Anyone involved in systems work for libraries will benefit from this masterful compilation written from the authors' experience in academic backgrounds. Whether the reader is a student pursuing a career in library systems or information technology, or an employee in a library systems office or in a supporting information technology division, the advice and descriptions in this book will prove helpful to readers involved in systems work related to any type of library. Chapters begin with planning and proceed through every possible aspect of the relationships and work involved for successful cooperation among libraries and information technology services. Topics include staffing and reporting lines, and inter-organizational relationships, and proceed through training, daily and periodic operations to research and new technologies. A series of resource materials and a list of additional reading conclude the book.

Nothing in the history of recording approaches Decca's mammoth venture in producing Wagner's Ring complete for the first time. It was eight years in the making and this book tells the story of how it was made and the people who made it, written by the man who - as the recording producer - was in charge of the whole project. Conducted by the great Georg Solti, Decca's recording has been voted the best recording ever made. All the celebrated Wagner singers of their age take their places in the story, including Birgit Nilsson, Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick and Wolfgang Windgassen. The recording was made in Vienna with the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra, and Culshaw displayed extraordinary dedication to Wagner's musical requirements and to putting into practice his own belief that a stereo recording could create a 'theatre of the mind'. This is the story of how the recording evolved, and how it frequently almost came to grief. More than that, it is the story of how a new medium - recorded opera in stereo - reached fulfilment, and how this ground-breaking recording became seen as the highly influential gold standard for the future.