Prestel is an interactive videotex system which has been available to the public in the United Kingdom since the late 1970's. Recent research funded by the British Library Research and Development Department provided public libraries with access to Prestel and monitored their reactions to the services. Aims of the trial were to promote Prestel by means of demonstrations and individual use and to assess Prestel as a reference tool. Results include the findings that, in most cases, librarians were involved as intermediaries in system use, and that the most frequently requested items were from the areas of business and economics, travel, employment, current affairs, weather, and consumer information, with business and ecomonics the most popular. While the system was useful for answering reference inquiries in certain specific areas, its overall performance was marred by poor indexing and lack of depth in the available information. It is expected, however, that the increasing use of private videotex systems and electronic mail and the availability of gateways will open up exciting new possibilities in the future for libraries to broaden their range of videotex-related activities. Two references are listed. (Author/LMM)