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The Pikes Peak Library District has served as a model for public libraries desiring to implement automated systems over the past ten years. This article discusses the creation and operation of the online community resource files system. The changes that have occurred since the initiation of the programme and the reasons for those changes are presented. The relationship of the programme for community information to the overall purpose of the library is explained. This article provides a starting point for libraries considering the automation of files of local information resources.

This article is concerned with the issue that should be uppermost in the minds of those who are in a position to select the computer system for a library that desires to enter the information age, system architecture and capacity. With ten years' experience as the principal architect for Maggie's Place I feel that I am qualified to give some advice to the library manager who is just entering the wonderful world of automated library systems, or those who entered the fray some time ago by purchasing an early turnkey system that now is demonstrating its limitations.

Maggie III is an integrated system that supports a public access catalog, cataloging interface, bibliographic maintenance, circulation, electronic mail, and community information databases. Acquisitions and serials modules are under development. The system, available from the Eyring Research Institute, is based on software created for the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL). Sidebars describe 1) the structure of the community information databases, 2) the planned use of the CARL software by other libraries in Colorado, and 3) the mounting and use of the non‐bibliographic database, “A Matter of Fact”, on the CARL system.

Describes research undertaken to investigate the role of public libraries in developing and exploiting the next generationof national networks, such as Internet. Considers developments in Internet and NREN, public libraries and networking, and the impact of the network on public libraries. Surmises that the research will help identify factors that affect the library′s role in electronic networks, although many questions about networks may have more to do with how libraries define themselves than with the technology itself.

In terms of size, arrangement and catalogues, the conventional library has reached an organisational and financial impasse. Coincidentally there has emerged a pre‐emptive new technology for the storage, handling and transmission of information, potentially better suited to the convenience of users. Libraries may disappear like the dinosaurs; or they may, by returning to first principles, be able to adapt and successfully survive.

INTRODUCTION Computers and new information technologies have beyond question brought tremendous advancement in information storage and retrieval. In recent years, the traditional card catalog has given way first to the COM (computer output on microform) catalog, then to the online catalog. Now, many libraries are shifting to the new capability in order to provide better and faster services to their patrons.

The tremendous storage capacity of the CD‐ROM has generated the need for sophisticated search software capable of handling large files. Software previously developed for mainframe computers, laser disk applications, information retrieval of textual files on IBM‐PCs, and other functions, is being modified to meet these needs. Other software is being specifically written for CD‐ROM applications. Vendors of significant information retrieval products are identified, and the characteristics of twelve packages are compared.

Maggie's Place is the name of the Pikes Peak public library situated at the foot of the beautiful Pikes Peak mountain in Colorado Springs, USA. During the last decade the library has received attention from people all over the world within the library sector because it became one of the first fully automated public libraries in the world. My curiosity had been aroused by reading the book ‘The Electronic Library’, written by Kenneth Dowlin who was Director from 1976–1988, as well as other papers and articles about Maggie's Place. Even if we have well‐developed automated systems for most library routines in many Scandinavian libraries and are running many experiments with the aim of increasing the use of new technologies in more library services, this library seemed from the descriptions to be worth visiting. I got the opportunity in June this year—and I wasn't disappointed. The architecture and internal Fittings of the new main library, The East Library and Information Centre, opened to the public in 1987, are magnificent.

This work was originally commissioned during 1982, the year that was designated Information Technology Year; the year that the personal computer replaced the space invader machine as a focus for teenage obsession; the year of the library symbol, the Hunt Report on cable TV; the year the US Post Office issued two stamps celebrating American libraries, and the British Post Office issued a stamp for IT year suggesting that libraries were a thing of the past. The work was intended to look at “the background to the IT revolution, the benefits of applying technology to library services and the reasons for its relatively slow progress”. It was envisaged at the time that what would have been effectively a state‐of‐the‐art report on the technology available to libraries, and who was doing what with it, would be a useful tool for library managers introducing or extending library technical services. It might usefully have complemented the LA publication, The impact of new technology on libraries and information centres (LA, 1982). However, for a variety of reasons it was not possible to produce the publication in 1983 as intended; the person commissioned to write it was unable to do so; and eventually, in 1984, it was realised that the speed of development and availability of technology was such that any such work would be useless as a practical guide within months of publication. The growth, during the period, of journals on the subject of library applications of IT of all kinds; the appearance of regular updates in the generalist professional press; the formation of, for example, the Library Association IT Group: all these developments clearly offered better opportunities of current awareness to the library manager than could be achieved by a single monograph.

Reports on the issues raised in the OCLC Users Council meeting of 1991. Discusses the changing roles of special, academic, and public libraries, OCLC finances and alliances, MAPS acquisition and services, the Z39.50 technical standard, the progress of PRISM and the new network, and other business of the meeting.