With the advent of any new technology, associated problems arise. Machineshave always had their detractors. In the early nineteenth century, the Luddites weremillworkers who destroyed the machines they felt were taking their jobs. Their fearswere real. Yet, never in history have machines changed so much and so fast as today'scomputers. From large mainframes in the early days, to the desk top personal computerstoday, computers evolve daily. Almost before it hits a retailer's shelf, a PC is considered"obsolete." In the twentieth century, workers do not destroy the machines that threatenthem, but as psychologists Michelle Weil and Larry Rosen state, "Technology may dowonders for us, but it is also doing something to us." (Weil 1997, 5) With computerautomation and integrated systems in libraries, CD-ROMs and multiple databases, andthe Internet and the World Wide Web, a "modern disease" named "technostress" (Brod1984, 16) has developed due to the rapid changes in technologies.Librarianship has changed dramatically over the last twenty years, and themajority of that change is due to automation. Fifteen years ago, Online Public AccessCatalogs (OPACs) were virtually unheard of, and OCLC and Dialog were among thefew computerized databases that librarians had contact with. Now, some libraries are ontheir second automation system, most are automated, and the few remaining arecontemplating automation for the first time. Yet, it is not just the computerized catalogsand integrated systems that cause technostress. Another whole layer of searching hasbeen added with CD-ROM databases, as well as the Internet and World Wide Web. If6Page 2that was not enough, printers run out of ink and paper, and users are as unfamiliar withthe technologies as staff are.With all that in mind, technological change does not have to be a bad thing. Withproper planning and implementation, and the increasingly user friendly interfaces, eventhe most resistant computer-phobic can learn to use the tools at her fingertipsas long asall individuals see technology as a tool, and not as the answer to all the ills of the library.Librarians and staff have always had to balance patrons and other tasks.In a time of "multi-tasking," a recent term also coined by the computer age,technology in libraries can beneficial. Most of the routine tasks have been automated.Access to sources outside the library opens up a new world in reference service. Thebenefits of technologies outweigh the drawbacks, yet there is a definite resistance tochange among library staff