College and Research Libraries


Electronic Information 
and Technology: 

Impact and Potential 
for Academic Libraries 

Dilys E. Morris 
This article discusses the impact of technology and the economics of information on academic 
libraries. It calls on libraries to forge a renewed national commitment to cooperate in the build-
ing of a national information network for scholarly communications that is based on the exist-
ing bibliographic utilities and the developing academic networks. 

or centuries the power of infor-
mation has been understood, 
and great efforts have gone into 
controlling it. But with the 

spread of education and literacy in the 
Western world during the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries, the control of infor-
mation and ideas has become more diffi-
cult. While experts disagree on the date, 
sometime during the last half-century 
computers and telecommunications be-
gan to converge to produce an informa-
tion society which, according to Harlan 
Cleveland, is transforming not only our 
personal lives but also our national politics 
and our international relations. Com-
puters have enorm<?usly increased hu-
manity's power to think and analyze, and 
the telecommunications revolution allows 
the new knowledge being produced to 
spread at nearly the speed of light to any-
where in the world. As the amount of in-
formation has grown, more and more peo-
ple have come to work with it-to 
produce, organize, distribute, use, study, 
control, and sell it-and whole new indus-
tries have grown up around it. In most ar-
eas decision making has become cqnsider-

ably more participatory because the 
volume of information available on almost 
any subject can no longer be digested and 
understood by the limited number of indi-
viduals who once made decisions. 

While more information is available to 
greater numbers of consumers, and the 
spread of microcomputers in homes, of-
fices, and laboratories makes access more 
widespread, there are forces working to 
limit access to information in electronic 
formats. Governments have traditionally 
classified information critical to national 
defense, but recently, however, the 
Reagan administration attempted to con-
trol access to unclassified but "sensitive" 
government information in both govern-
ment and private databases through exec-
utive branch directives. 

As a consequence of strong criticism 
aired during congressional hearings by 
witnesses both inside and outside of 
government-including librarians-one 
directive has been rescinded, and it ap-
pears that the other will be stopped 
through legislation. 1 At the same time, in-
dustries attempt to control information in 
order to secure their competitive positions 

Dilys E. Morris is Assistant Director, Technical Seroices, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-2140. 

56 



Electronic Information and Technology 57 

and to make money. Libraries, in a very 
limited fashion, are trying to make elec-
tronic information available to their users, 
but most charge fees to do so. Michael 
Nelson documents ''a djsturbing upward 
trend in the prices imposed by database 
producers and vendors. In the face of de-
clining hardware and storage costs, prices 
for printing, displaying, or downloading 
online records are gradually reaching lev-
els that inhibit their effective use as com-
prehensive information sources.'' 2 These 
are all serious issues for librarians, but 
greater public attention is needed if we 
hope to help influence the availability of 
information in our society. 

ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION 

According to Peter Drucker, informa-
tion is now our crucial resource, but its in-
herent characteristics are different from 
those of natural and manmade physical 
resources. Harlan Cleveland defines the 

· differences as follows: 

1. Infonnation is expandable . . . information 
expands as it is used. Whole industries have 
grown up to exploit this characteristic of infor-
mation: scientific research, technology trans-
fer, computer software ... , and agencies for 
publishing, advertising, public relations, and 
government propaganda to spread the word 
(and thus enhance the word's value). 

2. Infonnation is not resource-hungry. Com-
pared to the steel-and,.automobile economy, 
the production and distribution of information 
are remarkably sparing in their requirements 
for energy and other physical and biological re-
sources. Investments, pricing policies, and 
power relationships that assume the more de-
veloped countries will gobble up dispropor-
tionate shares of real resources are overdue for 
wholesale revision. 

3. Information is substitutable. Information 
can, and increasingly does, replace capital, la-
bor, and physical materials. Robotics and auto-
mation in factories and offices are displacing 
workers and thus requiring a transformation of 
the labor force. Any machine that can be ac-
cessed by computerized telecommunications 
doesn't have to be in your own inventory .... 

4. Information is transportable. Words and 
numbers can be transmitted at close to the 
speed of light. As a result, remoteness is now 
more a matter of choice than geography. You 
can sit in Auckland, New Zealand, and play the 
New York stock markets in real time-if you 

don't mind keeping slightly peculiar hours. 
And the same is true, without the big gap in 
time zones, of people in any rural hamlet in the 
United States. In the world of information-
richness, you will be able to be remote if you 
want to, but you'll have to work at it. 

