O C L C
N E W S L E T T E R
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 0 I S S N : 0 1 6 3 - 8 9 8 X N O . 2 4 7
O p e n i n g l i b r a r y p o r t a l s
t o a w o r l d o f i n f o r m a t i o n
C O N T E N T S September/ October 2000 No. 247
Editor in chief:
Nita Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nita_ dean@ oclc. org
Editor:
Bob Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bob_ murphy@ oclc. org
Assistant Editor:
George Promenschenkel . . . . . . . promensg@ oclc. org
Editorial Assistant:
Marifay Makssour . . . . . marifay_ makssour@ oclc. org
Cover Design: Linda Shepard
Art Production: Rick Limes/ Tammy Miller
Desktop Publishing: Lithokraft II
All photos taken by Rich Skopin or Lorna Williamson
unless otherwise noted.
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sexual orientation, or marital status.
OCLC Newsletter ( ISSN: 0163- 898X) is published by
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6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017- 3395.
Contents of this newsletter may be reproduced in whole
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“ News” or directly at URL:
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All products and services named are trademarks or
service marks of their respective companies.
OCLC, DDC, Dewey, Dewey Decimal Classification,
FirstSearch, Forest Press, Micro Enhancer, PromptCat,
RetroCon, SiteSearch and WorldCat are registered
trademarks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center,
Incorporated.
Access Suite, CORC, Dublin Core, Electronic Collections
Online, OCLC CJK, OCLC ILL Direct Request, OCLC
Selection, WebExpress and WebZ are trademarks of
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated.
Contact Information:
OCLC, Dublin, Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . + 1- 614- 764- 6000
OCLC, Dublin, Ohio,
from the U. S. and Canada . . . . . . . . . 1- 800- 848- 5878
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OCLC, a nonprofit membership
organization, is engaged in computer
library service and research.
Correspondents:
Robert C. Bolander
David Carlson
Kay Covert
Nita Dean
Robert Scott Dupree
Jean Godby
Jennifer Hamilton
Frank Hermes
Thomas B. Hickey
Shirley Hyatt
Kathy Kie
Hisako Kotaka
Dawn Lawson
Tony Melvyn
Victoria Miller
Jane C. Neale
George S. Ouyang
Jeff Penka
John Trares
Diane Vizine- Goetz
Bradley C. Watson
Membership News
More than 100 participate in CORC Users Group Meeting
CORC Users Group elects officers
CORC training materials available on the Web
Jerusalem hosts IFLA 2000
OCLC plans to distribute ILLiad software
SUNYConnect consortium benefits libraries in New York
Librarians named IFLA/ OCLC Early Career Development Fellows
OCLC RetroCon service to convert 150,000 records for Yale University
Top interlibrary loan borrowers and lenders enhance efficiency
Top Interlibrary Loan Lending Institutions
Top Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Institutions
CALIS members to use OCLC Cataloging Service
OCLC catalogers meet in Mexico
OCLC CJK 3.02 software is now available
Universidad de la Frontera, Chile, now using FirstSearch
‘ Two Epic Tales’ from the British Library and the British Museum
Walters State Community College creates 101 millionth OCLC ILL request
Product advisory committee members named
OCLC Statistics
Martin Knott named LITA/ OCLC Minority Scholarship winner
Research
Office of Research explores electronic theses, dissertations management
ISKO discusses how librarianship can improve responsiveness of the Web
Research abstract: The role of classification in CORC
OCLC WebExpress
Libraries and OCLC design easy- to- use tool to provide integrated
information access
OCLC extends family of services with OCLC WebExpress
Helping OCLC WebExpress develop from a concept to a service
Library users will spend more time assessing content, less time trying to
get at information with OCLC WebExpress
OCLC WebExpress allows users to access collections in integrated,
seamless way envisioned by librarians
OCLC WebExpress gives librarians power to create system uniquely
designed to meet their users���� needs
OCLC WebExpress Service Center provides service and integration in a
distributed world
Product News
Journals added to Electronic Collections Online
Book Wholesalers is new PromptCat vendor
Migration to new FirstSearch service successfully completed
36 Wilson Select Plus available on the OCLC FirstSearch service
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CREATING THE MAP
F R O M J A Y J O R D A N
O n July 1, the same day that the OCLC
CORC service went into production,
we also launched the OCLC
WebExpress service. This new service is
anything but an also- ran. As this newsletter
shows, WebExpress is breakthrough software
that enables libraries to create a sophisticated
Web presence without a team of
programmers. Both CORC and WebExpress
are examples of a dynamic development
cycle that we are now using to provide
libraries with services that support their staffs
and better serve their users.
