It pioneered the use of networking technologies such as teletype and fax machines in providing reference services to patrons at far-flung, sometimes rural libraries.
[2] BARC staff conducted biweekly workshops for reference librarians and published bibliographies on topics including the Chinese in California and the San Francisco Public Library's collection on theatrical costumes.
"[6] It twice won the ALA's H. W. Wilson Library Periodical Award,[6][7] and was so popular its circulation was capped for cost reasons after reaching 2,000, but after its second editor, Celeste West, published an unflattering photograph of Richard Nixon in 1973, its funding was withdrawn by the state librarian, Ethel Crockett.
[6][8] Edward Swanson, president of the Minnesota Library Association, published a protest resolution in the ALA journal,[7] and West's reprimand for unprofessional behavior was withdrawn, but Synergy was replaced by BARC Notes.
[9] In 1984, a comparison of responses to the same genuine patron queries by BARC, the second-level reference center in Fresno, and a for-profit reference service, Information on Demand, showed that BARC's answers were usually better than the Fresno center's as a result of the depth of its resources, but that none of the three answered all the test questions correctly and quickly.