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First of all, I must apologise for the interval between this VINE and the last. Unfortunately VINE's production cycle is growing longer as automated library systems become more complex, and consequently more time‐consuming to write up. Moreover, in this issue I have attempted in certain articles, for instance those on COM bureaux and the Telepen, to adopt a thematic approach to the subject, rather than reporting on individual projects. The process of cross‐checking the details of such articles with all the organisations concerned has been partly responsible for the delay in publishing VINE 17. Nevertheless in the long terms I still hope to increase the frequency with which VINE is published, thereby increasing its currency and decreasing the size of each individual issue.

Throughout their history, libraries have played many important roles within the context of knowledge archival, information retrieval and knowledge dissemination. Today, libraries fulfil very many technical, social and educational roles. Indeed, for many people ‘the library’ provides the only source of educational resource after conventional formal education has ceased. This paper discusses the basic functions of library systems and the roles that they must undertake within modern societies. The potential of new technologies and media reform within library systems is then discussed and, depending upon the extent of uptake of these new technologies, four future types of library system are identified: polymedia, electronic, digital and virtual. Each of these types of library system is described, their distinguishing features identified and the implications of such systems then discussed.

The increase in the production rate of aircraft construction programmes such as Airbus and MRCA Tornado is rapidly forcing the aerospace industry to modernise its production methods, The requirement calls for an increase in productivity with simultaneous high efficiency. This means that, in future, components for four, six, eight and more aircraft have to be manufactured within a period in which, for example, components for two aircraft have hitherto been produced.

Radio broadcasting is a fragmented industry — one in which many of the local stations are small, and stations have little chance to establish a dominant market share. Since there are many such fragmented manufacturing and service industries in the U. S., and competitive tactics to gain market share are not always successful in such industries, we'd like to offer a different strategy: cooperation. We'll illustrate how it's done, using a case history describing the cooperative effort of the New York Market Radio Broadcasters Association (NYMRAD) — the trade association of the New York Metropolitan Area radio stations. Its members worked together to increase the total market through development of unexploited niche groups of advertisers. In less than two years, this plan has added significantly to total New York radio station advertising revenues.

The British Library Research and Development Department, on the advice of the Group for Research into Public Libraries, commissioned a survey of automated issue systems in public libraries. This report details the results of the survey, which was carried out over the period April to June 1983.

A scenario is given of a possible library of the future. Such a library might have shelves containing talking books, video cassettes, computer programs on floppy disks and the entire contents of Chemical Abstracts and Encyclopaedia Brittanica on biochips. The catalogue of the library stock and the reference books might well be stored on optical disks and viewed on flat screens. Information on the classification scheme and how to use the collection might be provided by listening to tape recordings and voice synthesisers might inform borrowers where to return items. Robots collect these items from dispensers and replace them on the shelves. Each item in the library has a barcode which is scanned by a laser to provide details of loans/returns and patrons. Terminals linked to computers via satellites enable distant files to be searched on demand for information not stored in the library. Most of the journals taken by the library will be in digital form but a touch of a button on the terminal causes the images to be printed out locally. Fact or fiction? The paper goes on to describe some of the equipment that is currently available to them in the future (such as holography, robotics and satellites). Where we are now in terms of technological developments in libraries and information centres is discussed with reference to some actual projects such as Maggie's Place and Dave's Den. Finally, the impact of such futuristic, electronic libraries on the user as well as the librarian is considered.

The HITSAT‐1 is the first small satellite developed by Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) whose mission objective is to test several pivotal techniques. In the initial orbit period, the satellite is likely to tumble as the result of separating from the rocket. How to capture it promptly with finite magnetic torque is an important problem. In this paper, considering the restrictive conditions of the magnetic field, the variable structure control theory is used to cope with the magnetic torque. Because of using the reaction wheels and magnetorquers as the control actuators, the combination control algorithm has been adopted in the initial orbit period. The results of the computer simulation indicated that the algorithm has excellent robustness and can be designed and realized easily.

In this paper, a coordinated attitude control law for a tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) with mobile antennas is proposed. To track or point the target spacecraft with median/law orbit, the large mobile antennas have to move in a wide range, the movement of such mobile antennas disturbing the satellite attitude. Conventionally, the main body of the satellite and the mobile antennas are controlled independently. The proposed controller first estimates the TDRS's angular momentum which the mobile antennas will produce, based on the momentum conservation equation, then adds the estimated angular momentum as a feedforward signal to the conventional control law. The proposed controller is demonstrated using mathematical simulation, the results of which coincide well with analytical results.

The purpose of this paper is to develop user friendly software with the minimum error and maximum performance in a form of remote sensing satellites evaluation software for estimation of weights and ranks of the remote sensing satellite plans, to decrease risk of management decisions.

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a comprehensive framework for strategic decision making is used to arrive at the weights of criteria and sub‐criteria of remote sensing satellites. The Ms‐Access software is written to compute the ranks of the remote sensing satellite plans based on the relative weights of inputs and then, the outputs from AHP are shown as a numerical graph and generates the Ms‐Access database.

One of the main objectives of this paper is an attempt to access this skill that compare several remote sensing satellite plans on quantity and quality point of view by several effective criteria such as mass, power consumption and cost of satellites, in addition to the remote sensing subsystem, communication subsystem, telemetry, tracking and control subsystem, attitude determination control subsystem and their own sub‐criteria.

It is hard in just one paper, to gather lots of information about remote sensing satellite systems, use a new methodology that is unknown for aerospace engineering, and talk about an innovative software.

This paper provides helpful evaluating software which has a data bank that it is very useful and impartial advice for space strategy's managing organization to compare several plans.

This study provides low cost, time‐saving, and high‐performance remote sensing satellite evaluation software and gives valuable information and guidelines which help management decisions of aerospace organization.