The concept of today's cloud computing may date back to 1961, when John McCarthy, retired Stanford professor and Turing Award winner, delivered a speech at MIT's Centennial. In that speech, he predicted that in the future, computing would become a "public utility." Yet for colleges and universities, the recent growth of pervasive, very high speed…

Compares OCLC, WLN, and RLIN in terms of the composition of the databases, indexes and searching, special uses for public services, costs, and documentation. Selected bibliographies of general public service uses and interlibrary loan applications are provided. (CLB)

Discusses the preservation of electronically produced data focusing on the passive destruction of data due to lack of proper care in information storage. Three case studies are presented: two involve specific media--magnetic tape and CD-ROM (compact disk read-only-memory)--and one the transfer of data from one system to another. (EM)

These three articles address issues in library cataloging that are affected by automation: (1) the impact of automation and bibliographic utilities on professional catalogers; (2) the effect of the LASS microcomputer software on the cost of authority work in cataloging at the University of Arizona; and (3) online subject heading and classification…