TURNKEY SYSTEMS MARKET PLACE: A SNAPSHOT OF CUSTOMERS, PRODUCTS AND TRENDS Available to Purchase

Three years ago, in VINE 54, there was a review of the trends in library automation over the three years prior to that. Now with our grant renewed for a further three years, it seems appropriate to repeat the exercise and to look in brief at the turnkey systems market place and at how that has changed over the three years. One major difference is that now there are additional sources where some of the information is contained at least in part. These are the directory “Library systems: a buyer's guide” by Juliet Leeves, the State of the art report into the applications of new information technologies, and surveys such as those conducted by Chris Batt for public libraries and by Kevin Ellard for COPOL on polytechnics in England and Wales. I have concentrated on the turnkey market for stand‐alone integrated library systems since these have been the dominant factor. Whether they will remain so is open to debate: other factors such as new developments in inhouse systems, as interfacing systems from different vendors, not to mention the crucial area of networks, are bound to be influential in the future.