The Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos is perched atop a volcanic caldera on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, 400 km off the coast of North Africa. Three of the telescopes at the observatory are products of a collaboration between the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and the Republic of Ireland. They are the 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope and the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (which saw first light in July 1987)1. The telescopes are computer controlled (running under ADAM software), and the observations are recorded primarily in electronic form. Recognising the success of astronomical-satellite data archives, such as that generated by the International Ultraviolet Explorer, a La Palma Data Archive has been established at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The archive will be used by astronomers wishing to exploit data obtained by other observers, by engineers interested in the performance of telescope and instruments under varying conditions, and for monitoring the way in which the telescope is used.

Following the Archiving Policy recently defined, observations made at the ESO telescopes will be archived, starting with the large instruments. The Fits format is used extensively for the description of each stored observation, and a Catalogue is built up for retrieval purposes; this Catalogue will be accessible from ESO at Garching and via the existing networks. During the archiving process, special care is taken to homogenize the names of the targets observed.

After a decade of IUE observations, the dearchiving rate for IUE data in the public domain is more than 1000 images per month, which is more than twice the number of images taken monthly at both groundstations (ie. Goddard Space Flight Center and the ESA Villafrance Satellite Tracking Station). Considering this high interest in IUE data, an effort was made to improve the accessibility of the IUE archive taking into account the availibility of current intercomputer networks.

Simbad is the astronomical database produced and updated by the Strasbourg astronomical Data Center (CDS). Some guidelines are given how to retreive the astronomical information.

Simbad is an astronomical database which includes bibliographical references. Some comparisons are made with other general or specialized astronomical bibliographies.

The care and handling of library and archival materials has become a much - discussed topic in recent years. Considerable time, effort, and money are being invested by many libraries and archives in protective housing, rebinding, conservation, and preservation microfilming programs. These activities are expensive. Therefore it makes good fiscal sense to delay the need for these costly activities by making an effort to preserve library materials in good condition for as long as possible.

Hungary is a little country with old traditions. Hungarian celebrate the 950th anniversary of the death of the first king Stephan I this year. As regards astronomy, during the Renaissance in the court of the Hungarian king Matthias I there was a modest flowering in astronomy and this continued until 1526, when because of the Turkish occupation, the region was cut off and remained so for centuries. I do not want to list all the tragic historical events. Rather I would like to emphasize what we know by own experiences: what it means to reconstruct destroyed buildings and to try to collect valuable old items that are thrown away by guilty negligence.

For a scientific or historical purpose, nowadays astronomers may need to use documents of the past. On can assume they are then, in a situation similar to the one that next centuries searchers will have to face, when using present time documents we will have left them. So, actual experience may help to know what to do or what not to do, dealing with the contents of future archives.

In astronomy, the most important variable is time. Since in this field, no experiment can be made, the astronomers must watch the universe and an essential task is to observe. Starting from observations, they will set up theories through analysis, treatment, interpretation, or else, starting from theoritical work, they will check their conclusions by comparison with observational data.

Research process generates public and formal informations accessible through published documents or public data bases which libraries are used to deal with. It also generates informal, anachieved informations in format of correspondances, notes, calculus, reports, drawings... or other unpublished documents that libraries must not either leave aside.

Since fundamental research, versus technological research for instance, implies great personal involvement, informal informations are mainly issued from individuals or small groups of individuals. It is probably the reason why this kind of informations and documents is often considered erronously as private by astronomers deciding by themselves to destroy, to move or leave behind their so-called personal papers. These documents and informations actually belong to the institutions. They must be preserved because they are part of the research production and also because they may be used for astronomical research as it is illustrated in S. Débarbat’s communication.

