A network director is an individual who: is visionary yet practical; possesses understanding of the human animal; has good interpersonal relationships; is committed to the user not the institution; is knowledgeable in regard to the various types of participating institutions; recognizes the network must be built strength on strength; is a skillful…

The first section briefly describes a library-information network of the kind that could exist at the end of this century if the society gave it a priority not often given to knowledge and understanding. The second section suggests that what the present library-information "system" most obviously lacks and most critically needs is the…

It can be expected that Cable Antenna Television (CATV) systems will serve as conduits for tomorrow's information networks. CATV holds promise for fulfilling this need because of its broad-band multi-channel capability. CATV can be thought of as having two basic functions. i.e., retransmitting TV programs, and initiating its own programs and…

Formulas for the fiscal support of library networks are discussed against the perspective of present patterns of library funding. Provisions for financing current cooperative library programs are illustrative of the problems which might be encountered in networks. Several proposals for network development have been concerned with and provide some…

The thesis of this paper is that efficient functioning of a network is dependent upon the organization of bibliographic services so that the basic record for each bibliographic item is created once. This record must be minimally capable of serving the needs of libraries, information centers, abstracting and indexing services, and national and…

Rather than presenting a historical review or an inventory of existing services, both of which are the subject of other papers, interlibrary loan is discussed as part of overall library objectives, and in the context of the provisions of the Interlibrary Loan Code. By discussing two examples of networks in some depth, an attempt is made to arrive…

The primary focus of this paper is on examining the inter-relationship of those parameters which affect the costs associated with various forms of telecommunications services. The basic limitation in the scope of this paper is that cost will be examined primarily in a relative sense rather than on an absolute basis. We feel that a summarization of…

The basic principles of narrow bandwidth telecommunications are treated in a manner understandable to the non-engineer. The comparative characteristics of the various narrow bandwidth communications circuits are examined. Currently available graphics transmission and reception equipment are described and their capabilities and limitations…

New technologies of information handling are going to produce fundamental changes in the social structure. If we accept the statement that the book "upset the educational monopoly of the Church," we inevitably wonder what monopolies may tumble in the electronic wake of the computer. We are not dealing with a simple difference of degree…

The Five Associated University Libraries (FAUL) is an example of a network which is not yet really a network in its own right: it is a free-loader on components of other networks, e.g. NYSILL, national ILL codes, TWX, telephone, UPS, U.S. Mails and the like. In fact, the organization could wake up one day and find all of its objectives met by…

The principle issues and parameters of concern at this conference on Interlibrary Communications and Information Networks are discussed. Information networks are defined as having information resources, readers, or users, schemes for the intellectual organization of documents and data, methods for the delivery of resources to users, formal…

John Cory speaking at a conference on library networks identified four generations of library organization, each achieving increasing levels of capacity, effectiveness, complexity and versatility and decreasing unit cost. The four generations are: (1) A single library of a single type - a public, college, school or special library; (2) A system or…

In a recent issue of "Fortune," the leading article carried the predictive title, "The Coming Shake-Up in Telecommunications." Increasingly, the attention of the business community and the general public is being called to the emergence of such new and potentially revolutionary communications technologies as CATV (community…

Some of the organizational requirements for the establishment of a network of interlinked information services are discussed in this paper. In particular, the analysis concerns the relation of social science data banks to libraries and related organizations. These problems are approached from the standpoint of a director of a social science data…

Telecommunications planning is viewed as a decision problem in which a decision maker must select among several alternative telecommunication systems with different costs and performance characteristics. In some cases the decision will involve comparison of alternatives with outcomes that involve the behavioral responses of users to the system,…