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LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY In order to fulfil the original aims of MINICS to provide a record structure hospitable to data describing all types of media — monographs, series, serials, etc. — the data fields are being redefined and a new feature incorporated to encode the significance of the contents of fields. The three levels of record — serial/series, monograph or individual item, and analytical are being retained and tags are still two digits. The MINICS record, based on MARC, is made up of a fixed length leader, a variable length directory and variable length data fields. The data fields fall into four categories: control elements, such as accession number, ISSN, ISBN, physical medium code; cataloguing data; linking elements, such as former and later title; and stock maintenance elements, such as frequency of publication, supplier, binding details. A range of field indicators has been defined which, when applied after a tag, show the significance of the data, e.g. whether a main or added heading is required, or distinguish data of a subsidiary nature. These indicators also act as dividers between repeated uses of a field.

The period that this report covers has been one of considerable achievement. The aim of the Birmingham Libraries' Co‐operative Mechanisation Project (BLCMP) has been to design and develop a system to utilise centrally produced machine‐readable bibliographic records in the MARC format in local situations, and to assess the practicability of a regional data bank, accessible to a number of libraries, using these records and records produced locally.

At Birmingham University Library it is proposed to implement in October 1972, a complete microfilm catalogue system. This system originated from two sources. Over the past two years various means have been evaluated of converting the library's card catalogues (which were closed at the end of 1971) to a more compact form. An interim report mentioned microfilming as one of a number of possibilities. At the time the production of hard copy was envisaged, but since then a true microform system has seemed preferable, in which the catalogue would exist as cassettes of film to be viewed by all users on reader machines. This system has been specified and costed, and details are included in this paper. The impetus in reaching this viewpoint was provided by the progress made over the last 18 months in the field of COM, which rapidly commended itself as the choice of output medium for the new mechanised MARC‐based catalogue, which covers all the library's serials and all monographs acquired after January 1972. BLCMP union catalogues in these categories will also be held in COM form at Birmingham University Library.

The Birmingham Libraries Cooperative Mechanisation Project (BLCMP) was formed by the libraries of the universities of Aston and Birmingham, and Birmingham Public Libraries, to investigate the feasibility of cooperation in the use of MARC records. A general introduction to the aims and history of the Project are contained in previous reports in Program, Vol.3,nos.2 and 3/4, 1969, and Vol.4, no.4, 1970.

The majority of industrial libraries are small, and this is particularly true of those in the construction industry. There is therefore a lack of information about actual library practice in this area. This survey was carried out as part of a Ph.D. research project at the University of Aston in Birmingham, the major part of which was concerned with the computerization of the library of Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd. The survey was done to see how far this library was typical, and whether computerization would be beneficial elsewhere. In this summary of the survey I have concentrated on the general aspects of construction industry libraries, and only briefly discuss computerization.

VINE is a Very Informal Newsletter produced three times a year by the Information Officer for Library Automation and financed by the British Library Research & Development Department. It is issued free of charge on request to interested librarians, systems staff and library college lecturers. VINE'S objective is to provice an up‐to‐date picture of work being done in U.K. library automation which has not been reported elsewhere.

Bath University Comparative Catalogue Study. Final report; J. H. Lamble, project head; Philip Bryant, project leader; Angela Needham, research officer. Bath University Library, 1975. 9 vols. BL‐R & D Report Nos. 5240/9

The work of the OSTI‐supported library housekeeping automation projects at the British National Bibliography, the University Libraries of Loughborough, Southampton, Oxford, Surrey, Lancaster, and Bath, and in the Birmingham Libraries' Cooperative Mechanisation Project and the South West University Libraries Systems Cooperative Project is described, and the state of progress of each as at Summer 1973 is indicated.

In this inevitably personal view, where I have taken documentation to embrace libraries and information centres, services and systems, I propose to stress Research rather than Development—with one exception. Other authors will be considering the application of research results in operational systems of documentation but Herbert Coblans, as a librarian first, would have—and did—welcome the development of automated aid in the basic library processes—to this we shall return.

The Minimal‐input Cataloguing System which is under development at Loughborough University of Technology Library, has had a number of modifications made to the original plans and a new report is to be prepared. Meanwhile, it would seem appropriate at least to outline the aims, nature and present status of the system.