AUTOMATION, CO‐OPERATION AND CO‐ORDINATION

Networks as a tangible prospect are matched by resource sharing as a topic of current interest in librarianship. Organisational developments have emerged and attention has been paid to these over several years. In North America the debate has been serious and systematic as outlined in representative papers at the Aslib Conference of September 1977. The development and aims of the UNISIST and NATIS programmes of Unesco indicate considerable international commitment to the two “imagos” of progress. The two concepts are not independent and are particularly intertwined when automation is drawn in for synthesis. Other technologies—microforms, photocopying, near‐print processes, AV equipment, compact shelving and telex—are also playing a part in modern developments in librarianship and some have roles in network activities. The computer however, introduces a particularly dynamic inducement to large‐scale changes in the way of comprehensive and co‐ordinated information policy. Stevens points this up with a definition of a library network as “a formal organization of three or more autonomous organizations inter‐connected to achieve their common purposes through the joint use of communications and computer technology”. Of the common purposes which individual libraries and consortia alike aim to pursue access to information and materials is crucial and automation of bibliographic services should be the means of achieving it most directly.