The CD-ROM Market in Canadian Libraries

This is the report of a survey of 5000 Canadian libraries conducted in the spring of 1990 under the auspices of the CLA CD-ROM Interest Group. This was the second national survey sponsored by the Interest Group; the first was a study of CD-ROM implementation issues completed in 1988 [1]. The present survey deals with the ownership of CD-ROM products and hardware, evaluation of CD-ROM producers, distributors, and manufacturers, future spending intentions, and major issues and desired future developments in library applications of CD-ROM technology. To address some of the unanswered questions, the author proposed a follow-up survey at the CD-ROM Interest Group's annual meeting in June, 1989. Libraries are in 1990 more experienced and knowledgeable with CD-ROM systems. There is now a fairly good consensus on the implementation issues that were the focus of the first study, and the questions and problems in 1989 were different ones, eg. networking, hardware and software compatibility, customer support, workstation security, etc.
Thus, the 1990 survey will address these sorts of practical operational issues and collect market information that could be of use to the CD-ROM industry in supplying and developing products for our use.
 
This is the report of a survey of 5000 Canadian libraries conducted in the spring of 1990 under the auspices of the CLA CD-ROM Interest Group. This was the second national survey sponsored by the Interest Group; the first was a study of CD-ROM implementation issues completed in 1988 [1]. The present survey deals with the ownership of CD-ROM products and hardware, evaluation of CD-ROM producers, distributors, and manufacturers, future spending intentions, and major issues and desired future developments in library applications of CD-ROM technology. To address some of the unanswered questions, the author proposed a follow-up survey at the CD-ROM Interest Group's annual meeting in June, 1989. Libraries are in 1990 more experienced and knowledgeable with CD-ROM systems. There is now a fairly good consensus on the implementation issues that were the focus of the first study, and the questions and problems in 1989 were different ones, eg. networking, hardware and software compatibility, customer support, workstation security, etc.
Thus, the 1990 survey will address these sorts of practical operational issues and collect market information that could be of use to the CD-ROM industry in supplying and developing products for our use.