College and Research Libraries
JUDITH S. ROWE and MARY RYAN
Library Service from Numerical Data
Bases: The 1970 Census as a Paradigm
This article discusses some of the problems of introducing machine-
readable data bases intp the library service environment. The authors,
a social scientist at a computer center, and a government documents
librarian, describe the diverse approaches used in making tapes of the
1970 Census of Population and Housing available to users through
the library.
LARGE RESEARCH LIBRARIES have tradi-
tionally been depositories for all of the
maps and printed reports which are the
products of each decennial census.
Therefore it is a logical next step for
them also to be the repository of these
data in machine-readable form. First,
this provides reference librarians with
another resource for users whose needs
are not satisfied by searching the printed
materials, since the quantity of addi-
tional data which can be stored com-
pactly on magnetic tape has made it pos-
sible for the Bureau of the Census to
make available to the public at least ten
times the amount of data available
from any previous census. Second, re-
search libraries are generally located at
institutions which also have available
large computers capable , of selecting, di-
gesting and analyzing these data and, if
tapes are available, it becomes unneces-
sary for the user requiring a machine
analysis to photocopy pages from re-
ports and then keypunch the data. Rath-
er, it becomes possible for a researcher
to begin with the data already in rna-
Judith Rowe is manager, Princeton-Rut-
gers Census Data Project, Princeton Uni-
versity Computer . Center; Mary Ryan is
head, Public Affairs Service, University of
California, Los Angeles, library.
chine-readable form and to proceed im-
mediately to work with these data.
Thus, we now have more data in .a more
usable format than ever before.
But why should the library be in-
volved? Why not just store the tapes at
the computer center and let the com-
puter people worry about them? By do-
ing this, the library would be abdicating
part of its role as an information cen-
ter. It would be denying users the op-
portunity of locating information at
the one place we have trained them to
look for it, the library. By the same
token, since the acquisition of even a
modest tape collection represents a sub-
stantial financial outlay, it is important
to ensure that the responsibility for de-
cisions on acquisition, on bibliographic
documentation and control, and on ref~
erence service be allied with an organi-
zation with a commitment to public
service and a continuity of collections
and operation. Although many comput-
er centers have a commitment to public
service, computer centers are not li-
braries and their staffs do not have the
library skills necessary for such a proj-
ect. On the other hand, librarians do
not generally have the computer exper-
tise necessary to exploit to the fullest
this new information resource.
What then is the solution? Actually
/7
8 I College & Research Libraries • January 1974
there is no one best solution. Different
plans are now in operation and many
more are possible. In this report we will
describe in detail two very different ap-
proaches-at UCLA and at Princeton.
As background, however, let us first pre-
sent some of the questions which must
be faced in arriving at a locally work-
able solution.
1. Who will decide which data should
be purchased? To some extent this
is a matter of money, but other
considerations are also involved,
most of them similar to those in-
volved in the building of any li-
brary collection. How does one ser-
vice all or most requests without
the problems of supporting a huge
amount of unused material?
2. What quantity and type of service
will be provided? This depends on
the availability of both funds and
people. It also depends on the
needs of users and on the nature
of any other services of this sort
already available in one area.
3. Where will the money come from
for acquisitions, for computer
time, for personnel, and for a
myriad of miscellaneous expenses
such as travel, duplicating, backup
reels, telephones and clerical as-
sistance? Many libraries are having
great difficulties in maintaining
even their traditional acquisitions
and services. Assuming that one's
total resources are not increased,
does one reallocate resources and,
if so, what criteria does one use,
and just whose resources does one
reallocate? It should be borne in
mind that a complete collection of
1970 census summary tapes, pur-
chased from the Bureau of the
Census itself, would cost well over
$100,000.
4. How is bibliographic control over
machine-readable data bases to be
exercised? Should records for these
be interfiled in the card catalog?
Given the complexity of these data
bases and the volatile nature of
machine storage, is the traditional
catalog record sufficient? Are sup-
plementary materials such as data
description forms and content doc-
umentation codebooks necessary
and, if so, how are the records to
be integrated? No fixed solution yet
exists, but an ALA subcommittee
has been established to recommend
rules for the cataloging of ma-
l'J chine-readable data files.~
\jl The whole question of staffing
gives rise to many problems. What
kind of staff and how much staff
are needed and can be afforded?
