The Role Of Computers

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."