At the beginning of the twenty-first century it is apparent that developments in information technology over the last fifty years – and the ‘information revolution’ these have made possible – have changed and are changing libraries and librarianship profoundly. As a term ‘library automation’ implies a rather mechanical process, one in which existing operations carried out manually are made more efficient by the introduction of machine-based techniques. Gutenberg's introduction of printing with movable types into Europe in the fifteenth century could also best be described as the ‘automation’ of a previously existing process, that is, the mass-production of identical copies of texts in medieval scriptoria. But Gutenberg's invention, by creating a new information ‘platform’, was to transform discourse and the exchange of ideas fundamentally. It also provided the necessary basis for the emergence of modern libraries, a process driven (though this is often overlooked) by the new medium of print. In the same way, it is now a truth universally acknowledged that the development of digital information and network services will transform both the information process and the organisation of knowledge in libraries.

Modern librarianship increasingly focuses on two aspects of library management: preservation and access. The preservation of ‘legacy’ collections in a variety of media (both analogue and digital) is now recognised as a primary task for libraries. Of equal importance is the provision of improved access to a knowledge base that is both analogue and digital through the development of electronic information services. British libraries, often by seizing on opportunities presented by developments in the United States, can be said to be at the forefront of such developments in Europe.