to fashion and maintain rules for bibliographic description and entry which will enable people to reach information they need and want? Probably not.
I am a member of an ALA group working on revision of rules for filing. A fair amount of the group's time and attention is being devoted to (1) coordination with the catalog code revision effort and (2) attempts to attain consistency with similar work on filing rules going on in England. Whatever the outcome in substantive terms, the process is ill-designed to achieve the stated ends. What we have is a heterogeneous group of eight people, all of whom have primary job responsibilities in other endeavors, who assemble for periods of from two hours to two days semiannually (in conjunction with ALA conferences), who communicate erratically in the intervals by mail and telephone, and who juggle considerations of bibliographic organization, machine constraints and capabilities, anticipated behavior of people perusing displays of bibliographic data, and the care and feeding of our present card catalogs.
There are even now alternatives. One such is the structure of committees operating under the American National Standards Institute, which seeks to achieve a general objective of quinquennial review of standards once they have been promulgated. ANSI and its committees are relatively well funded, and the procedures for extensive review of draft standards, while less than perfect, at least embody a serious attempt to query potential users. The MARBI Committee of ALA is a group with considerable built-in continuity, and by dint of intensive work at each ALA conference, is able to function at least moderately effectively in the development and upkeep of the MARC formats. Library of Congress Subject Headings illustrates another style of adaptation to change. Responsibility here is centered in one library, which adds and modifies terminology on the basis of additions to its collections. Occasionally LC will seek advice in a formal way from another library or from an individual known to be an expert in a particular area. Users, generally librarians in the field, have been known to influence the substance and even the principles of LCSH through protest or milder forms of representation. The procedure for accommodating change other than that established within the Library of Congress, is almost totally unstructured. Yet the tremendous increase in reliance on this standard in recent decades has vested it with an importance far beyond its value for one collection (even though that collection is central to American library service).
Although there is no magic formula to offer as a means for maintaining and adapting bibliographic standards in our era of change, the tasks associated with this work deserve a substantial infusion of time, money, and attention. If this does not happen, the confusion I have so merrily advocated will be more than superficial.
Before leaving this fascinating topic, we should recognize that guidelines, standards, or criteria for excellence are lacking, or at best embryonic, for several important operations involved in library networking. Except for certain gross (in both a quantitative and pejorative sense) statistical measures, we have no generally accepted means of describing and comparing library collections and have only begun to formulate common ground rules for the expression of collection policies. Although there is a great deal of current interest in the subject, much remains to be done in the way of categorizing reference and research queries. And that effort is in a way only a preliminary step toward measuring user satisfaction with respect to such factors as (1) ease and convenience in the use of libraries and the obtaining of information, (2) adequacy--quantity, accuracy, intelligibility--of the information provided, and (3) speed of response time.
HARD, COLD CASH (WITH A LOOK AT NCLIS AND OTHER STRANGE CREATURES IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC JUNGLE)
The subject of money is usually approached with circumlocution by practitioners of witchcraft. Bills change hands discreetly, and earnings are rarely reported to the IRS. Price, Waterhouse, if you think about it, was never called in to perform an audit on the balance sheet of the Oracle at Delphi. Library networking, at this stage of development, bears more than a few resemblances to the art of necromancy. Incantations and spells--in the form of grant proposals, "old buddy" contacts, site visits, and invitational retreats--are proffered to the funding deities: the Council on Library Resources and the major private foundations, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other government agencies at various levels. Detailed accounting of expenditures is made, if at all, only to the source of funds, and public access to the ledgers is limited (at best) to a few lines of figures in an annual report.
More significantly, very little can be deduced from our present information concerning the relationship of networking costs to the benefits provided. As the value of information increases in our ever more complex society, and as the provision of information captures a larger share of available financial resources, the imperatives to account for and to justify expenditures will likewise increase.
We already face the difficulty in justifying the cost of our future information system relative to other competing societal needs such as the provision of health and public safety services and the maintenance of a formal educational system. The difficulty may be eased by an increased ability to identify the costs of providing library and information services. In part this will occur because the sources of funds will demand more precise accountability; the demand will be able to be satisfied because more of us in the information field will be trained to gather and to report cost data and because the machine (bless its little heart) will be able to provide such data with relative ease.
