The application of computer technology to routine procedures in libraries has been evolving for more than twenty years. As technology has made new applications possible and as library and vendor expertise has developed, some libraries today are working with a second or even a third system vendor. This paper reports on a survey of libraries in the United States which have changed vendors and it identifies commonality and variation in factors associated with automation system change by these libraries.

In China, libraries can be grouped into three major categories: (1) the public libraries, headed by the National Library of China and including the provincial, municipal, prefectural, and county libraries; (2) the academic libraries under the control of the Ministry of Education, including the university and college libraries and middle and elementary school libraries; and (3) the libraries of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Academic Sinica), including the science and research libraries. Academic libraries play a very special role in the country among these groups of libraries and are becoming increasingly important, as they are at the centre of information and education on each campus (Ma 1989).

review of the Canadian library scene over the last twenty years. It is, in fact, the best book on contemporary Canadian librarianship-which praise is, however, somewhat lessened by virtue of the fact that it is almost the only book on the subject, too. Space does not permit much commentary on individual papers, but three or four of special interest deserve note. Marion Gilroy's "Regional Libraries in Retrospect" gives the inside story on a library development which Canada pioneered and which has claimed international attention. Jean-Charles Bonenfant, in "Progri~s des bibliotheques au Canada franc;ais," offers an unusually candid appraisal of public libraries in French Canada. Laurent Denis' "La formation des bibliothecaires de langue franc;aise du Quebec" describes the evolution of a distinctive library school which manages to be both broadly North American and peculiarly "quebecois" in outlook. And, perhaps best of all, Robert Blackburn's aforementioned "cautionary tale" offers a delightful example (with a happy ending, for once) of the eternal battle between university librarian and professor.

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