What background should they
have? How are they to be trained?
Under whose supervision should
they be and how does one train the
supervisor? Who will assume re-
sponsibility for those problems
which are general to the nature of
machine-readable data files and
those which are specific to the cen-
sus itself? These include such
things as the vast amount of data
involved, the relation of these data
to the printed reports, the complex-
ity of the tapes, questions of geo-
graphic coding, the necessity of
maintaining and updating comput-
er programs, errors and inconsisten-
cies in the data, recalls of tapes,
printed corrections to erroneous
data on the tapes, problems in la-
beling and identifying data sets,
0 ]ohn Byrum, head cataloger at Princeton
University is chairman of the RTSD/CCS/
DCC Subcommittee on rules for cataloging ma-
chine-readable data files. Other subcommittee
members are: Lawrence W. S. Auld, Oregon
State University, Henriette Avram; Library of
Congress, Gerry Dobbin, University of British
Columbia Library, Elizabeth Herman, U.R.L.-
UCLA, Judith S. Rowe, Princeton University
Computer Center.
and a great many problems in con-
nection with documentation, rang-
ing from its quantity, combined
with inadequate indexing and . cor-
relation, right down to such mi-
nute problems as some of the items
most needed by users being printed
in colors that photograph poorly.
6. Where should the staff be housed?
Where should the data tapes and
the supporting documentation be
stored? At the library? At the com-
puter center? Somewhere on neu-
tral territory? Or should the opera-
tion be separated, with reference
service being provided at one loca-
tion and data access and use at an-
other? Here, as elsewhere, commu-
nication is a matter of paramount
importance. Computer program-
mers, librarians, and social scien-
tists often find it difficult to talk
the same language. Is the an-
swer an interdisciplinary specialist?
There are also problems within the
library itself. For every depart-
ment in the library, from acquisi-
tions to cataloging to reference,
this new medium poses new prob-
lems and we can testify from ex-
perience that few precedents exist
to aid in their solution.
7. What is the potential user commu-
nity? Who will have direct or indi-
rect access to the data? Is the ser-
vice primarily designed for one's
own campus users or for the out-
side public? Will there be prefer-
ential treatment, and, if so, on
what basis will it be accorded? For
example, would students,· faculty,
researchers with outside grants, and
profit-making firms all have equal
access and would they all pay the
same rate for any charges in-
volved?
8. Will there be user charg-es and, if
so, on what basis will they be de-
termined? If user charges are to be
Library Service I 9
instituted, how much demand for
service will there be, especially in
a nonmonopoly situation, and how
much will charges have to run? If
demand is sporadic, for example,
would charges have to be unrealis-
tically high? Should they be the
same as those of profit-making or-
ganizations providing similar ser-
vices? What will one attempt tore-
coup with user charges and what
will be the public relations effects?
Probably few people would ques-
tion charges for computer time or
for staff time spent on special pro-
gramming, but what about staff
time spent in reference, orienta-
tion, and consultation?
At precisely what point, for example,
would a university library halt the free
reference and information service it of-
fers its faculty on its census resources
and put it on a for-sale basis? ("Well,
Professor Jekyll, I can answer questions
on Part I of the Census User's Guide,
provided they don't touch en the sum-
mary tapes, but no questions about Part
II," or: "You can look at the Census
Bureau's fourth count documentation
without charge, since it's depository,
but it will cost you x dollars to use
DUALabs' version.") At what point
would conversations pass from the free
orientation service stage and become
priced consultations? Does one attempt
to amortize the cost of the data base-
and would there be public relations
problems here? ("Well, Professor J eky II,
the reason you must pay to use $1,000
worth of the library's census data, while
Professor Smith can use $1,000 worth
of the library's Sanskrit manuscripts
without charge, is that we amortize tape
data but not manuscript data.") What
about amortizing the cost of supporting
tools, such as maps? ("Well, Professor
Jekyll, you may look at the commercial
map of Butte County free, since we
10 I College & Research Libraries • January 197 4
didn't buy it to support computerized
census, but you must pay a fee to look
at the census map for that county."
"Professor Jekyll, why are you begin-
ning to look like Mr. Hyde?")
Having surveyed some of the major
problems, we will now look at two solu-
tions. The University of California,
Los Angeles, and Princeton approaches
are very different in origin, scope, re-
sources, and services, but they are simi-
lar in that in both instances libraries
and librarians are fully involved.
