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The following remarks are dedicated to Norman D. Stevens, director of the Molesworth Institute, in anticipation of his retirement from the hustle bustle world of academia. They are offered in gratitude from his colleagues and fellow editorial board members at Reference Serials Review.

Although I have worked in libraries in one capacity or another for almost 45 years, my experience as a “working” professional librarian was quite limited. It consisted of a little more than a year as a cataloger in the Rutgers University Library just after I received my M.L.S. in 1957. I then jumped, after receiving my Ph.D. in 1959, directly into administrative positions in academic libraries. Throughout my administrative career, however, I continued to be, as I had been since a teenager, an active user of the academic libraries in which I worked as well as of the local public libraries. Like most academic library administrators, I developed a certain removed perspective on what the front‐line professional librarians working for me did. I tried to keep my views to myself and to avoid telling those librarians how to do their job.

In 2075, to mark the upcoming 200th anniversary of the start of organized library service in the world, the Universal Libinfosci Association, successor to the old American Library Association, which was also founded in 1876, appointed a special committee to schedule a series of events marking that important anniversary. The following is a brief account of the outcome of one of those events. It is a remarkable tale that suggests how we have come full circle in the provision of library services and how, indeed, the last shall be first!

Suddenly high technology, or hi tech (which is not to be confused with tech high), is upon us in both our professional and personal lives. This wonderful new complicated, but at the same time simple, technology holds out to us the promise of handling all of our routine tasks, providing instant access to many new forms of information, solving most of our problems, and otherwise revolutionizing our existence.

In our frantic efforts to deal with change, adopt new technologies, promote library cooperation, and otherwise enhance library and information services, we must not lose sight of broader professional concerns and issues. Much of what we now do will change. The technology that we are seeking to use will change. The nature of our profession will change. If we can establish and maintain a sound ethical basis for our professional practices we will have done much to ensure that, despite all of those changes, librarianship will have a continued independent role to play, and will be respected for that role, in the development of a strong information society.

Mr Maidment has been telling us about the use of a computer to control circulation routines in one public library system. Now I want to talk on a slightly more general level and discuss the progress that is being made in three British university libraries in using computers for routine housekeeping operations. I also want to tell you about an ICT users' group which is preparing a set of ‘package’ systems for libraries. But first I want to make a few comments on the place of a computer in a university today.

The advent of computerized literature searching of on‐line databases has convinced librarians that a significant increase in both the quantity and quality of reference service can be delivered to library users. As part of a technically‐oriented academic environment, the Lehigh University Libraries in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania were particularly anxious to demonstrate to faculty, students, and the community the benefits available through online database technology. Therefore, searching of online databases began at the University Libraries in early 1978 and by 1981 the services used included Lockheed/DIALOG, SDC/ORBIT, and BRS.

In recent years, preservation has been viewed as microfilming or other technical operations supervised by specialists in major research libraries. Smaller regional and local libraries find it difficult to contribute or benefit when preservation is defined so narrowly. This article describes a broader approach to preservation used by an academic library network in a successful team‐building and consciousness‐raising process. A model, based on this approach, that can integrate smaller libraries into the national preservation agenda is suggested.

Anyone who attempts to publish an article should be familiar with the Writer's Market. This standard reference work, which describes the editorial policies of numerous book and journal publishers, is readily available in most libraries and bookstores.