ABSTRACT
As recently as 1967 library was defined as “a place set apart to contain books and other materials.” 1 At about that time the MARC record was created, OCLC was born, and the concept of library began to change from being a “place” to being a “type of activity.” It is difficult to think of the library as a place when its holdings can appear on the screen of users’ computers in the same city or in a city thousands of miles away. In 1967, for the most part, users expected to go to a library to obtain books or journal articles, either from that local library or from another library through interlibrary loan. Now, a user can request delivery of items from his/her local library or, in a fewer cases, from another library in a consortia from his/her office or home terminal. Some activity occurs but the user doesn’t know where. It is part of the system, but the user does not necessarily connect it with a physical place.
