hmm. trying to remember whether I was using a public (council) library in the early 90s, or whether all my reading was coming from the uni library. I remember going to the nearest library, but that might have been late 90s (I lived near to campus for quite a number of years, including some post graduation). By the time I was regularly using a public library again, I think we had barcodes, but that would have been 2000.