Let us examine some institutional responsibilities regarding money and power in the age of bibliographic networking. The major foundations, both public and private, should continue to support research and development activities. Some agency--and it would appear at this juncture that the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) is the best bet--should assume the role of monitoring R&D fund allocations as whole from two points of view, which are not now given sufficient attention. NCLIS, if indeed it is to carry out this role, should assess what research and experimentation is desirable in the field and should stimulate its inception and assist in endeavors to round up financial support. In a related fashion, NCLIS should serve as a monitoring and evaluative body which critically assesses what is and what is not happening in the context of achieving national goals. The result should be a conscious posture of stimulating needed development, or recommending change or cessation for badly functioning or unwarranted activities.
In order to be capable of this role, NCLIS needs to develop as a clearinghouse of information on plans, state of the art, and implementation of network-related operations. In this capacity it could serve as a central source for guidance and advice on such matters as (1) what technology might work best in a given situation, (2) what the likely sources of funds are for a particular project, and (3) whether a particular project or experiment can benefit from previous experience or currently operating systems which are similar.
NCLIS might well act in an advocacy role to counterbalance the now prevailing tendency in R&D disbursements: "Them that has, gets." For example, one of the topics which currently interests me a great deal is the projected closing of the catalogs of the Library of Congress, the adoption and implementation of AACR2, and the end of superimposition. The major research and large academic libraries in North America have been the arena for a fair amount of reflection on, grappling with, and even planning for the impact of these anticipated developments. There is little evidence, aside from occasional low moans and gnashing of teeth, of research or investigation of such impact on small public libraries, on school libraries, or on community college libraries. The closing of the LC catalogs and the related changes now seem to be slated for the end of the present decade, by which time it seems unlikely that all of the smaller school and public libraries will be included in regional or local networks capable of accommodating these rather major bibliographical changes. Are such libraries, from the point of view of national network planners, simply to be left dangling in the wind?
Attention to problems such as this one is now given by a number of agencies in addition to NCLIS: the Library of Congress, the National Library of Canada, the Council on Library Resources, and (with lesser efficacy) the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and trade associations. As a result there is a good deal of overlap, duplicative effort, lack of communication, erroneous communication, and more than a desirable level of confusion--to the point where it can no longer be characterized as "superficial." Furthermore, the functions of critical assessment and guidance within a framework of agreed-upon objectives are imperfectly performed.
Some clarification of roles, at least, is desirable here. If NCLIS or any other agency is to undertake effectively the functions outlined in this paper, it will require the services of an advisory body larger than the present commissioners, who should be considered as an inner council responsible for policy determination. The commission diligently sought the advice and opinion of many members of the library and information community in the development of its 1975 report. It needs to formalize in a continuing way relationships with people, either as individuals or as representatives of organizations, who can be called upon for preliminary reaction to policy proposals and for ongoing expression of grassroots needs.
These relationships should not be confined to occasional retreats along the lines of the Airlie House Conference or to periodic meetings such as the semiannual ARL seances, although these occasions may well be useful. Advisors to NCLIS could operate as referees on specific proposals or could be queried by mail and telephone in order to elicit articulations of problem areas and unmet needs.
Some potential candidates might be found within the structure of organized bodies: the Council of the American Library Association; the governing body of the Information Industry Association; the members of ARL; the Council of the American Society for Information Science. If some or all of these were to be utilized as advisors in fashioning and maintaining our bibliographic system, I would recommend an additional leavening from less organized segments of the information community in order to balance the "Establishment" orientation of the above named groups.
The financial aspects of library networking pose some major problems. It will not be a simple task to devise budgeting/costing/accounting systems that will (a) channel funds productively, (b) attribute costs equitably, and (c) function so as to impose minimal data collection and reporting burdens on the participants.
In a mixed economic system where private, quasi-public, and public agencies are all active, sometimes in multiple roles as producers, jobbers, or vendors, and users of information sources and adjunct services, pricing decisions tend to be made very much on an ad hoc basis. Some policy guidelines with regard to pricing might be considered.
Governmental policy, at all levels, should be based on the principle that information is to be made widely available, as opposed to the controlling principle of cost return. As an extension of this policy, if governmental subsidization or privilege is granted to a private firm to enable it to develop a service or resource, there should be a legal obligation to extend this resource or service widely, with appropriate constraints on pricing. It should be acknowledged that private firms, while capable of making valuable contributions to the totality of information services, are risk-based enterprises. They may fail, and, as a general rule, operations within the private sector should not be supported by public funds merely to perpetuate an existing firm.
