State of the Art Survey of Reference Materials of Australia and New Zealand Available to Purchase

The state of the reference‐arts in this part of the world is such that at the moment little of universal interest can be reported. Though there is a growing awareness of existing computer‐based reference services, no indigenous service has so far been designed. However, the National Library of Australia and several of the larger universities and industries have made arrangements for on‐line links with BIOSIS, ERIC, MED‐LARS and many other systems. Extensive plans for an Australian Library Based Information System (ALBIS) have been nipped in the bud by the changing fortunes of politics and economics. Until the National Library has secured a larger slice of the national budget, progress in computer‐based reference services can only be slow.