Automation, Reference, and the Small Repository, 1967–1997
Glen A. Gildemeister · Archival issues · 1988
Over the past two decades archival automation has evolved from the cumbersome, costly, and complex systems of the 1960s to the fast, inexpensive, user-friendly software packages now found in nearly every repository. The impact in the small repository has been mostly in the area of reference services and the revolution to automated control of and access to holdings is past the halfway mark. Foremost among the new technologies to arrive in archives in the 1990s will be optical media to store data; faster, more expansive, yet relatively less expensive microcomputers; and local area network systems to expand reference service and access to data on holdings.