Automation Activities in British University Libraries: a Survey

Abstract

This report presents the results of a survey of UK university libraries carried out in October/November 1970 by the Aslib Computer Applications Group on behalf of Aslib, SCONUL, and the National Libraries ADP Study. Questionnaire response was obtained from 61 libraries, and the survey may be regarded as having effectively complete coverage of all UK university libraries with computer applications. The broad picture presented is of widespread mechanisation of the housekeeping rather than the information retrieval type. Over 60% of libraries had one or more applications; over 60% of all applications were in the cataloguing area, as distinct from the areas of acquisition, circulation and miscellaneous applications. Five libraries plan to have a fairly comprehensive range of applications by 1972. The amount of effort going into library automation is formidable, equivalent to the effort of (very approximately) 50 full‐time persons divided roughly equally between library staff and system analysts/programmers. This is only UK university library effort: a fraction of total UK library automation effort. This raises the question of the degree of communication, cooperation and coordination between projects, and it is noted that really significant cooperation tends to take place only with central encouragement and support. It is concluded that the speed of growth of the exchange and use of machine readable bibliographic records will be proportional to the amount of support and initiative provided by central organisations such as the British Library.

The Use of Computers in British Libraries and Information Services: an Analysis

“…The UK has some 100 university libraries (3) and 500 public libraries (4). Comparison of Appendix 1 and the results of former Aslib (5) and LAMSAC (6) surveys gives an indication of the speed of introduction of mechanization Program Vol. 8 no 4 in UK university and public libraries.…”