Managing technology: Putting the pieces together—Essential technologies for the virtual library

Abstract

The vision of something like the “scholars workstation” may be traced at least as far back as Vannevar Bush's classic description of “Memex”. It is clear today that such a “workstation” is a near-term possibility and that it will be based on powerful clients with good navigational software that allows users to incorporate into their personal workspace “pointers” to networked resources. In this way it will differ dramatically from self-contained “Memex” proposed 50 years ago. Much is made of the “chaos” on the Internet, and we should remember that libraries are among the first destinations on the net where local users are likely to stop because they are stable and provide dependable access to authoritative services. The work at hand is to make good decisions about organizing electronic resources, a task which is defined by enabling technologies— this column is excerpted from my “Preparing for the Technological Future”, book chapter to be published in Gary M. Pitkin (ed.), The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Reference Service and Bibliographic Instruction (Greenwood Press, 1995)—C.B.L., Carnegie Mellon University.