Backchat - Flashback - December 1982/3. This month is the 25th anniversary of IWR's first edition. We delve into our backfiles to sample a couple of our earliest issues.(Information World Review)

In the beginning

Information World Review started life as an "Occasional Newspaper Published by Learned Information" to coincide with the annual International Online Information Meeting in London each December. Issue 1 was published in late November 1980 when the show had got well into its stride - a few years later it was even big enough to attract an official visit from one of Maggie's First Cabinet ministers, Paul Channon. But the December 1982 issue (No 3) - put together using typeset galleys, cowgum and scalpels - may look and feel like a newspaper from a long ago era. Yet the sentiments and debates have an eerily familiar ring. In one article we said that many futurologists were (then) predicting that we were on the verge of a paperless society, in which libraries would cease to exist. A special show seminar would address the issue, though presenters, Jose-Marie Griffiths and Donald W King, were not doom-mongers. "Libraries must respond to a changing environment if they are to survive," they advocated. "If that environment is increasingly electronic in nature, then libraries must evolve to reflect this change". How true those words remain, even to this day.

Beyond the Microcomputer to brave new worlds

Our third issue gave us pause to reflect on all the many developments since the inaugural event. Microcomputers had barely deserved a mention in previous years, but technology was moving fast. "The scene has become more exciting, more complex and less homogenous. In this industry, with its distinct technology push, talk is now of micros, of videodiscs, of videotext, of office automation, of electronic mail and ...