Editorial
This is the second issue of a special volume to celebrate 40 years of Program: electronic library and information systems. The previous issue of this volume (Vol. 40 No. 1) included a “facsimile” of the first issue of Program – published with the subheading News of computers in British university libraries as well as history of the journal and an analysis of the content published over the 40 years (Tedd, 2006). Another paper from an early issue (No. 2) has been selected for reprint in this issue. This paper, by Maurice Line, the Deputy Librarian at Newcastle University Library describes the automation of acquisitions records. Acquisitions is one of the key“housekeeping” activities performed in libraries along with cataloguing, circulation control and serials control and was an obvious activity which could benefit from computerisation in the early days. These early systems,as described by Line, relied on local programmers writing code for a local application. This is very different from the situation today, as evidenced by a paper from the University of Botswana Library in the last volume (Nfila et al., 2005), with libraries all over the world using library management systems developed in an open and standard manner and which support a range of languages and scripts. Back in 1966 life in Newcastle libraries was very different. Members of the North-east Division of the Association of Assistant Librarians, aware that computers could well have an impact on their jobs,organised for a series of six lectures to be held under the auspices of the University of Newcastle’s Department of Adult Education. The programmers involved in the acquisitions project described in Line’s paper gave these lectures. Line recognised the importance of publishing the content of these lectures even though the technology of the time developing fast. The resulting book was edited by Line, indexed by his wife, and was entitled The Computer and the Library (Cox et al., 1966). I personally found this to be a very valuable source of information when I was first asked to run a course(which I called The Library and the Computer!) at the 1973 International Graduate Summer School on Librarianship in Aberystwyth.
There was a special issue of Interlending & Document Supply in 2005 celebrating Maurice Line’s lifetime in librarianship which, inter alia, contained the following in a paper by Line (2005):
It is hard to overstate the impact of automation, together with telecommunications, on libraries over the last 40 years. Automation has had a major impact on almost every industry, trade and profession, but in most cases by affecting the way things are done. In our case, and that of publishers,automation has had and is having a more fundamental effect. It has not only led to changes in bibliographic control and access, including of course catalogues,and the issuing of books for loan, but also made possible or easier new activities and services.
Line has expanded on these thoughts in a paper he has kindly contributed for this issue. This is complemented by a paper, by Kumi and Morrow who both work currently at Newcastle University Library, which describes a methodology for improving the performance of the self-issue terminals used for circulation control. The rest of this issue then continues in the “normal” format with four refereed papers and six reviews. Enjoy!
Lucy A. Tedd
