regardless of the size of the library. And, of course, automation gives us more flexibility in the ways in which we can provide access to our materials through sophisticated online searching capabilities.
In terms of converting the existing records to machine-readable form, however, it would be advantageous to be a smaller library. The UCLA Library is in the midst of a reconversion process which will cost in excess of $3,000,000 when we are through. Smaller libraries would have a more manageable collection size, but he motivation would be the same.
Haeger. I might comment on that question as well. There are the same reasons and pressures for automating libraries of all sizes, although there are some differences in the problems involved. The retrospective conversion problem is of a different magnitude in the smaller library. The type of bibliographic records and bibliographic standards that are required in public libraries and smaller college libraries are sometimes viewed by their librarians, I think properly, as less of a problem than they are in the large research university. The cost of maintaining complete, high quality bibliographic records is fairly high, and many smaller libraries can get by without using the full MARC record, or without using authority control on the contents of those records quite as rigorously as a large research university.
The problems are of a different scale and sometimes a different kind, and each institution has to consider both the institutional context and the network context in which it operates.
Gertrude Lewis, Rutgers Universi~ In our situation, the library is associated with administrative computing. I am in academic computing where we have the machine readable data files. We do share some costs with the library, but physically we have control of the machine readable data files and the code books that go with them, and this is a problem. Karen, you alluded to the fact that you are trying to catalog machine readable data files, and I'd like to pursue this because our library does not have physical control although they do help pay for the data, but for the researchers to find out about these files, I think they should be in the library catalog.
Wittenbor~. That's one of my favorite subjects. I have seen a number of different models where the responsibilities for MRDF were shared by the computing centers and the libraries. They were successful due to good communication and good
will between the units, but the lack of adequate bibliographic access was a major stumbling block. The MARC format for MRDF has made a big difference in that area.
At UCLA, the Institute for Social Science Research (a non-library unit) is responsible for MRDF. However, it uses a private file on ORION, so that users can have access to the holdings. I agree with you that information about MRDF should be readily available to library users. Ultimately, the users should be able to find relevant information in print and non-print regardless of the holding location or the organizational structure of the institution.
Jim Conklin, Harvard Smithsonian Centerfor Astrophysics: In the computing area, many of us have discovered that we can control costs by not reinventing the wheel. You people all represent leading edge library systems. I am curious as to what your thoughts are regarding the trade-offs between the kind of work that you're doing and the expense of it and the commercial systems that are now becoming available and whether you care to make any comments on those commercial systems.
Rolt. I have an order pad in my back pocket for the NOTIS system, which was developed at Northwestern and which has now become a commercial system that we are marketing. That's an interesting position to get into, and I will let the matter rest there. Obviously reinventing the wheel is a serious problem and one of the reasons that the NOTIS system became a commercial product is because it had to be. First the National Library of Chile wanted to get it installed and obtained a grant to do so; then one library after another requested the system, to the point that we realized we were really in business and decided to try to recapture some of the costs of investment. It is pretty clear, at this time, that recapturing the cost of that investment, the total cost, is not in the cards. Several other library systems that were developed at universities have been commercialized with, in general, somewhat less success that we have enjoyed so far at Northwestern.
Barbara Morgan, University of California at Berkeley: I'd like to ask what trends you see in the cataloging of information about software, not the data files, but to answer such questions as: where is Nota Bene on campus?
Rolt. Well, Bill Arms, who is Vice Provost at Carnegie Mellon, has identified the collection of software, the development of facilities for the manipulation of