BIDS and BODOS — whence and whither: the background to and the development of the BIDS Bibliographic Services and the BIDS Online Document Ordering Service

This article first looks at the Bath Information and Data Services (BIDS) online bibliographic services from the point of view of the computing personnel who have developed and run the service. It examines the way in which librarians have worked with the BIDS personnel in the design and development of the services. It then looks, also from a computing perspective, at the role of librarians in those areas of the rapidly changing information world with which BIDS is concerned. It is in this latter context that the background to, the development of, and the future environment for, the BIDS Online Document Ordering System (BODOS) are explored.