Affiliations: Science and Technology Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540, USA
Note: [*] Based on articles by E.Z. Hahn and Carl Fleischhauer in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin, and on a presentation by J.W. Price at the 26th Annual Conference of the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS), Arlington, Virginia, on 4 March 1984. ISU acknowledges gratefully the cooperation of the Federation in assisting in the publication of this paper.
Abstract: The ability to store large quantities of information in a relatively small amount of space; the ability to retrieve and to display documents almost instantaneously; the ability to allow significant public use of a collection without resultant physical deterioration of the original items—these are but some of the possibilities presented to libraries by the development of optical disk technology. In order to evaluate the feasibility of using optical disk technology for storage and retrieval of various materials in its collections; the Library of Congress is designing and implementing a three-year production-scale experiment. This pilot program has two parts: print materials—including text, maps, and music—will be captured on ‘digital’ optical disks; non-print, or image-related, materials—including motion pictures, slides, and drawings—will be captured on ‘analog’ optical disks, or videodisks. In addition, the Library is creating two compact audio/optical disks containing music performed in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium. The Optical Disk Pilot Program, directed by the author, who is Chief of the Science and Technology Division, is the Library's attempt to identify the costs, benefits, strengths and weaknesses associated with the introduction of optical disk technology for storage and use of the Library's collections.
