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This paper is adapted from a report to the University Grants Committee's Equipment Sub‐Committee and summarises the responses to a letter of enquiry sent by this Sub‐Committee to all British university libraries in 1984. The history, current position, and future plans with respect to automation in UK university libraries are described. Particular sections of the paper cover acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation control, serials as well as staffing, networking, and more general aspects.

My title is an allusion to that old country joke — If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here. Perhaps it should have been: How did I get here from there? Why should I have been given the honour, and the pleasure, of addressing this distinguished company? It is an honour because we are celebrating the coming‐of‐age of a major professional journal and that is a notable event. It is a pleasure, because this is a gathering of friends; some here will remember that twenty one years ago audiences were not always friendly. I spent many years as the Wild Man from Southampton who wanted everyone to go into automation and claimed that it worked. Suddenly about six years ago I was turned into an elder statesman, over the hill and past his best, but a good type to be sent abroad to try to save our colleagues in the Third World from the mistakes we made twenty years ago, or to address gatherings that are more social than, shall we say, technical. I need hardly add that I preferred my role as the Wild Man, or, as I would put it, a pioneer in the application of modern techniques to library management and information handling.

Misunderstandings, delays, Jack of access to the machine, inadequate program packages and over‐optimistic promises from the manufacturers, staff changes and a complete change of machine are all part of the ordinary background to the development of a new Library system. The Humberside Libraries, who suffered from all these, were fortunate, however, in establishing excellent relations with the authority's Management Services Department, and together they have established a satisfactory system. The report gives an account of the process, a list of programs, samples of the printouts produced by the system, and of the various stages in the development of the cataloguing worksheet — another example of co‐operation between Library and computer staff.

It has long been known in Cambridge that nearly all the thousands of scientists—lecturers, researchers, and undergraduates—never make any use of the University Library, but rely instead on their specialized Departmental Libraries. As working libraries attached to laboratories these give excellent service, but are of course too small to support services which readers can legitimately demand from the staff of a big Copyright Library, and they do not, even collectively, carry so large a stock. The position is clearly unsatisfactory.

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.

To provide a broad overview of the history of the journal Program: electronic library and information systems and its contents over its first 40 years.

Analysis of content from the original published material, as well as from abstracting and indexing publications and from minutes of Editorial Board meetings.

The publication has grown from modest beginnings as a newsletter for UK university librarians to a respected refereed journal with a wide international readership.

An analysis of the content of articles published on computer systems in libraries and information units over the last 40 years.

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.

Tony McSean was editor of VINEs 19 to 34, December 1977 to July 1980, a time when there was Lots Happening — in one year he produced six issues. He continues to make regular contributions to the professional literature and will be remembered by many for an article with fellow conspirator Derek Law in November 1990's Library Association Record which dared to suggest that CD‐ROM had no long term future. Heresy at the time when we couldn't get enough of them and Internet cafes were but a gleam in a few entrepreneurial eyes. His career since leaving VINE and the University of Southampton has taken him to Geac where he installed many of the early GLIS systems, to The British Library as Head of Marketing and Support of the Bibliographic Services Division, and most recently to the BMA Library, whose automation experiences he recounts here.

NRCd have produced a useful pamphlet which, because of machine development, unfortunately will soon be out of date. In discussing six ‘full‐size’ COM fiche readers a phrase such as “The Agfa‐Gevaert LF 303 is essentially similar to the LF 101 reader…” repeatedly occurs. These machines are subject to the same face‐lift operations (continuous development) as the motor car though the design of one of the most highly recommended models, also “one of the older readers in this group”, has been stabilised for some years; it, the Microscot NMI 90 has had at least one change of name: it used to be the Scottish Instruments NMI 90!

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