Open limit order book at London Stock Exchange
This BBC article from 1999 (link from somewhere on Crooked Timber) discusses the London Stock Exchange's transition to an automated open limit order book (continuous double auction) market mechanism. Because of such a mechanism's liquidity problems — conventional wisdom says that, in the absence of a loss-making market maker — an open limit order book only works if there is significant two-way trading beforehand.
When it launched in London in 1997, the book only covered the companies in the FTSE 100 index.