5. Infonnation is diffusive. Information tends 
to leak-and the more it leaks the more we 
have. It is not the inherent tendency of nattiral 
resources to leak. Jewels may be stolen; a lump 
or two of coal may fall off the railroad car on its 
way from Montana; there is an occasional spill-
age of oil in the ocean. The leakage of informa-
tion, however, is wholesale, pervasive, and 
continuous. In the era of the institutional leak, 
monopolizing information is very nearly a con-
tradiction in terms; that can be done only in 
more and more specialized fields, for shorter 
and shorter periods of time. 

6. Infonnation is shareable. Shortly before his 
death, the great British communications theo-
rist Colin Cherry wrote that information by na-
ture cannot give rise to exchange transactions, 
only to sharing transactions. Things are ex-
changed: if I give you a flower or sell you my 
automobile, you have it and I don't. But if I sell 
you an idea or give you a fact, we both have it. 3 

Because information may be our crucial 
resource and because its characteristics 
are different, Cleveland maintains that the 
way our society has traditionally con-
trolled resources will not work for infor-
mation. We will find that the institutions 
and systems developed for a civilization 
based on industrial production are inade-
quate for the information society. He be-
lieves that the information age is creating a 
new opportunity for a better society as dis-
crimination and unfairness crumble ''be-
cause the old means of control are of dwin-
dling efficacy, secrets are harder and 
harder to keep, and ownership, early ar-
rival [to valuable resources], and geogra-
phy are of dwindling significance in get-
ting access to the knowledge and wisdom 
which are the really valuable legal tender 
of our time. ''4 Yet viewed from a different 
perspective, the democratization of infor-
mation, in which libraries have played an 
important role, is at risk. Both the private 
and governmental sectors, for new and 
differing reasons, impede the free flow of 
information. In this pivotal environment, 
where access to information could im-
prove or denigrate, the civic role of librari-
ans grows increasingly important, and we 



58 College & Research Libraries 

must continue to strengthen and uphold 
it. The changes caused by the "informati-
zation'' of society will greatly impact li-
braries, and we should take an active role 
in shaping the future. 

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY 

The adoption of technology by society is 
generally divided into three stages. In the 
first, we continue to do familiar and tradi-
tional things we have always done, but we 
do them better and faster. In other words, 
we mechanize. During the second stage, 
the tasks themselves change because tech-
nology has revised what we do, and 
things are done that were never done be-
fore. Finally, in the last stage, technology 
causes our society itself to change, and 
fundamental changes in life-styles and in-
stitutions occur. This transformation is 
clearly illustrated by the invention of the 
internal combustion engine and the enor-
mous changes the development of the au-
tomobile caused in our society. 

While there is a subtle continuum in the 
adoption of technology, most libraries are 
experiencing the first phase of technologi-
cal change as they automate circulation, 
acquisitions, card catalog production, and 
serials control. We have not changed what 
we do for the most part; instead we have 
simply improved the way we do it 
through mechanization. Now that we are 
entering the second phase, we begin to 
think about what we do rather than just 
how we do it. The online catalog with its 
enhanced keyword and Boolean access al-
lows retrieval never before possible. Data-
base search services are moving reference 
librarians into stage two as they perform 
tasks very different from traditional du-
ties. As we progress through this phase, 
there will be many more significant 
changes in the services libraries offer, how 
libraries are organized to provide these 
services, and how they interrelate with 
other institutions. 

Rowland C. W. Brown, president and 
CEO of OCLC,. predicts that the opportu-
nity to improve and change services radi-
cally will become more viable because the 
technological advances being made now 
are in areas important to library develop-
ment. Developing technology is divided 

January 1989 

into three categories or abilities: (1) to pro-
cess and compute data, (2) to store data, 
and (3) to retrieve, communicate, andre-
produce data. Until fairly recently most of 
the advances were in the first category, 
processing power. For libraries to make 
real changes, improvements in storage 
and communication technologies are 
needed. These advances are occurring 
now but unfortunately, software still lags 
significantly behind hardware, and the 
full potential for improvement is many 
years away. Because new technologies of-
ten go beyond our range of experiences, 
we tend to overestimate what will happen 
in the next five years and underestimate 
longer-range possibilities. We are also 
constrained by institutional barriers and 
inadequate financial resources. 5 

''The use of BITNET and the pro-
posed expansion of NSF net for schol-
arly communication illustrate how 
scholars are changing their work, 
study, and research habits." 