THE PRIVATE SECTOR; OR, ADAM SMITH RISES AGAIN
We have heard increasing concern expressed in recent years about the role of the private sector in the information field. A good deal of this concern, of course, comes from those associated with the private sector and often comes close to constituting a plea for governmental protection against the rigors of the (supposedly) free market. I would heartily agree that commercial organizations, both as manufacturers and as service enterprises, can be highly beneficial in helping achieve the objectives associated with improved library operations and information delivery. Private firms act in part to supplement foundation and government funds in that they provide less risk capital, in many cases attempting to fill lacunae in the existing bibliographic web. We have known some outstanding successes, from the H. W. Wilson Company on down to some of the newer indexing and abstracting organizations. We need to understand clearly the implications of private sector participation in bibliographic networking. Private firms may falter or even fail, and their services or products as a consequence may change or may no longer be available. It is impossible to avoid dependency to a greater or lesser degree on commercially available products and services; it may be extremely advisable to conceive some alternatives for emergencies. Two fairly major fiscal earthquakes have occurred in the past few years, to wit, the Richard Abel Company and BIBNET; and the hardware and software situation with regard to Sigma computers has been of some concern to those associated with the Ohio College Library Center. The frequency of this sort of event should induce the realization that we are more likely than not to be affected by this type of change. As our libraries and network center and bibliographic data utilities become more interdependent, the consequences will tend to become more significant.
A BAS GENTILITY
The results of R&D allocations should be scrutinized with greater care than is now the case and should be disseminated more widely. One of the quite legitimate functions of funded experiments is that of failure: the opportunity to test provocative concepts and, sometimes, to fail in contexts where failure is not disaster. This concept is probably understood, at least in an abstract way, by those responsible for funding decisions. What seems to be less clear is the imperative to learn from instances of nonsuccess. As far as I observe most of the specific mistakes that have occurred in library networking history are the subjects for brilliant analysis and dissection--in the corridors and restaurants and bars at library institutes and conferences. With quite limited knowledge of the continental scene, I am aware of several cooperative schemes that have progressed to various stages of realization and either (a) self-destructed with as few shock waves as possible, (b) retreated to considerably more modest goals than were announced with trumpets and flourishes at the onset, or (c) regrouped with changed intentions, organization, and (perhaps most importantly) changed personnel.
To take one example close to home, the history of the attempts during the past fifteen years to fashion the libraries of the nine campuses of the University of California into a system would make a fascinating and instructive study. Although our technological situation today is vastly different from that of the sixties, the fundamental mistakes that were made during this period--and there were mistakes--should not be attributed to imperfect knowledge of technological capabilities. The basic errors lay in the organizational structure for decision-making, which was ill-adapted to receive and interpret pertinent information; in the widely varying and incomplete formulations of systemwide goals and objectives; in the assumption of unity of purpose when in fact this was not the case; and in the lack of organizational capacity at all levels to adjust to rapid changes in the economic, political, and technological scenes. The familiar Santayana precept on history finds concrete application in this and a few other recent networking experiences; past experiences require documentation and historical analysis if we are to profit from them.
GET OUT THERE AND PUSH
The above comments have been intended as cautionary remarks and exhortations, not as a catalog of horrors complete with eye of newt and toe of frog. The present reality and the prospect of cooperative library and information activities must be enormously stimulating to anyone whose career is associated with this field. With this in mind I would like to close with a final set of admonitions. One further effect of the phrase "the national bibliographic network" which I have not previously mentioned is that of distorting perspective. Too often it seems that "the system" is overpoweringly enormous and frighteningly complex, that a corps of unnamed and unknown network planners in Washington, Ottawa, Columbus, Chicago, and selected other strategic sites are fiendishly at work deciding our bibliographic future, just as the gnomes of Zurich have been accused of determining our economic fate. Nonsense! The cast of characters (and there are a few characters!) is comprised principally of librarians you all know and love. Moreover, at this stage especially, influence and infiltration by those of us in the boondocks is not only a possibility but a positive obligation. The success or failure of cooperative activities lies in the long run with the people who actually deliver information services to users, just as a democratic society depends upon participation of the citizenry. The people who are active in one segment or another of bibliographic networking need the advice, the opinions, and the expertise of their colleagues who work with bibliographic tools and systems in order to deliver information. The future belongs to you.
REFERENCES
1. J. C. R. Licklider, Libraries of the Future (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Pr., 1965). 2. Ibid., 34-35. 3. Lucia Rather, "Getting It All Together: International Cataloging Cooperation and Networks," Journal of Library Automation 10 (June 1977): 163-69. 4. Stephen M. Silberstein, "Standards in a National Bibliographic Network," Journal of Library Automation 10 (June 1977): 142-53.
Copyright American Library Association Mar 1993