The project began with a series of workshops in basic video production. One of the first programs was a fifteen-minute videotape on the Open Court Collection, the archives of a noted Illinois publishing company and one of the largest collections in the library's Manuscripts Division. The potential for the use of video in libraries is extraordinary. In order to capitalize on this potential, a video producer has now been employed full-time to continue the program within the library and to assist video production throughout the campus community. The potential for organizational instability should always be considered when proposed library functions and services are reviewed, especially when automation is involved.
Sustainable automation can help prevent organizational instability.
Planning for sustainable automation requires an environmental perspective, appropriate strategies, and a framework of ecological values. Problems were most acute in shared records, most commonly among those for reference materials and serials where host library holdings were often missing. Even for records present, call numbers were often missing, multi-volume records were often incomplete, and records for theses and dissertations were confusing and misleading. A dirty database requiring some clean-up of past cataloging sins had been expected. This article describes the terminal network setup and public terminals setup for the new system utilizing existing equipment.