CHANGING SCHOLARLY 
COMMUNICATIONS 

Most libraries are marginally involved in 
the use of electronic information through 
online database searching and the newer 
CD-ROM databases. While the sale of 
commercially available information in 
electronic format is growing rapidly, li-
braries represent only a small percentage 
of these sales. At the same time, networks 
for the exchange and distribution of non-
commercially available information are in-
creasing in the private and public sectors. 
The National Science Foundation's new 
networking program, NSFnet, was 
planned for high-speed access to super-
computers. 

In the second phase it will be expanded 
to a communications network for the na-
tion's research scientists and engineers. 6 

BITNET, the interuniversity communica-
tions network, is open to any college or 
university for scholarly and administra-
tive communications, and is also used to 
exchange manuscripts with publishers 



Electronic Information and Technology 59 

and scholarly materials between col-
leagues. Funding has been secured from 
NSF for a prototype experiment _to con-
nect BITNET with NSFnet. This connec-
tion would give BITNET members full ac-
cess to the computers in the planned 
NSFnet.

7 

The use of BITNET and the proposed ex-
pansion of NSFnet for scholarly commun-
ication illustrate how scholars are chang-
ing their work, study, and research habits 
as they become more computer-literate 
and as more personal computers become 
available for use. It appears that unless li-
braries increase their use of telecommuni-
cations technology and services, scholars 
will seek other agencies to meet their 
needs. Testifying before a congressional 
hearing on access to electronic databases, 
Robert L. Parks, director of the Office of 
Public Affairs of the American Physical 
Society, said, 
We a_re fast approaching the day when elec-
tronic databases will largely supplant conven-
tional libraries as the repository of scientific and 
technical information and will become the pre-
ferred means ~ which scientists communicate 
their findings. 

In a recent article, Clifford Lynch and 
Edwin Brownrigg, former director of the 
Division of Library Automation at the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley, predicted 
that 

if libraries are to survive as viable services, they 
must not only understand current computing 
and telecommunications technologies, but they 
must develop and execute effective plans to im-
plement these technologies .... We would 
suggest that the place to start is with the devel-
opment of effective library computer and tele-
communications networks and their integra-
tion [into] existing national networks. 9 

EXPANDING ELECTRONIC 
INFORMATION 

Although publishing economics is 
driven by print products, the growing use 
of electronic information may eventually 
-shift the balance. The economic reliance 
on printed indexes to subsidize electronic 
delivery is changing for Chemical Abstracts. 
According to Harry Boyle, 

We are now in the mode where printed product 
revenue is declining despite price increases on 

the printed product. The revenue base for the 
printed product is shrinking. The revenue base 
for the electronic product is growing. Fifteen 
years ago the printed product was paying the 
bills. In the next five years, the electronic form 
of the product will be the dominant way that 
the database is used and the printed will be-
come secondary. We are rapidly approaching 
the point where the electronic use of the prod-
uct is in fact generating a lot of the revenue 
needed to build the database, and the printed 
product is becoming the secondary concern. I 
don't think we will stop the printed product. 
But if you look at the economics inside the com-
pany, you'll know that electronic use is paying 
the bills and it is subsidizing the printed prod-
uct which is an exact reverse of what we saw 15 
years ago. So, we're in a transition mode. 10 

The Europe-based ADONIS project, de-
signed to give access to biomedical journal 
articles and the associated indexing 
through CD-ROM technology, is func-
tioning in a test mode. Developers are ex-
ploring the feasibility of publishers sup-
plying their journals in machine-readable 
form to document delivery centers that 
print articles on demand. The objectives of 
the project, a study of the impact of this 
service on library users, are to provide in-
sight into information repackaging, im-
plementation of digital technology, and 
the economics of electronic publishing. 11 

OCLC has expanded into Europe and 
the Far East. It is working towards deliv-
ery of information to users, not just biblio-
graphic citations to librarians. To this end, 
OCLC is designing a full subject/reference 
search system for the OCLC database, 
planning to use this searching software to 
access separate research databases 
through an intelligent gateway. With the 
improvement in facsimile devices and 
telecommunications, OCLC sees the pos-
sibility of not only searching and locating 
data but also transmitting text to the user. 

