have been surprised recently to find how many seasoned Netsurfers are still dependent on technologically primitive means (like pencil and paper) to record URLs at the first time of asking. And URLs themselves are inherently resistant to simple filing, with other access mechanisms also at a primitive level. Do we have to wait years for another whole structure of conventions to evolve in the electronic environment, or is there some way we can accelerate progress towards conformity, and impose structure upon chaos 'in our own lifetimes'? One step in the right direction could be the appearance of signposts and totem poles in the currently chaotic landscape. Already there are more and more examples of prestigious journals proposing to offer an electronic Web version. The Funding Councils' Pilot Site Licence Initiative will accelerate this for three important British publishers. Others exist in the US. Carrying their existing authority and status into the Web setting, these publishers may start focal centres of order and authority and spread them into the persisting chaos of their hinterland. Is this a realistic prediction or just the nostalgia of someone who thinks instinctively that the old certainties can and ought to be successfully translated to a new setting?

Maybe my depiction of chaos already looks absurdly uninformed to some ardent Internet users. In that case, I shall have to plead guilty but also plead that my ignorance has mitigating circumstances. Such a plea can only carry weight where the degree of personal culpability for the ignorance is excusable. My contention is that circumstances do justify a claim of that kind. In over thirty years in libraries, I cannot recall any other area of professional competence where there was so much arcane knowledge needed for optimal performance and where so much of the arcane knowledge was so shifting and uncertain. The bold explorers come back from cyberspace with the light of Marco Polo in their eyes (but beware - the latest view is that he never got to China anyway!) and their more stolid colleagues do not know whether to sit at their feet or shut their own ears. There appears to be no way of substantially stemming the flood of material onto the Internet. There also appears to be no way of blocking change in the supporting technologies, whether of hardware or software. However, there could at least be room for a consensus, favouring trends towards simplicity and ease of use rather than complexity. If we think of word-processing or spreadsheet use, if we think even of the trend in use of computers themselves over three decades, we would have to agree that increases in power and performance have most often been accompanied by, even devoted to, promoting greater ease of use.

Now that we are well into the '90s, it is quite clear that the seascape is changing. However, even the boldest sailors know that, when the storm is at its peak, staying afloat can be a more urgent priority than identifying a precise landfall. Nevertheless, we can breathe our 'if only's', even while we struggle at the eye of the storm. If only we can quantify and legitimise some acceptable level of growth in information quantity; if only we can assemble an acceptable framework of quality referencing which does not stifle new voices; if only we can impose some useful degree of order on the apparent chaos; if only we can achieve a measure of technological stability which will promote rather than inhibit use, without stopping innovation, we shall leave many people (the majority non-librarians) in our debt, and incidentally secure our own professional future.

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