Moving from locally written systems to turnkey systems: The story of automation at Brunel University Library

Computers have been used at Brunel University Library for acquisitions and circulation since the early 1970s. Over the years there has been a move away from locally written systems running at the university's computer centre to stand‐alone turnkey systems in the library. This has involved the transfer of the ALS card‐based system to BLCMP's CIRCO system. The implementation of BLCMP's Integrated Library System (BLS) is also described with special reference to the replacement of a card catalogue by an Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) developed from the short title file of an early circulation system.