OCLC is currently experimenting with 
EIDOS, which provides for browsing and 
electronic delivery of selected portions of 
monographic texts. Research has shown 
that readers only consult certain types of 
nonfiction books for specific information. 
Although they check indexes and review 
the table of contents, they do not read the 
entire monograph. OCLC might store the 
text of such monographs in its central 



60 College & Research Libraries 

database and load the indexes and tables 
of content in a library's online catalog. Us-
ers would search indexes online and then 
request appropriate portions of the text 
from OCLC by telecommunications.

12 

Graph-Text is an OCLC electronic journal 
development project developed with the 
American Chemical Society and Chemical 
Abstracts. It stores the full text and graph-
ics of articles on CD-ROM, using a power-
ful search engine that allows full-text 
searching and reviewing of searches and a 
laser printer to print the results. 13 

The distribution of government docu-
ments in electronic format (Depository Li-
brary System) is still uncertain, but OCLC 
may play a role in transmitting this infor-
mation to libraries. Current discussions 
point toward a layered network in which 
OCLC, other nonprofit networks, and re-
source libraries with the computer capa-
bility to handle a variety of electronic for-
mats would become the conduits for 
government publications. 

BRS/Onsite, which makes databases 
available locally for a fixed price, includes 
national bibliographic databases loaded in 
the BRS format, search and retrieval soft-
ware, a gateway to the BRS online service, 
and support. Experimentation has begun 
in loading these national bibliographic 
databases on local computers and extend-
ing access universitywide. Georgia Insti-
tute of Technology implemented its Li-
brary 2000 system in November 1986. It 
provides access to books, documents, and 
four periodical databases. Students and 
faculty have remote, free access to any of 
the databases mounted on the univer-
sity's mainframe computers. 

14 

INFORMATION DELIVERY 
AND NEW LIBRARY ROLES 

Most libraries focus on access to material 
that they own. Surely this focus must 
change as more current information be-
comes available in electronic databases 
that are used but not owned. We will need 
to think more about providing informa-
tion to users rather than directing them to 
packages of information (books, journals, 
etc.). 

As technology multiplies the available 
information, there will be a greater need 
for access, interpretation, and brokering. 

January 1989 

Librarians are well situated to perform this 
role, but it will require considerably in-
creased information skills and more staff-
ing. In a recent editorial in Change, Frank 
Newman, president of the Education 
Commission of the States, discussed the 
traditional purpose of the academic 
library-to acquire and loan material to 
scholars. He concluded that this approach 
will no longer serve us well because of the 
developments in telecommunications and 
computer applications: "Perhaps we have 
already reached the point where the cen-
tral purpose of the library, rather than ac-
quisition of materials for loan to scholars, 
will be the connection of the scholar to dif-
ferent forms of information located in 
widely diverse places. The major time of 
the library staff and the resources of the li-
brary system will then be depl~ed in the 
making of these connections.'' 

In the same issue, Patricia Senn Breivik 
covered the "Libraries anq the Search for 
Academic Excellence" symposium held at 
Columbia University in March 1987. The 
major theme was the changing role of aca-
demic libraries in the information age. The 
overall picture emerging from this sympo-
sium is that libraries must become' more 
active partners in the educational arena 
and that libraries must be involved in pre-
paring students to educate themselves 
throughout their lives. According to Uni- · 
versity of Colorado President E. Gordon 
Gee, a driving force behind the sympo-
sium, "We must not only train students to 
seek the knowledge and wisdom of past 
generations, but prepare them to use li-
braries as vital, dynamic resources. ''16 

11 Can the developing technologies be 
used to reduce the local cataloging 
and maintenance efforts further, in 
order to shift staffing into · infor111a-
tion provision and instruction?'' 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL 
AND CHANGING PERSPECTIVES 

ON LIBRARY CATALOGS 

In the area of bibliographic control and 
access, libraries have worked for nearly a 
century to establish rules and standards 



Electronic Information and Technology 61 

governing the description and organiza-
tion of fixed-format materials displayed in 
card catalogs or early versions of online 
catalogs. How will we, or indeed, will we 
catalog and provide access to electronic in-
formation that can be combined and re-
combined on an ad hoc basis? Will there be 
an archival need for electronic information 
for historical purposes? Will book catalog-
ing continue to be a local library process, 
or will it become part of the publishing 
process? Can the developing technologies 
be used to reduce the local cataloging and 
maintenance efforts further, in order to 
shift staffing into information provision 
and instruction? 

