Finnish librarians have learned a lot from their efforts during the past twenty years, which it took to achieve the original, goal. I will try to summarize some aspects which have been considered important.
(1) Ultimately it is an achievement of librarians that the Government is in-vesting today in a modem and expensive library automation project. Leading libraries agreed in the middle of the 1970s on a common policy, which they have since then tried to push forward with united efforts. This unanimosity was the basis on which the Ministry of Education was able to build its decisions.
Finnish librarians were not wiser or more realistic than their colleagues else-where when they decided not to become rivals. Libraries quite simply did not have resources enough to start their own large-scale automation development. On the other hand, Finnish librarians were keenly following the development in other countries. It was obvious that the way which was chosen e.g. in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the systems of individual libraries in most cases were incompatible, was not the way Finnish libraries wanted to choose. The
Swedish model was considered better, and of course it alsó was much better known.
Opinions of libraries have, however, not been static. Therefore, continuous efforts were needed to make sure that common policy corresponded to the wishes of the libraries and that they were still supporting the accepted policy. On the other hand, the libraries had all the time the possibility to influence decision making, because they had a strong representation in the Steering Group of the Automation Unit and because libraries were regularly informed about all impor-tant developments. It would certainly be much more difficult to pursue this type of agreement of the libraries today, when more money and a greater variety of choices is available.
One in-built risk all the time was the dominant role of the University Library of Helsinki, due to historical development; other university libraries are far younger and smaller than this library which at the same time is alsó the National Library of the country. There was, and still is, a certain mistrust felt of the Library and we have to leam to live together with it and to be serious about our honest aims of cooperation. The resentment became obvious again when the need of a joint system for the LINNEA network was discussed. Somé libraries were not enthusiastic about the decision to give the responsibility for it to Helsinki Uni-versity Library. Librarians are alsó only humán!
(2) Introduction of modernization on this scale depends not only on the will of the institutions or the money available. Society must, as a whole, have reached a certain stage of development or maturity to be able to accept the change. Well informed librarians were in the 70s ahead of times. Only a few large automated systems existed e.g. within the state administration; why should libraries be the most urgent services to be automated! Ten years later the scene had changed completely.
(3) It may sound trivial to say that it is vitai to follow keenly what is being done in other countries and to leam not only of successes but alsó of mistakes.
At least a country with limited resources can not start inventing things which already are to be found elsewhere. Neither has a small country any need to develop unrealistic ambitions of doing things before wealthier countries. For Finland the Swedish experience has been most useful and we acknowledge gratefully the help which we have received from our Swedish colleagues.
(4) The importance of internationally accepted standards has pro ved to be vitai.
Finnish research libraries had to change their automation approach several times.
Due to the strict standards which were followed in recording the collections these changes never caused any real harm. The same standards enabled a flexible
„ Gondolatok a könyvtárban "
development within the country itself, and even public libraries are now adopting them. International compatibility of the standards has been at least of equal importance and their role will continue to grow.
(5) Automation business is not an issue for experts only. Automation will change the routines and procedures so deeply that it influences both policy and economy of libraries. Leadership of libraries must acquire enough knowledge of automation to be able to push through realistic solutions and to overlook the consequences of individual decisions. One of the big threats is obviously per-fectionism, typical of all experts and maybe even more typical of library experts.
The dominant role of experts has, of course, been understandable in earlier days, when automated systems were understood as the automation of individual routines. They were somehow isolated both from each other and from normal decision making in libraries. That is not the case any more; data systems have become an essential part of all activities in libraries.
One question which has been discussed in Finland afterwards, is the develop-ment of the national Finmarc format. The format is internationally compatible and has traditionally been very similar to the U.K. Marc system. The latest changes have brought it a step closer to the U.S. Marc format. But why must we have a format of our own? What have we achieved by it? One answer is obvious, we have had to invest an enormous amount of work and later also money because of the Finmarc format. My feeling now is that it would have been possible to accommodate all our data e.g. to the U.K. Marc format. Libraries everywhere have discovered that the perfectionism of earlier days will no longer be economi-cally viable. The Finnish format has also required plenty of work (=money) as the new integrated online system has been adapted to Finnish use. Unimarc e.g.
was, unfortunately, not yet available in those days.
(6) The Finnish way towards the situation of today was not too easy. The complicated offline procedures did not save much time in the libraries. Efforts in individual libraries were to a great extent investments for the future, and the benefits of these efforts have now become apparent. For the users, however, the local library catalogues, union catalogues, bibliographies, databases etc. were a substantial improvement of the library services. I still feel that we have done right when choosing the policy of small steps and by utilizing cheap and pragmatic solutions. The existence of powerful PCs today offers totally different and more efficient ways even in a situation similar to the earlier Finnish one.
The main thing, however, would still be a distinct policy which links all the scattered efforts to one chain, and the adoption of common, internationally ac-cepted standards.
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(7) Are there any disadvantages to be seen in the Finnish development? If we accept, as an unavoidable necessity, the slow development and the modest cost-benefit ratio of the old-fashioned solutions of yesterday, fairly few disadvantages or direct failures can be seen. Things were done and the results can be used also in a modern setting without difficulties.
One obvious weakness has, however, to be pointed out. The existence of only one single powerful unit for automation planning was, of course, a prerequisite for common databases as well as for the decision on the unified library network.
This policy did, however, bring also some disadvantages with it. This must be said quite unindependently of the excellent work that the unit has done. The point is that individual libraries had too little expertise in automation. This has become apparent now when the new systems are being installed at the universities. Li-braries or computer centres have to acquire more knowledge on their local system as well as on library automation in general. Solutions based on a mainframe will not remain the only computer applications in the libraries.
(8) It is useful to discuss the selection of one and the same product for all university libraries as a separate question. It has been asked whether the monopoly of one company will prove to be a disadvantage compared to all its advantages.
Nobody can answer this question satisfactorily yet, because the experience has so far been rather short. Of course we would have been happy to receive many enhancements sooner than what has been the case. We do not yet know how the pricing policy will develop. There will certainly still be many other questions.
The advantages are more obvious. There will emerge a real network where participating libraries are working together in real-time and drawing benefits from the work done in other libraries. Software is being developed continuously, which means that the system is being kept up to date. Enhancements and improvements in the system will be available automatically to all libraries. The structure of formal user groups on both national and European level guarantees the influence of libraries in the further development of the software. And last but not least, the data structure used in the system is the Marc-format, which opens new ways if, for one reason or other, the system has to be changed to another. Finnish research libraries are happy in having avoided a situation, where one library has chosen a certain ready-made computer system and another library another system. Different systems do not necessarily communicate with each other without highly sophis-ticated programmes which are needed as bridges between them.
„ Gondolatok a konyvtarban "