The session on Conservation of Historical Materials covered preservation of library materials and historical instruments, and included an account of how one observatory set up a state of the art conservation laboratory and program. Mark Roosa of the Library of Congress told us in a very lively way what we should be doing to preserve current and rare library materials. Perhaps many of us knew some of these basic principles, but it was good to be reminded of them so that we can more actively apply them in our libraries. Janet Dudley (formerly of the Royal Greenwich Observatory) described the magnificent conservation project which was set up at RGO a few years ago. It would be ideal if such projects could be undertaken at all astronomy libraries which have rare books and archival materials. However, it is apparent that finding funds for conservation is very difficult in many institutions. Magda Vargha of the Konkoly Observatory described the conservation of historical instruments, and reminded us of the terrible things which can happen to these instruments if they are not considered within the historical perspective of the institution.

The library of the European Southern Observatory exists in its holdings since about 1970. The library is still a small one. It contains about 15–20000 books, 240 journal titles, approximately 70 m shelf-space for Observatory Publications and has about 220 square meters surface area. With about the same size we have a second library in La Silla in Chile, the mountain where our telescopes are installed. In Garching we have one and a third (!) librarian(s) and in Chile one librarian as staff. The question is: is it possible and is it necessary to computerize such small libraries and how can we do it with such limited personnel? The answer is yes; it is possible and even worthwhile.

There is a wonderful scene near the end of Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz wherein the curtain hiding the wizard is suddenly whipped back and the wizard is exposed as a mere mortal, pushing buttons to make things happen, mostly through illusion. I often think my library users would have the same shock as Dorothy and her friends if they took the time to find out how we go about providing them with information. They’d whip back the curtain and find me madly pushing keys on the terminal, shouting “Ignore that woman over there!” This talk is supposed to be on the use of computers in astronomy libraries or at least in one astronomy library — and it is, but it also about providing an information service when you have only a modicum of information and a great demand for service. Since the Institute library has been in existence for only five years and because of the enormously transitory nature of much of astronomy publishing, we have remarkably little available in-house, particularly of the historical material. That’s where the creativity of a wizard (or the computer of the librarian) comes in. We may not have a specific item or we may not have the item exactly as requested, but we know who does and we use any and every means possible to obtain the item quickly. We concentrate on providing the specific information needed even if the user is unaware that what was requested may be available in ways other than that suggested in the request. (My favorite example of this phenomenon is the one pointed out by D.A. Kemp of a paper that appeared in five different series plus twice in report form.)

For modern management and full resource sharing among libraries and scientific departments both in Chinese and worldwide observatories, we established the computer system of library management and information retrieval during the period 1984-1987.

The system is composed of ten component sub-systems:

• 1. Book ordering system. This system can produce orders for books and periodicals, balance accounts, produce statistics as well as claims for outstanding book orders.

• 2. Book cataloguing system. This system can catalogue books under certain rules while appending new records of books to the databases. It can also produce catalogue cards and produce written reports about the new books.

• 3. Book retrieval system has the ability to search for a specific book in several ways.

• 4. Book lending or circulation system. This system is a complete circulation system; including book lending, renewals, waiting lists, and recall of borrowed books.

• 5. Periodical management system. This system is in charge of processing of periodicals and magazines in the library, including cataloguing, management, and lending.

• 6. Scientific information retrieval system. One can retrieve scientific information by keywords or in many other ways.

• 7. Internal material booking system. It can make orders of internal materials, claims for materials outstanding and make exchanges with other observatories and institutions both in or outside the country.

• 8. Internal material management system. It can do the work that is analogous to that done with books and periodicals.

• 9. Information relationship system. It handles exchanges of information between institutions. Computer system of library management ... at Shaanxl 183

• 10. Scientific information network management system. It manages affairs within a certain information network.

The cooperation between libraries of astronomical Observatories remains clearly insufficient despite the numerous means of communication now available. The library of the Royal Observatory of Belgium therefore recommends the establishment of a “subgroup” of users (Libraries of Astronomical Observatories) within the already existing Dobis-Libis Users Group.

