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A retrospective review of the 1980s issues of the Journal of Library Automation and Information Technology and Libraries.  Includes some commentary about the past and how it relates to the present in the area of library technology.

Early implementations of discovery systems were revolutionary in their ability to bring together metadata from masses of scholarly resources into super indexes but they were also somewhat unsophisticated in that their initial focus was primarily on the aggregation of data. The data is critical, but the debates over vendors' unwillingness to share data have overshadowed other important features and functionality that are important to making discovery systems valuable, especially in the areas of getting users the actual resources that they find, delivering the most relevant results, and being more aware of the full user context not merely their search query. The user context is a multidimensional matrix encompassing: (1) level of experience, (2) comprehensiveness of their research need, (3) type of scholarly materials the user primarily works with, (4) user discipline, and also (5) what physical or virtual location the user is performing their research from. Missing Services and OpportunitiesA major issue that continues to confound me is the lack of fully integrated request and delivery services that many discovery systems lack. Of course, all of them implement full text linking to every online article that they can create a link to, but as the sphere of scholarly data stretches beyond just articles, library print collections and delivery services have continued to be neglected primarily because implementing those services in an intuitively integrated way, beyond the "link to your old OPAC" methodology, remains a complex task. My main concern with this deficit is that there is a significant amount of scholarly material only available in print and to focus primarily on electronic access limits the ability of our users to perform comprehensive research and reduces access to significant resources and services that libraries provide. During the transition from print to online, we need to consider user behaviors and preferences while eBook technology becomes more user-friendly, especially for academic materials which are often difficult to access and use because of clunky digital rights management and distribution models.The most recent Ithaka study on faculty research behaviors noted that 80% of faculty respondents still find it much or somewhat easier to read an entire book in print versus in electronic format. 1 This will change over time as the technology evolves, but it will be quite some time before all written works are available online and researchers often needs access to the long tail of unique resources that support very narrow and niche knowledge areas.Mark Dehmlow (mdehmlow@nd.edu), a member of LITA and the ITAL editorial board, is the Director, Information Technology Program, Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

Editorial Board Thoughts: Developing Relentless Collaborations and Powerful Partnerships