THE UCLA PRoGRAM
At UCLA there was no central social
science data library and no history of
library involvement in machine-readable
numerical data acquisitions. However
there was a large computer available
supporting several major statistical soft-
ware packages, :as well as some data
processing personnel involved in other
projects within the library, a large gov-
ernment documents collection, and a po-
tential user community of several hun-
dred.
Many commercial operations in the
Los Angeles area had early announced
their intention to serve as Census Sum-
mary Tape Processing Centers; in addi-
tion, a nonprofit, self-supporting Cen-
sus Service Facility had been established
at the University of California, Berke-
ley. This facility was operating under
the joint auspices of Berkeley's Institute
of Governmental Studies and its Survey
Research Center, a group with a long
history of service as a social science data
archive. It had no connection with the
library. It offered a wide range of ser-
vices, emphasizing the production of
standardized tabulations, as well as per-
forming customized work tailored to in-
dividual requests. Although it would
serve private organizations and individ-
uals, its efforts were particularly directed
towards academic and governmental
users; for UCLA to have duplicated
Berkeley's services would have been
needless and wasteful.
However, it was obvious that students,
faculty, and research personnel in many
different fields would themselves need
to be working directly with the machine-
readable data on an individual basis.
Unless a central source for the data and
tools were available to them, various
UCLA departments, schools, and insti-
tutes would each have to obtain the
tapes independently and, while there
would then be much wasteful duplica-
tion, there would still be no central
source of information and no general
availability of the data tapes.
Foreseeing this situation, the library
undertook the responsibility for serving
as a central campus resource for census
tapes and for information about them,
including appropriate cataloging. The
library system was already involved with
several machine-readable data bases, in-
cluding MEDLARS and MARC. In ad-
dition, there was a Center for Informa-
tion Services (CIS), funded by the Na-
tional Science Foundation and then in
· the second of four phases, which has
the specific purpose of giving the li-
brary the capability of acquiring, cata-
loging, and providing services for rna-
. chine-readable data bases, whether bib-
liographical,_ numerical, or full-text..
CIS has as its .first priority the biblio-
graphic files and its experimental ser-
vices have included searching of CA
Condensates, Compendex, CAIN, and
the ERIC files. The census represented
its first involvement with a numerical
file.
Although the need for a census ser-
vice was very apparent, the resources
available to the library were extremely
limited. Had an attempt been made to
recover costs through user charges, po-
tential revenue would have been mini-
mal because of the existence of Berke-
ley's Census Service Facility, or would
have been siphoned off from that facili-
ty. UCLA has no specific budget alloca-
tion for either census data acquisition,
processing, or reference service. These
are all paid for on an ad hoc basis out
of the library budget, or by other par-
ties., such as deparhnents, willing to con-
tribute.
Despite the administrative and finan-
cial difficulties, it was decided that the
UCLA library would attempt to offer
service, within the limits of its resourc-
es, to meet the most crucial campus
needs. The course of action which
seemed most appropriate, given the
above framework of limited experience
and stringent budgetary considerations,
was for the library to join the START
(Summary Tape Assistance, Research,
and Training) Community organized by
DUALabs (Data Use and Access Lab-
oratories, Rosslyn, Virginia) under the
sponsorship of the Center for Research
Libraries, with aid from the Ford Foun-
dation. Through this community, it
would be possible to purchase tapes at
a price substantially less than that of
the Bureau of the Census and to take
advantage of the programs already de-
veloped by DUALabs to avoid incurring
the heavy cost of original programming.
Within the UCLA context, it was ob-
vious that the logical library deparhnent
to undertake the census tape service was
the Public Affairs Service (PAS).
Among PAS' key responsibilities is that
of the library's government documents
service. Thus, it receives the current
printed reports from the Bureau of the
Census, has a heavily-used reference ser-
vice specializing in government docu-
ments, and has had long experience with
the census printed reports. Even more
important, PAS, which incorporated
several older services such as government
documents, had been created in 1968 to
offer a coordinated information service
to those working in the fields of gov-
ernment and public affairs, broadly in-
terpreted. As a department of the re-
Library Service I 11
search library, designed to supplement
that library's more traditional resources,
PAS was directed to place no limits on
the kinds of material or forms of data
that were acquired or used, so long as
they were pertinent to the needs and in-
terests of the clientele serviced. The
census in machine-readable form is, in
fact, a perfect example of the uncon-
ventional library resource which the de-
parhnent was created specifically to han-
dle.
