In the Beginning...: A historical glimpse into library automation
American Libraries, 38 (6):
52-53 (Juni 2007)Zusammenfassung
The writer reflects on his recent experience of browsing old books and journal articles on library automation. He was struck by how much of the commentary in the material could be applied to the current state of library automation and by how short-lived so much of the technology now seems.; TXT: AUTHOR: Andrew K. Pace TITLE: In the Beginning... SOURCE: American Libraries 38 no6 52-3 Je/Jl 2007 COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.ala.org/ Harry S. Truman said, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." With blogs, instant messaging, and about five too many 24-hour news channels, the gap between news and history seems to be getting smaller and smaller (to say nothing of the quality of 'the news'). So I rejoiced at the notion that this month's theme was a centennial celebration of the history of American Libraries. Finally, I could write about old technology news without fear of instant staleness. I went into the stacks of D. H. Hill Library at North Carolina State University to get some of those things the kids are calling "books on paper." The shelves are alive with the history of library automation. And while I got called out by a reader a few months ago for marking 1936 as the dawn of library automation ('what about the automobile?'), I still won't try to backdate my current definition of library automation to precede punch cards in order to include beauties like the first bookmobile and the electric eraser. I love those old volumes of the Journal of Library Automation (JLA), precursor to Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL), the scholarly publication of ALA's Library and Information Technology Association. The forefathers of library automation (sorry, they seem to have been all men in that first issue) were there for the 1968 inaugural issue--Ned Morris, Richard Johnson, Robert Wedge worth, Richard Chapin, Dale Pretzer, and, one of my absolute favorites, Richard De Gennaro. They wrote about Texas A&I's acquisitions system, Stanford's book catalog, Brown's fund-accounting system, machine-readable shelf lists, and the nascent history of library automation. Frederick G. Kilgour served as editor. Fast forward For the September 2006 issue of ITAL, I had the good fortune to coauthor a 4 0th-anniversary article with my colleagues Kristin Antelman and Emily Lynema. "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog" is about NCSU's new book catalog, a story that begins with the early history like that discussed by De Gennaro 40 years prior. My point is not to suggest that my colleagues and I are now on some sort of path to greatness because we got an article published in ITAL. It is that we are on the same path that was first trod over half a century ago. As I browsed the pages of JLAI ITAL and half a dozen books from a quarter-century ago, I was struck by how easily I could take a lot of the quotes out of context and apply them to the state of library automation in 2007. I was equally struck by how fleeting so much of the technology now seems. I could not help but wonder about the fate of Flickr, Second Life, about a dozen or so current members of the library-niche market, and yes, even Google. What will we say of them in another quarter-century? Vendors were there, too In 1968, Input Services was converting library catalog cards to magnetic tape with an optical page scanner. Herner and Company promised consulting services for Information Systems and Programs that were not "wedded to any single system or line of hardware." By 1977, the library knowledge base was growing. F. W. Faxon (whose buyout by RoweCom became infamous when the latter went bust, leaving many subscription orders unfulfilled) (AL, Feb. 2003, p. 13) was offering customers a journal price-history database called SCOPE. In 1977, only a handful of years after 1968's Input Services promised conversion of library cards to magnetic tape "in your library's format," Library Interface Systems was converting those records to LC MARC II, greatly reducing staff time. That same year, CLSI introduced the LIBS 100 Browsing Terminal with ä touch-sensitive screen that allows library patrons to retrieve bibliographic information from the online catalog with a touch of the finger." Thirty years ago, automating the library was a different kind of uphill battle. "Some persons have suggested that automation, while it may serve the needs of the industrial worker, will not serve the needs of the librarian since it tends to make him a servant to the machine," suggested prolific information-science author Frank S. Patrinostro in the 1973 Proceedings of the LARC Institute on Automation of Libraries in School Systems (Library Automation Research and Consulting, an association extant from 1969 to 1974). The Library of Congress published the MARC Pilot Project in 1968, the same year as that first issue of JLA. That legacy is still with us, a part of our history not so easily shaken off. In 2057 or 2107, what will be this generation's milestone equivalent of the MARC record? Will any of the vendors we know today still be around when so few from the late 1960s and early 1970s survive today? ADDED MATERIAL ANDREW K. PACE is head of information technology at North Carolina State University Libraries in Raleigh. Send news to andrewpace@ncsu.edu.
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