User e,(pectations increase with the ad-
vent of online catalogs. Once electronic ac-
cess is available for book and journal titles, 
requests grow for similar access to journal 
articles. Remote access accelerates com-
puter and terminal usage within the aca-
demic community and stimulates network-
ing. There is a new interest in expanding 
the scope of online catalogs to include all 
types of divergent collections held across 
campus but not owned by the library, such 
as machine-readable data-files and soft-
ware collections, and collections held out-
side the university, such as the collections 
at the Center for Research Libraries. Will 
managers of local online catalogs be able to 
adjust quickly enough to accommodate re-
quests to enlarge the scope of library cata-
logs? While automated authority control 
improves, its development is not keeping 
up with the changing perspectives of the 
online catalog. At the same time, online 
catalogs and acquisitions and serials con-
trol systems are reducing the need ·for cen-
tralization of technical services activities be-
cause the control records can be made 
available remotely wherever a terminal can 
be connected. Such connections become 
easier with the development of local area 
networks. 

With the advent of online catalogs and 
acquisitions and serials control systems, 
libraries are discovering that their tradi-
tional organizations may no longer be ef-
fective and that new approaches are 
needed. If technology affects our work 
and services as this discussion suggests, 
then our organizations will become even 
more archaic, and significant rethinking 

will be required for internal and external 
relationships with other units, agencies, 
or institutions and for providing new and 
needed services. 

FUNDING ISSUES 

Libraries are not usually generously 
funded, and many are now facing severe 
budget problems as the prices for books 
and journals, particularly those from 
abroad, continue to spiral. How can li-
braries stretch already thin acquisitions 
budgets to cover the expanding electronic 
information? How will libraries finance 
the required hardware and software, par-
ticularly when obsolescence is rapid and 
most budgets are annual without mecha-
nisms to save for future capital outlays? 
How will libraries finance staff training 
and development in a rapidly changing 
technological environment? What can li-
braries do to alert funding agencies to the 
problems of cost and public access to elec-
tronic information in this new era? Will we 
continue to charge user fees to access elec-
tronic information as it becomes a more 
prevalent information tool, or can new 
funding approaches be found? Will the 
spread of electronic information cause sig-
nificant changes in the publishing indus-
try, particularly in the areas of academic 
research and scholarship? 

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR 
SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING 

Douglas E. Van Houweling, vice-
president for Information Technology at 
the University of Michigan and a member 
of the OCLC Research Advisory Council, 
suggests that, working together, libraries, 
computing centers, and university 
presses could provide new directions for 
scholarly publications and, thereby, re-
duce delays in costs. He points out that 
many of the elements to change scholarly 
publishing are now in place, but coopera-
tion and organization are needed to reuse 
the available tools. Increasing numbers of 
faculty members are drafting their publi-
cations on microcomputers, and stan-
dards for producing and transmitting 
them between editors and review boards 
are under development. University net-
works are facilitating the transmission of 
papers within the university, and a large 



62 College & Research Libraries 

number of institutions of higher education 
are being networked together, as noted 
earlier, so information can be moved be-
tween institutions. 

Van Houweling' s scenario is intriguing. 
A scholar with a draft paper creates a pre-
liminary catalog record for the local online 
catalog by interacting with an expert sys-
tem. The paper is read electronically by 
peers. When ready, the paper is transmit-
ted electronically to the journal editor and 
review board. After all revisions are made, 
the article is accepted and added to the ta-
ble of contents. The library is notified elec-
tronically, and the cataloging record is up-
dated as appropriate by both publisher 
and library. The paper gains full publica-
tion status. Van Houweling sees the same 
pattern for book publication and suggests 
that if libraries install facilities for demand 
printing of electronic publications, they 
''would not only avoid many of the costs 
involved in subscribing to a printed jour-
nal or buying a book, but would also be-
come a more integral part of the active 
scholarly life of the university by captur-
ing publications for broad access at an 
early stage in their creation. ''17 

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION 
IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT 

There is some question as to whether 
government information in electronic for-
mat will be as readily available as its 
printed precedents. While the legislation 
enacting the Depository Library System 
was written before electronic information 
was envisioned, it is not precluded. The 
position of many librarians is that equita-
ble citizen access to government informa-
tion in electronic formats is as essential to 
the public good as is access to other forms 
of government information. Equitable ac-
cess through library information systems 
is threatened, however, by government 
policies that seek to restrict the availability 
of this information and by the fears of the 
private sector that availability through the 
Depository Library System (without 
proper safeguards) encroaches upon its 
ability to compete in the open market. 

