Search results

Describes the design and implementation of an automated document request system at the BT Laboratories library, Ipswich, UK. The system allows users to enter requests for documents from their own workstations. The requests are transmitted to the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC). Documents are supplied direct to the users and returned by them direcly to the BLDSC. This allows library staff to provide an efficient document delivery service without tying up staff time with routine tasks such as photocopying and filing. Looks at user reaction to the system and possible future developments.

The article considers the implementation of electronic journals by the library of BT's main research facility based at Ipswich. It discusses the selection process, licence conditions, access, software platforms, cataloguing and searching, and cost.

The papers in this issue and the next issue of Vine (110 and 111) are concerned with the impact of electronic journals, and fall into two main groups: those from libraries, and those from publishers. There is no paper from a purely commercial publisher, and one of the “library” papers is in fact from the managing agents of the NESLI programme, who negotiate on behalf of libraries. Despite these caveats, the groupings do make clear the difference in position that exists between those who look at electronic information services from the viewpoint of the librarian (as surrogate for the end user), and those who look at them from the viewpoint of the supplier. The hybrid case is perhaps Tom Wilson, a supplier in this case, but very much on the side of the academic rather than the publisher, and putting the case for the free electronic journal.

We recall Sidney Greenstreet's profile of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon: ‘Upon my soul sir, you are a character, you really are.’ The same might be said of Gorby, the leader of the second most powerful country in the world, whose stated philosophy over seventy years has been: profit is a moral evil.