With this mandate, census tapes for
California, plus the necessary tools-
programs, the MEDLIST, etc.-and the
needed documentation, were ordered. A
specialized census reference service is
now offered which includes extensive
personalized orientation and a limited
amount of consultation. General ques-
tions about the tapes are answered at
PAS' regular reference desk, but this
specialized service is a separate and dis-
tinct service within PAS. There were
several reasons for this. First, the ref-
erence desk is an exceedingly busy place
. where questions must be answered ex-
peditiously, or suggestions made to en-
able the user to start on his own search,
so that the next reader waiting can be
helped; since the typical initial census
tape orientation takes at least one hour,
it could not be handled as part of the
regular service without causing that ser-
vice to break down. Furthermore, there
are in all nine librarians and seven oth-
ers who are scheduled at the Public Af-
fairs reference desk, and, given the
time needed for someone to become
trained in the census service and to keep
up with the continuing How of docu-
mentation, it was not economically fea-
sible for all the staff to participate in
the service.
This service is purely a reference and
orientation service. It is not a produc-
tion operation. Programs are available
for the clientele to use, but the librari-
ans do not themselves use them. Nor do
\.,
12 I College & Research Libraries • January 1974
librarians offer such services as printing
out data from the tapes for people,
manipulating data for them, or doing
any data processing. Instead, they make
the data and the tools available to the
user, so that he may do his own work.
If he wants the processing done for
him, he may obtain this service from
Berkeley or another Summary Tape
Processing Center at their stated rates.
The reference and orientation service
is available to any inquirer and iri fact
the UCLA library serves as a User Con-
tact Site of the Clearinghouse and Lab-
oratory for Census Data, operated by
DUALabs under contract with the Cen-
ter for Research Libraries.
Copies of the tapes themselves and
of the programs are kept at UCLA's
Campus Computing Network ( CCN)
with access restricted to those who have
received prior authorization from the
library. Access is authorized by the li-
brary as a matter of course for anyone
who has CCN computer time and he
may then use the tapes and programs in
accordance with CCN' s standard proce-
dures. This authorization system is de-
signed to provide data on demand and
usage to aid in planning. It enables the
reference staff to ensure that potential
users are acquainted with the documen-
tation and are aware of the printed re-
ports before they start their work with
the tapes. It enables a degree of security
to be maintained over the tapes, since
it reduces the chance of damage caused
by a completely uninitiated and untrace-
able user. In addition, insofar as users
are willing -and this is done only with
their consent-it permits the library to
act as a clearinghouse to alert users to
similar projects already underway on
campus.
At the present time, no charge is made
by the library for its census reference
service or for access to its tapes and pro-
grams, though this may well change.
CCN of course applies its standard pro-
cedures in relation to the computer
time. If a user is unable to obtain CCN
computer time, or prefers not to, CIS
will sell him copies of any of UCLA's
census tapes or programs, so that he may
use them at his own computer facility.
At one time, tape lending was consid-
ered, but the problems inherent in such
a procedure made this impractical.
At present, therefore, the library's
service is completely designed for "do-
it-yourselfer.s." In some ways, it is analo-
gous to typical academic library service
on books in foreign languages. For ex-
ample, bibliographies of German books,
the German books themselves, diction-
aries, indexes of translations, and direc-
tories of translators and translation
centers are made available to the reader.
He is offered reference service, helping
him to identify these items-but not a
translation service for German books.
There is a group of services ranging
from reference through programming
and keypunching, to which the user of
census data, or of any data in machine-
readable form, must have access. How-
ever, the decision as to which of these
services will be supplied directly by the
library and which will be handled else-
where, with or without library involve-
ment, is a matter of local option. These
services are supplied somewhat different-
ly at Princeton than at UCLA, largely
because the origins of the Princeton
Census project, and its financing, are
different.