NEED FOR CHANGE 

It is imperative that librarians focus on the 
issues raised here and .explain them to li-

January 1989 

brary users and funding agencies. If the ex-
perts are correct about the impact of infor-
mation and technology on our society, we 
must be prepared either to change or accept 
a steadily diminishing role. This does not 
mean that printed books, serials, and other 
traditional library materials will not be im-
portant tools for our society. It does mean 
that electronic information will become as 
important. If librarians do not incorporate 
electronic access to information, a substan-
tial number of current users will obtain their 
information from other sources. It also 
means that the expanding information age · 
will require new roles for librarians and that 
we must begin to anticipate these and to 
plan for our changing future. 

OPPORTUNITIES 
AND THREATS 

The information revolution is here. It will 
continue to change our society profoundly. 
The use of information technology can en-
hance or diminish the quality of our lives 
because people can be enfranchised or dis-
enfranchised depending upon their ability 
to gain access to information. We are in a 
transition period, wavering between in-
creased opportunities resulting from t~e 
information age and the threat of a more 
controlled society with less access to infor-
mation and reduced freedoms. Libraries 
and their networks have a responsibility to 
ensure access to information. This can best 
be achieved by joining together in the de-
velopment of a national information net-
work. 

A NATIONAL LIBRARY 
INFORMATION NETWORK 

Electronic information will expand, sup-
plement, and replace certain printed infor-
mation collected by academic libraries. Sci-
entists and scholars in growing numbers 
are using electronic networks to use and 
share information. BITNET is currently be-
ing used by approximately 350 member in-
stitutions to communicate scholarly and 
administrative data. OCLC alone connects 
over 6,000 libraries, of which more than 
1,200 are academic and research libraries 
and another 300 in junior and community 
colleges. As scientists, engineers, and 
some humanists and social scientists at-
tempt to create a national network for re-



Electronic Information and Technology 63 

search communications through net-
works like NSFnet and BITNET, we need 
to look at the enormous networks that 
connect libraries to see if a new and wider 
approach to academic communication can 
be achieved. OCLC is currently engaged 
in discussions with EDUCOM about its 
plans for the management, operation, and 
information services of BITNET in an ef-
fort to coordinate and impact on a future 
academic network. Librarians should en-
courage and financially support efforts to 
create a national information network. 

In addition to the computerized net-
works that connect libraries around the 
globe, librarians bring highly developed 
skills to organizing, indexing, and access-
ing information. Library schools and bib-
liographic networks are engaged in sub-
stantial research to improve these skills for 
the new information age. National and in-
ternational standards have been created to 
describe and index information. If we 
could combine our skills and commit-
ment, bibliographic utilities, and other na-
tional and local information systems to 
create a national information network, 
electronic information could be shared be-
tween libraries, scholars, and scientists. 
Libraries will need to reutilize and 
strengthen staffs to provide sophisticated 
electronic information access and instruc-
tion. A national effort to build a scholarly 
communications network will need to 
provide support to do this. This response 
to electronic information could transform 
scholarly communications, put libraries 
and librarians in the forefront of accessing 
electronic information, and move libraries 
firmly into the second stage of the adop-
tion of technology described earlier. 

A NEW COMMITMENT 
TO LIBRARY COOPERATION 

To build a national information network 
would require a renewed commitment to 
library cooperation as well as financial 
support from libraries and their parent in-
stitutions. Academic and research li-
braries would need a joint national cam-
paign to explain the challenges and 
opportunities of electronic information 
and networking to their parent institu-
tions, computing centers, and funding 
agencies, and they would need to support 

-the bibliographic utilities in their effort to 
create a national network for scholarly 
communications. 