A commercial software package has been used on a personal computer for the conversion of the Anglo-Australian Observatory card library catalogue. The software is sophisticated but has proven to be extremely flexible and easy to use for any library management task. The software is available at three levels; the AAO has the top level which allows for eight different databases on the one system. Each record may contain up to nine pages or screens of information and there is also a thesaurus facility. Although a multi-user system was preferred the cost of the software was out of the question. The flow-chart (Fig 1.) describes how a multi-user system was created from software designed for a single-user PC. The main files have been down-loaded in accession number order onto the VAX 11/780 minicomputer and these may be accessed on any terminal either at the laboratory headquarters at Epping in Sydney or at the telescope site at Coonabarabran 500 kms north-west of Sydney. The ‘read-only’ files can be searched using the VAX edit commands and a VAX sort facility is available for a listing of selected items if required. As a substitute measure this is proving to be most useful. Later when the files are too large and searching becomes slow it may be possible to purchase additional copies of the commercial PC software which allows more sophisticated search procedures.

Many librarians are responsible for libraries at outstations and/or remote telescope sites. Such sites may range in size from facilities with as many personnel as the central headquarters to remote observing stations where only a few people are present at any one time. Sites may be only a few kilometers away, or they may be half way around the world. In an informal evening discussion, concerned librarians discussed issues and problems created by such far-flung library systems.

Budgetary constraints are a primary problem in managing site libraries at most institutions. Staff and visiting scientists want duplicates at the sites of the books and journals they use regularly in their work, but with current prices it is often difficult to provide even the major astronomy journals for site as well as central libraries. Even when researchers are encouraged to do preparatory research before going to observe, some library materials may still be necessary. In the case of larger sites where people work on a permanent basis, larger collections will, of course, be needed. It is especially important at such sites to provide easy access for materials directly involved in preparation of observations, e.g. photographic sky atlases, reference catalogs of astronomical objects, etc. We discussed at length the problems of selection and acquisition of materials for remote libraries, including questions of purchasing and technical processing, binding, inventory, and bibliographic control.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines “resource” as ‘A means of supplying some want or deficiency; a stock or reserve upon which one can draw when necessary’. The Collins English Dictionary further defines “resources” as ‘a source of economic wealth especially of a country or business enterprise (capital,equipment,personnel,etc.)’.

The essential theme of this Workshop is resource sharing because it has been organized to provide an opportunity for librarians of astronomical observatories and institutions to meet to discuss common problems and ways of stimulating greater cooperation between libraries in different countries. The White House Conference on Library and Information Services held in 1979 outlined the justifications for resource sharing by stating:... ‘resource sharing is now mandated by the information explosion, the advance of modern technology, the rapidly escalating costs of needed resources, and the wide disparity between resources available to individuals by reason of geographic location or socio-economic position’.

Problems of an international exchange and especially of “Lists of Duplicates” which in my opinion are very important for small and not too rich libraries like our Library, are briefly discussed.

The CSIRO Divison of Radiophysics was established as the CSIRO Radiophysics Laboratory in 1939 to conduct radar research. After World War 2 experimental radar instruments were applied to the developing field of radio astronomy. Current areas of research for the Division, which is host to the new Australia Telescope (AT), are radio astronomy, antenna technology, satellite communications, signal processing and microelectronics.

The AT has three observatory sites, all in New South Wales: six antennas near Narrabri, over 500 km from Sydney, the 27-year-old Parkes observatory, 350 km from Sydney, and one antenna near Coonabarabran, between Parkes and Narrabri. Most staff are located at the Division’s headquarters in Sydney, where the main library is also located, and small collections are maintained at the Parkes and Narrabri observatories.

When we speak of resource sharing, we mostly mean document sharing through union catalogues, list exchanges, interlibrary loans, cooperative acquisition programs... Yet, the first and primary condition of the library network efficiency is information sharing.

Libraries have been quite successful in this field for the last decades but, nowadays, new technology such as electronic mail or telefax offers unequaled facilities to set up and promote a permanent and world wide program of information exchanges liable to meet the increasing needs of punctual responses. From an eight year experience at Paris Observatory library which has been hosting the French national service CADIST [Centre d’acquisition et d’information scientifique et technique], we can assert that, outer demands of informations being at the same time useful information sources, such a quick answer service does participate to the improvement of the inner service efficiency.