Editorial

This issue of Library Computing has come together quite well (almost as if the Editor had planned it that way from the beginning). It contains a fine collection of articles by a number of skilled information professionals, who also happen to be able to write well. I think you're really going to like this one...

These pages present detailed views of the power afforded by our new desktop computing and software environments, in the specific areas of library and information operations. Like the explosion of "new ideas" so evident on the Web, this new professional playing field is resulting in a major extension of traditional information operations. What struck me while reading this issue's editorial package was the crystal-clear demonstration of how the new age of computing power has expanded the ideas and the abilities of the individual professional.

I'm talking here about the new, previously non-existent, ability of individuals to create and add value to major information products. This has been made possible by the serendipity of the unbelievable computing horsepower now available at low cost, by the evolution of software tools, and by the proliferation and combination of data/information standards like MARC, HTML, XML, ODBC, and CGI. Oh, yes, and lots of talent, too.

We're seeing a flowering of complex information service applications being created by individual professionals and small teams. This is the kind of stuff that used to take an army of programmers and analysts plus a king's ransom of software investment money. For example, in the mainstream information services marketplace, consider Yahoo! and Savvy and Google. The overnight "one-off" production of these kinds of services with this kind of horsepower illustrates a major sea change in software technology operations. It used to take millions of dollars of investment and the construction of pyramid-like monuments of millions of lines of Fortran code to do this. Don't you remember those archaeological "remote access" sites dedicated to the early information gods like v1.n of Dialog and Lexis?

Some of what's lying in wait here for the unsuspecting reader ...

* Doctoral student Rich Gazan, UCLA Department of Information Studies, offers his take on the promise of XML in our new information environment. He highlights the potential development of XML, platform-- independence, information product customization, as well as the combination of standards and mainstream software package power.

* Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University, offers an extensive explanation/tutorial on the use of ODBC in customizing Inmagic database information for Web presentation. Maybe a bit technical, but he's showing here how we can customize production software to "do what we want it to do." And it doesn't seem all that difficult, somehow, the way that Marshall presents it.

* Lee Jaffe shares the University of California, Santa Cruz experience using low-end tools like a secondhand Mac, Filemaker, and Lasso to build a powerful database utility for multiple library-hosted databases. The database setup model was successful to the point of super-proliferation of databases and services, for both internal library and campus-wide purposes.

* Bearing out Gazan's predictions about XML application, Paul Yachnes, Newspaper Association of America, describes his successful harnessing of XML in creating an effective, standards-compliant Web OPAC for his operation.

* Stephen Osborne writes about DEXTR, a useful data conversion software tool, with high potential for information professionals. Again, the conversion and translation abilities can be immensely leveraged by using them in concert with library and computing standards.

* Library cataloguing service vendor Mac Elrod presents his thoughts about how the power of desktops and the current generation of software is making it possible, nay, advantageous, for smaller libraries to move their bibliographic production operations in-house. (Some may view this as near heresy, the very idea of cutting the library lifeline to the bibliographic utilities.)

* Gunter Muhlberger reports on the European LAURIN project implementation. This is a major cooperative development effort, which has made the digitization of news clipping archives and remote access to those resources into a cost-- effective reality. ... and more.

We're seeing here the power of individual and professional imagination and effort, multiplied by the power of commercial applications and data/information standards. And in regard to Elrod's comments, please do remember, the economies of skilled and technical support staff times really were the original reason for the library profession to move to the utilities in the first place. Data/resource-sharing is still very possible, despite forgoing the production operations. And if the cost-savings can't justify continuing this, well ...

It strikes me that not many of these articles bear any resemblance to the chapter and verse that I learned in library school. But I admit that the challenge and creativity and fun of information work which originally attracted me has remained the same. As does the point or object of our whole activity. In the words of my systems analysis instructor, "What are we trying to do here, anyhow?" That's comforting. Things change, but they remain the same.