ABSTRACT
During the 1987/88 academic year, the Columbia University Libraries undertook a study, generously underwritten by the Pew Memorial Trust, of the impact of CD-ROM products and technology on library services and the research process. We evaluated over thirty bibliographic, numeric, and full-text CD-ROMs for content, ease of use, and value to the needs of students and scholars in the Columbia community. In addition, the relative effectiveness of end-user searching in online databases and CD-ROM was compared at three different library sites. We intended these two types of studies to provide basic information about the advantages and disadvantages of the CD-ROM format, their effects on reference services and collection policies, and the implications which new technologies might have for the research process in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. While the Columbia Libraries have not by any means begun to digest and to address all the issues raised by the Pew study, we have been able to use the information gathered during that year in planning for and implementing access to both printed and machine-readable sources in the libraries.
