ABSTRACT
Knowledge-based systems (KBS) are part of a new generation of interrelated technologies that have the potential to expand greatly both the ways in which information is conveyed and the tools available to information workers and users for finding, evaluating, analyzing, and assimilating it. These technologies can provide expanded assistance to users in such areas as reference and referral, public access catalog use, and end-user database searching. Moreover, they will allow types of knowledge to be reported and transmitted that have heretofore not been captured in permanent media using such devices as multidimensional information linkages and new forms of interactive media. These developments and KBS in particular offer exciting possibilities; however, as yet, they are only possibilities for libraries. Both further research and considerable financial resources will be required to realize the benefits of KBSs in information work.