THE PRINCETON PROGRAM
When the Princeton Library was ap-
proached by the Center for Research Li-
braries about acquiring the census tapes,
two important precedents already exist-
ed: a tradition of cooperation with
Rutgers for the purpose of avoiding
duplication of special collections, and
a prior acceptance of numerical rna-
chine-readable data files as a legitimate
library resource. Since it was obviously
less expensive to combine forces, an
agreement was signed which created the
Princeton-Rutgers Census Data Project
For the Princeton library this was a logi-
cal sequel "to other similar steps. For ex-
ample, Princeton is a member of the
Inter-University Consortium for Politi-
cal Research and the Consortium Mem-
bership Fee has for several years been
part of the library budget, although re-
lated computer time and personnel ser-
vices are funded by the Computer Cen-
ter. When this decision was first made
at Princeton, it was innovative. Today
several other schools belonging to the
Consortium have followed the Prince-
ton pattern and more are considerit:lg
doing so. However, it is not enough
merely to foot the bill. Someone must
undertake responsibility for the acquisi-
tion, the storage, and the use of the
data. These responsibilities had been as-
sumed for many years at Princeton by
what is now known as the Social Science
User Services ( SSUS) section of the ·
Computer Center and therefore it was
logical for this group to perform the
same functions in relation to the census
tapes.
The advisory committee involved in
the organization of the Census Project
included, in addition to librarians, rep-
resentatives of the Computer Center
and of several departments in which
- there were potential census users. This
committee confronted immediately the
fact that funds would be needed for
data acquisition and storage, computer
use, and programming support. Contri-
butions were therefore secured not only
from the Princeton and Rutgers li-
braries but also from the budgets of
several large research projects which al-
ready contained allocations for the ac-
quisition of census data. The directors
of these projects were all pleased with
Library Service I 13
an arrangement which would afford
them access to the data tapes without
the burdens of acquisitions, biblio-
graphic recording, physical control, or
software development and at less cost
than if individual purchases were to
have been made.
Practically, how does the project
function? The Princeton-Rutgers Cen-
sus Data Project is recognized by the
Bureau of the Census as a Summary
Tape Processing Center and by the
Clearinghouse and Laboratory for Cen-
sus Data as a User Contact Site. This
means that inquiries at the project of-
fice, which is located at the Princeton
University Computer Center, frequently
come from nonuniversity sources. How-
ever, on the four major campuses
served, people are accustomed to look-
ing for printed census data in their li-
braries and the project encourages them
to continue doing so. With the aid of
the Census Packet (a monthly acquisi-
tions list covering both printed and ma-
chine-readable materials, which also in-
cludes lists of suggested readings, de-
scriptions of maps and other geographic
aids and miscellaneou,s training materi-
als ) , Part II of the Census User's Guide
and a one-day orientation, most of our
reference librarians are aware of the
potential of the machine-readable data.
The librarians who are directly respon-
sible for the Bureau's printed reports,
particularly the Public Administration
Librarian at Princeton and the Govern-
ment Documents Librarian at Rutgers,
can answer questions concerning the
specific tables which are included in the
machine-readable files and the geograph-
ic areas which are more adequately cov-
ered by these and, as a result, it is now
quite common for the project to receive
a call from a library user asking, for ex-
ample, "Can I get Table 29 in the Sec-
ond Count for all minor civil divisions
in four New Jersey Counties?"
14 I College & Research Libraries • January 1974
Reference librarians are still doing
census reference work but with expand-
ed resources. Those users who come di-
rectly to the project office, but without
such a specific request, are first referred
to the printed reports, samples of which
are available for use there. Frequently,
the next step is to send them to the near-
est library census collection, but in those
cases where it is evident that they will
need machine-readable data, two op-
tions are open to them. They may have
the necessary retrieval done for them,
and for this there is a charge of $8.50
per hour for programming time with
a $25.00 minimum per request or they
may themselves use the available pro-
grams and access the necessary data
tapes in which case they receive relevant
orientation and documentation without
charge. In either case they would pay
for computer time but not for consul-
tation or for use of the tapes.
In administering the project the So-
cial Science User Services section of the
Computer Center has provided a bridge
between the library and the computer.
The services performed by this group
are similar to those provided by com-
parable centers throughout the country
-sometimes at computer centers but
more often attached to research insti-
tutes or social science departments.
