How about the future? "Our relationship with both the information and the users is what changes. We are increasingly becoming mediators, and perhaps to a lesser extent 'curators'. My present activity is typical of this new situation: I am working to provide quick access to information and to create effective means of communication, but I also train people to use these new tools. (...) I think the future of our job is tied to cooperation and use of common resources. It is certainly an old project, but it is really the first time we have had the means to set it up." = Online catalogs # OPACs The internet boosted library catalogs through cyberspace. OPACs (OPAC: Online Public Access Catalog) were more attractive and user-friendly than the older print and computer catalogs. Some catalogs began to give instant online access to the full text of books and journals, something that would become a major trend ten years later. The first step was UNIMARC, as a common bibliographic format for library catalogs. The IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) published the first edition of "UNIMARC: Universal MARC Format" in 1977, followed by a second edition in 1980 and a "UNIMARC Handbook" in 1983. UNIMARC (Universal Machine Readable Cataloging) was set up as a solution to the 20 existing national MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) formats. 20 formats meant lack of compatibility and extensive editing when bibliographic records were exchanged. With UNIMARC, catalogers would be able to process records created in any MARC format. Records in one MARC format would first be converted into UNIMARC, and then be converted into another MARC format. UNIMARC would also be promoted as a format on its own. In May 1997, the British Library launched OPAC 97 to provide free online access to the catalogs of its main collections in London and Boston Spa. It also launched Blaise, an online bibliographic information service (with a small fee), and Inside, a catalog of articles from 20,000 journals and 16,000 conferences. As explained on the website at the time: "The Library's services are based on its outstanding collections, developed over 250 years, of over one hundred and fifty million items representing every age of written civilisation, every written language and every aspect of human thought. At present individual collections have their own separate catalogues, often built up around specific subject areas. Many of the Library's plans for its collections, and for meeting its users' needs, require the development of a single catalogue database. This is being pursued in the Library's Corporate Bibliographic Programme which seeks to address this issue." The "single catalogue database" was fully operational a few years later.