Kate Williams said:   “From PLATO (1960), Project Gutenberg (1971), up through Wolfram Alpha (2009), there have been 11+ public computing projects invented in Champaign-Urbana, many with leadership from libraries and library schools.”   I was kind of disappointed to see no mention of a major Champaign-Urbana “public computing project” that was developed “with leadership from libraries”. The project I am referring to started out as the Library Computer System (LCS) at the UIUC Library in the late 1970s. It then expanded into the Statewide LCS network in 1980, which became the Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization (ILCSO) in 1986. The organization is now called the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (http://www.carli.illinois.edu/).   LCS pioneered a lot of concepts back in the early days...there was public access from the very beginning, with public access terminals in the libraries, as well as public dial access. The public could search millions of records for items held by dozens of libraries to find the location of a given item, and in some cases a library patron affiliated with an LCS member library could directly request that the item be shipped to his/her library via a statewide delivery system. In the early 1990s ILCSO implemented a statewide dial access network that allowed the state’s 4,000+ libraries (public, school, academic and special) to request items for their patrons from 40+ college and university libraries. At one point these local libraries were requesting more than 120,000 items a year for their patrons.   I could go on and on about this (I’ve published a couple dozen papers on the topic). But I won’t bore you all with additional details...although I can provide a bibliography on the remote chance that someone might be interested. :-)   Kate Williams also said: “Interested to hear about similar history on other campuses.  We need to draw these lines for all to see.” I’m hoping that the U of Illinois will consider mentioning LCS/ILCSO/CARLI in subsequent events.   Bernie Sloan --- On Wed, 4/14/10, Kate Williams <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: Kate Williams <[log in to unmask]> Subject: webcasting "50 Years of Public Computing at U of Illinois" To: [log in to unmask] Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 1:59 PM From PLATO (1960), Project Gutenberg (1971), up through Wolfram Alpha (2009), there have been 11+ public computing projects invented in Champaign-Urbana, many with leadership from libraries and library schools.  Thursday and Friday we will be hearing from founders and others.  We're aiming to help the next 50 years be at least as innovative.  Public computing is as basic as public education, mass literacy ... and public libraries... have been for a democratic and sustainable society. http://go.illinois.edu/50years -- will be webcast Interested to hear about similar history on other campuses.  We need to draw these lines for all to see. all best, kate --- http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~katewill