However, the Social Science User Ser-
vices section is unique in that it main-
tains and has maintained for years an
active relationship with both the refer-
ence and technical services staff of the
Princeton library so that in many ways
it functions as a special library. Its regu-
lar services include responsibility for ac-
quisition and control of much of the
social science and literary data in ma-
chine-readable form obtained by or g~
erated at Princeton University, and then
released for public use. This involves
providing reference service not just for
the data tapes but for all of the sup-
porting documentation, including code-
books and records of physical and logi-
cal characteristics. SSUS also main-
tains three major statistical packages
(OSIRIS, SPSS, and Data-Text) for
analyzing data on the computer, and
has access to a fourth, the Princeton-
produced P-Stat. Consultation is avail-
able for any computer-oriented research
project in the social sciences or the hu-
manities; this process can cover all
phases of methodology from question-
naire design to analysis. All of these
services are provided without charge to
members of the university community;
users pay only for special programming
and keypunching.
This then is how census tape service
has developed at UCLA and at Prince-
ton-Rutgers. Many other solutions are
possible within a library framework,
but whatever the approach finally
adopted by a library, it is certain that
there are many potential users not only
of census data in machine-readable
form but also of the vast array of oth-
er machine-readable data resources
which are becoming publicly available.
In spite of the obvious technical diffi-
culties, these are clearly significant in-
formation resources and as such should
not be ignored by libraries. Machine-
readable information resources are now
available to a greater or lesser extent at
virtually every research-oriented college
and university and in government agen-
cies at all levels, but the number of in-
stances in which the libraries at these
institutions are involved or even aware
of these resources is sadly small. No li-
brary, regardless of its lack of technical
expertise, should completely surrender
its responsibility as .an information cen-
ter to an academic department, a re-
search group, or a computer center. It
is not necessary that librarians hold
these data physically in the library or
that they process or even know how to
process them, but it is necessary that
reference librarians have enough knowl-
edge of these data to advise users of
their existence, their general contents,
and of the means by which they may be
accessed. Failure to do so is likely to re-
sult in proliferation of competitive- ser-
vices in an area in which costs can be-
come extremely high.
FINANCING
For those libraries which have the de-
sire and the capability to become more
heavily involved in providing data ser-
vices, the question of financing may
seem insoluble. Once a library has de-
cided how far along the continuum of
possible data services it wishes to move
(and this decision will inevitably be col-
ored by the nature of any existing ser-
vice at one's location ) , the question of
how to finance these new activities must
be confronted. Assuming that a library's
budget cannot be increased to meet this
new demand, three alternatives are
available, all of which may seem at odds
with traditional library policy, but all
of which have already been implement-
ed by libraries. The first alternative is
the re-allocation of existing library re-
sources. The second is to institute user
charges. These may be applied directly
to each individual user or may be paid
by departments, agencies, or research
groups in a lump sum determined by
usage. User charges might well be ap-
plied to all computer-related work but
probably not to basic reference service
in most libraries. It is certainly simpler
and perhaps more acceptable to users to
charge for keypunching, programming,
and machine time than for orientation
and basic consultation. The other alter-
native which could be implemented ei-
ther separately or in combination with
user charges is that of outside subsidy~
Traditionally, libraries have provided
out of their general fund for acquisi-
Library Service I 15
tions requested by departments without
expecting reimbursement from depart-
ments. Since, research budgets often
contain provisions for machine-readable
acquisitions, it seems entirely appropri-
ate that when possible these funds be
funneled through a central channel, the
library, especially since a contract or
grant may actually require that any such
data become the property of the institu-
tion rather than of the individual. Al-
though it must not be overlooked that
many granting agencies specifically pro-
hibit the purchasing of library resources
on their funds (since the preexistence
of adequate library facilities was a ba-
sic reason for awarding the grant to
that institution in the first place) this
seems an administrative problem capa-
ble of solution. All things considered,
it seems logical that, before embarking
on the major new activities that service
from machine-readable data bases rep-
resents, a library might well solicit con-
tributions from potential user groups,
whether on-campus or off-campus, and
employ any such contributions as seed
money for initial acquisitions and proc-
essing.
To summarize, no library can com-
pletely abdicate its involvement in ma-
chine-readable data resources, unless it
elects to abdicate part of its responsi-
bility as an information center. How-
ever, since other nonlibrary centers may
by default have assumed many of the
functions involved, the degree of li-
brary activity must take account of the
existing situation. At the very least, com-
munication with the nonlibrary center
would always be desirable, as would en-
tries for machine-readable data files in
the public catalog and basic reference
service. This minimal activity must be-
come an integral part of the service of
every research library.