CURRENT RESEARCH IN MECHANIZATION

I have applied a fairly liberal interpretation to the title given to me by the Conference Committee. Much of what I am going to say comes under the heading ‘recent developments’, for much of the valuable empirical work that has been done recently would hardly qualify in intellectual integrity for the title ‘research’. One of the themes I wish to explore is the extent to which advances in mechanization are predicating a move towards rationalization and standardization in many areas of library and information work, and conversely how trends in these directions require us to examine problems whose existence has largely been unrecognized or ignored.