Prestel and public libraries: an LA/ Aslib experiment

From time to time in the information and library world, something comes along in the way of a new idea or a new piece of technology which we feel is likely to have a significant effect on the way we do things in our professional lives. During the last fifteen years or so, the new developments have included post‐coordinate indexing systems, electrostatic copiers, the use of computers in batch mode, citation indexing, computer typesetting, on‐line search of remotely‐stored data bases, the growth of networks, The National Lending Library at Boston Spa, routine use of microforms, the British Library, and so on. There are usually a few new things either just on the scene or lurking below the horizon, like microprocessors, word processing equipment, Public Lending Right, possible new copyright legislation, the European Patents Office and possibly Euronet, which cause us to worry, perhaps, or to want to find out more about them. Finding out about any of these things, though, hasn't been too much of a problem, because we have been able to do a conventional literature search through the scholarly and professional journals, or through Government publications, and get by these means a pretty good idea of what has been going on. What I am going to talk about tonight though, Prestel, isn't really like that at all. For one thing, most of the publication about it has been in the popular press, in the shape of new announcements and press releases, with very little in the conventional journals (apart from one or two papers in the electronics and electrical press). For another thing, it seems to have come upon us relatively rapidly, even though, paradoxically, its promised public advent has been beset by a variety of delays. Then too, whereas other technological advances have appeared in different areas of human activity and have gradually infiltrated into the information and library world, here we have a radically new type of information supplying service which suddenly appears more or less full‐grown in our world from a possibly unexpected quarter. And, of course, the creature changed its name from Viewdata to Prestel not very long ago, which has not greatly helped our confusion.