In order to foster and develop a schol-
arly communications network and new, 
unique information services, academic 
and research librarians must investigate a 
number of possible cooperative activities. 
A database of current unpublished and 
ongoing research accessible through the 
bibliographic utilities would provide a 
powerful new tool for scholarship. If we 
were able to build a national database of 
cataloging records for published material, 
surely a similar database of current schol-
arly research could also be built in con-
junction with scholars and expert sys-
tems. We could also investigate whether a 
change in the scholarly publishing process 
could follow from a national current re-
search database. 

Future enhancements to library services 
will require much more research on the 
use, access, and impact of electronic infor-
mation and the role of expert systems. The 
Council on Library Resources joint grant 
to the University of Michigan School of In-
formation and Library Studies and OCLC 
to study the means of increasing accessi-
bility to Library of Congress Subject Head-
ings in online bibliographic systems is an 
example of how libraries can not only im-
prove access but also find new ways of us-
ing technology to reduce local cataloging 
and maintenance activities. Libraries 
should encourage this type of research. 

It is now time to begin strategic planning 
for a significantly different future. Joined 
together in large membership organiza-
tions, such as OCLC with established re-
search facilities and technological knowl-
edge, librarians have an opportunity to 
become change agents in society and to 
play a role in reshaping the communica-
tions of scholarship and contributing to 
the free flow of information. If we do not 
take an active role in shaping access to 
electronic information, then it is highly 
likely that the growth of electronic infor-
mation and telecommunications networks 
for information transfer will diminish the 
role of the library and librarians in the dis-
semination of information. The effect on 
the democratization of information could 
well be negative. 



64 College & Researc~ Libraries January 1989 

REFERENCES 

1. Association of Research Libraries, Newsletter 134:9-11 (Mar . 26, 1987) and 136:9 (Aug. 17, 1987). 
2. Michael L. Nelson, "High Database Prices and Their Impact on Information Access: Is There a 

Solution?" The Journal of Academic Librarianship 13:159 Ouly 1987). 
3. Harlan Cleveland, "Education for the Information Society," Change 17:15-16 (July/Aug. 1985). 
4. Ibid., p.16. 
5. Rowland C. W. Brown, Background paper for remarks to users council meeting on new technol-

ogy directions, Feb. 8, 1987. 
6. Dennis M. Jennings and others, "Computer Networking for Scientists," Science 231:943-50 (Feb. 

28, 1986). 
7. Daniel J. Oberst and Sheldon B. Smith, "BITNET: Past, Present, and Future," EDUCOM Bulletin 

21:10-17 (Summer, 1986). 
8. Judith Axler Turner, "Effort to Limit Access to Unclassified Data Bases Draws Criticism," Chroni-

cle of Higher Education 33:12 (Mar. 4, 1987) . . 
9. Clifford A. Lynch and Edwin B. Brownrigg, "The Telecommunications Landscape: 1986," Library 

Journal111:46 (Oct. 1, 1986). 
10. Jeffery K. Pemberton, "Online Interviews Harry Boyle on CAS's New License Policy ... Effects 

on Searching/Prices," Online 12:21 (Mar. 1988). 
11. "Report on the 53rd Council and General Conference of the International Federation of Library 

Associations and Institutes, Brighton, United Kingdom," Library of Congress Information Bulletin 
47:147-49 (Apr. 11, 1988). 

12. OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Office of Research and Technical Planning, Annual 
Review of OCLC Research, July 1985-June 1986 (Dublin: OCLC, c1986), p.15, 17-18. 

13. Ibid., p.16. 
14. Miriam A. Drake, "Library 2000-Georgia Tech: A Glimpse of Information Delivery Now and in 

the Year 2000," Online 11:45-48 (Nov. 1987) . 
15. "Adapting Academic Libraries to the Future," Change 19:4-5 (July/ Aug. 1987). 
16. Patricia Senn Breivik, "Making the Most of Libraries," Change 19:44-52 (July/Aug. 1987). 
17. Douglas E. Van Houweling. "The Information Technology Environment of Higher Education," 

Campus of the Future; Conference on Information Resources (Dublin: OCLC, c1987), p.61-106. 

The library's function is to promote the effective use of graphic materials. If a student does not 
upderstand the meaning of such symbols, if he cannot read rapidly and understandingly, he 
cannot profit fully from the special means of education for which the library has been estab-
lished and is maintained to provide. 

-Louis R. Wilson, "The Library's Role in College Instruction" (March 1944), p.l33