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VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £17 per annum and the period runs from January to December.

THE PROPHETESSES of Ancient Greece, who were said to provide the Delphic oracles, claimed to have gained their inspiration by breathing a mysterious vapour that rose from a cleft in the floor. This then gave them convulsions and put them in a fit state for Apollo to make use of them to deliver his messages to mankind. The whole operation was highly suspect, since the output was in the form of mutterings, and a sort of ancient information officer in the guise of a priest was needed to interpret them to the enquirer. The end product was often sound advice, although the answer to an awkward question was given in such a way that whatever happened it could be claimed to have come true.

This article does not fully cover the background and philosophy behind BOPAC2. This is done by a number of published articles and reports. The present BOPAC2 which is available on the Internet and is being accessed from all over the world is the result of two Research Projects which were funded by the British Library. The first Project attempted to simulate the new type of OPAC which we believed could be the forerunner of a much more efficient and effective library catalogue than any of those presently in use. Our aim was to utilise some of the facilities that were becoming widely available on the computer desktop. Features of most GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) such as scrolling displays, highlighting text and pull down menus clearly offered improvements to many information systems of which OPACs are only one.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by the Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription for VINE is £17 per annum and the period runs from January to December.

The options for library and information managers to apply IT in their libraries/information services are now wide ranging and particularly so with the arrival of the new generation of 16‐bit multi‐user micro‐computers and fully integrated library systems for small libraries. Three years ago the market for library software was comparatively small; now there are far more products and it's very competitive. Other well established options may include setting up a bibliographic database or online catalogue, using a stand alone system for handling, for example, serials control, or using a microcomputer as an online terminal. But where to begin? And, that is where the Library Technology Centre (LTC) might be a good starting point. Here, it is possible to explore the potential that microcomputers have to offer; decision‐making can be enhanced by taking advantage of demonstration facilities, to have “hand‐on” experience; and the visitor may tap the expertise and information resources of three information officers with complementary skills in the library and information fields.

The fifteen years before Atkinson represented for many British university librarians a golden age, as the number and size of universities expanded, young men received promotion long before they might reasonably have expected, and funds for collections and buildings to house them became available on a scale never before seen in most British universities. The thesis of this contribution is that the “golden age” provided an opportunity for the testing of attitudes and approaches to academic librarianship which before had always been constrained by financial circumstances, and that in that test the traditional philosophies were found wanting. The Atkinson Report was a turning point when the reluctant academic library community was reminded of reality.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.

It was late in 1968 that news was first made public about the mechanisation project being undertaken jointly by the University of Aston library, Birmingham University library, and Birmingham Public Libraries. The basic objective of the study is to investigate ways in which three local libraries can together use the BNB MARC service, and in particular establish a common machine readable data bank of bibliographic records. There are major differences between the libraries: two are large and well established, and growing comparatively slowly. The other is relatively small and expanding rapidly.

ONE OF MY oldest friends in the profession of librarianship retires next month from the post he has held for the last 19 years —that of City Librarian of Westminster.

A year ago, in December 1987, CURL (The Consortium of University Research Libraries) received funding from the UGC to establish a pilot project for resource sharing, using the facilities of the JANET network. The money was provided to facilitate the exchange of information about library acquisitions and holdings and to make efficient arrangements for the exchange of catalogue data. This article does not discuss the broad objectives of this CURL project nor its role in the currently changing patterns of record supply and resource sharing in the UK. A more general article by the founders of CURL, D. J. Foskett and F. W. Ratcliffe, is to be published shortly. VINE has set out to look principally at the technical aspects of the project, especially the work involved in mounting large files and the software used. This is CATS, the online catalogue software, written in FORTRAN 77, which was developed at Cambridge University Library [see VINE, 63, 21–25].