lib-s-mocs-kmc364-20140601051127


1 

FOREWORD 

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Library Automation is pleased to 
pay tribute to Frederick G. Kilgour who, with the able assistance of his 
assistant editor, Eleanor M. Kilgour, so firmly established this periodical 
and set its standards so high. Especially in view of the fact that in these 
first years of Journal publication, Mr. Kilgour was also designing and im-
plementing the complex system which is the Ohio College Library Center, 
his achievement as first editor was remarkable. To him the Information 
Science and Automation Division of the American Library Association 
owes a great debt. 

As library automation moves further into the seventies, the context of 
its existence changes. Ever-increasing fisca l pressures have required eco-
nomic justification for every alteration of traditional practice. The mere 
availability of equipment, of programs and tested system design, even of 
skilled and experienced manpower can no longer be considered enough. 
Novelty, the magic word "innovation," seldom now cast a spell on those 
who control institutional budgets. Increasingly, in the issues of this Journal, 
we hope that emphasis will be placed on reviews of experience, retro-
spective evaluations of operation rather than optimistic projections made 
in the first bright mornings of system design. We must have reports if 
not of failures at least of alterations and accommodations enforced on 
operational systems by experience and the heavy hand of time. 

It is our further hope that the ] ournal will receive more reports from 
public and school libraries which indicate an increasing dedication, in 
automation explications, to the social and educational goals of those insti-
tutions. 

-AJG