1990s: Innovation

1990s: Innovation

Just as Nirvana, Starbucks, and the Internet brought exciting new sounds and experiences to the masses, the impact of technological change during the 1990s was no less profoundly experienced in the halls of learning.

Change in this decade brought yet more acronyms! The ANU Library’s pioneering work with the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNET), CHARLINET, which was developed in conjunction with the Library Information Technology Support Unit (LITNSU) and a joint ANU Library/Coombs Computing Unit project to connect the National Library of China to the Web, were innovative and highly visible projects undertaken at the time.

Provision of access to satellite television, the International Economic Databank (IEDB/STARS), Reuters and other networked databases, the introduction of ELISA (Electronic Library Information Service at ANU) by the ANU Library “stand as vivid evidence of the degree of involvement achieved in international networking and electronic data provision” 1 Access to information (buzzwords of the era), via the Electronic Library indicates the radical change of “attitude of mind in librarianship” 2 demonstrated by the ANU Library in this decade. As one library staff member recently recalled, “Tony Barry, head of the Library Computer Unit (LCU) at the time, and Colin Steele, University Librarian, had the vision to see the possibilities of the internet at the time. It put the ANU Library on the map.” 3

1 Vidot, Peter Alexander. The History of the Australian National University Library 1946-1996: ANU Library, Canberra, 1996:66

2 ibid.:66

3 Recollections from an interview with ANU staff member