Counterpoint: systems in a social context — report on the Library Association Information Technology Group's Fourth Annual Conference Available to Purchase

Bob McKee, OCLC Principal Lecturer in the Department of Librarianship and Information Studies at Birmingham Polytechnic, got the conference off to a flying start with a lively paper on ‘Systems astigmatism’. He warned of the dangers of ‘technofervour’ — where the technology itself becomes the predominant consideration rather than its appropriate application. He urged a re‐think of the term to describe library users, ‘user’ suggests someone without expectations, grateful for anything we can provide and ‘client’ suggests dependency, whereas ‘customer’ or ‘consumer’ suggests someone with rights to expect a good and professional service.