The Role Of Computers

Melcher, Daniel

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1543 Copy

Description

Title

The Role Of Computers

Author(s)

Melcher, Daniel

Issue Date

1967

Keyword(s)

Publishers and publishing --United States

Abstract

"Several years ago, in 1963 to be exact, I drafted an advertisement in which Bowker announced that any of its book information could be had in any form, including punched cards, punched paper tape, magnetic tape, or any other machinable form, including overthe- wire service. The advertisement was repeated once or twice. I think it will come as no surprise, however, that the only responses were received from branches of the IBM company. The offer was bona fide. We were already using punched cards and punched paper tape in various ways and were fully prepared to deliver whatever anyone might want at a nominal rate, just to lend a hand with any experiments. Four years have passed since that announcement and I must confess that the future is still where it always was, although various experiments have been tried. We were at one point supplying the data on Forthcoming Books to the Library of Congress for magnetic tape conversion. The idea was to help LC know when to expect books announced for publication but not yet received for cataloging, but any actual use of the data in this way by the Library of Congress is still in the future. In another experiment we started supplying inventory control data to forty college stores, covering Paperbound Books in Print. Some of the data went out as punched cards, some in other forms. It was and remains an ""interesting experiment,"" if I may use the conventional euphemism for ""unsuccessful experiment."""

Publisher

Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Allerton Park Institute (14th : 1967)

ISSN

0536-4604

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1543

Copyright and License Information

Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1967.

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