While we have been introducing real
products in real time, we have also been
looking to the future with major initiatives
involving governance, global strategy, and
business process improvement. These
initiatives are intended to help us realize our
vision of being “ the leading global library
cooperative, helping libraries serve people by
providing economical access to knowledge
through innovation and collaboration.” I’ll
briefly describe each of them.
In January, the OCLC Board of Trustees
retained the consulting firm of Arthur D.
Little to study OCLC’s governance and help
organize its structure to extend membership
in OCLC on a global basis. The study is now
available at the OCLC Web site at
http:// www2. oclc. org/ oclc/ pdf/ 2000_ govern
ance. pdf. The recommendations from the
Governance study will be presented to the
board and the OCLC Users Council. Any
changes to the code of regulations of OCLC
must be approved by the Board of Trustees
and ratified by the OCLC Users Council.
As part of our ongoing planning efforts, we
are developing a global strategic plan. This
plan identifies new directions and priorities
for OCLC as we seek to extend the library
cooperative and provide services and
programs around the world, based on the
needs of libraries in their regions.
Finally, we are working with the consulting
firm of Arthur Andersen to improve our
business systems and processes. This will
make it easier for the members of the OCLC
library cooperative to do business with OCLC
and our regional networks or distributors.
What we are doing is developing a master
roadmap that defines the priorities across
OCLC and an integrated plan to implement
those priorities. We expect to complete this
effort by the end of the year.
What do we expect to be the outcome of
these initiatives? A new and improved OCLC
that will provide greater value for more
institutions.
I will keep you apprised of our progress.
Jay Jordan
President and Chief Executive Officer
OCLC
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
4 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Kay Covert
CORC user meetings inspire
those who are involved—
CORC users and OCLC
staff— and the July 2000
meeting was no exception.
When 100 CORC users and
OCLC staff get together, the
results are thought-provoking
discussions,
creative thinking and an open exchange of ideas
and information.
The CORC Users Group Meeting was held July
12 at Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington
Center in the heart of downtown Chicago.
CORC’s international reach was reflected; CORC
users representing nine different countries
registered for the meeting.
Meeting highlights included presentations by
CORC users showing how CORC is being used in
their institutions’ workflows. In the program,
“ Pathfinders: Trails and Trials,��� three different
approaches were presented by Suzanne Pilsk,
cataloger, Original Cataloging, Smithsonian
Institutions Libraries; Betsy Friesen, cataloger,
Bio- Medical Library, University of Minnesota; and
Carolyn Larson,
business reference
librarian, Science,
Technology and
Business Division,
Library of
Congress.
Their
presentation,
delivered in the
form of a
pathfinder, showed
the creative ways
they are using
CORC pathfinders.
For example,
librarians are using
pathfinders to build
electronic guides
that contain
embedded searches.
Reference librarians
are scanning tables
of contents
received from
publishers and
inputting them into pathfinders to take advantage
of the automatic updating feature. One library
believes the value of pathfinders results from the
quality of the individual CORC records.
At another institution the cooperative model is
helping bridge the gap between technical
services and public services, resulting in growing
mutual respect between these groups. One of
the institutions began using pathfinders as an
experiment, with the librarians defining content
standards, and the entire staff participating in
using CORC. Another library is working to
integrate pathfinders into its workflow. The
institution has used pathfinders as a way to
determine which titles have been cataloged. They
like using CORC pathfinders to create web pages
without prior knowledge of HTML. The library
innovatively uses CORC pathfinders as a
demonstration tool and is involving reference
librarians in using the tools.
Presentations offered by Cameron Campbell,
head of Serials Cataloging, Serials Department,
University of Chicago; Jackie Shieh, Special
Projects and Collections Team; Monograph
Cataloging Division, Harlan Hatcher Graduate
Library, University of Michigan; and Wichada
SuKantarat, authorities coordinator, Collection
Management Services Division, University of
Vermont, illustrated how their institutions have
integrated CORC into their workflows. Librarians
at one institution are using a collaborative model
that involves selectors using CORC to harvest
online resources in Dublin Core, and catalogers
using CORC to create pathfinders. Another
institution is using CORC to do full- level MARC
Meeting participants
enjoyed lunch in the
Winter Garden Room at
the Chicago Public
Library’s Harold
Washington Center.
Betsy Friesen, University of Minnesota Bio- Medical Library,
Carolyn Larson, Library of Congress, and Suzanne Pilsk,
Smithsonian Institutions Libraries, describe how their libraries
use CORC pathfinders.
More than 100 participate in CORC Users Group Meeting
photos by John Reilly Photography
cataloging of electronic resources for use in its
OPAC and to insert Dublin Core metadata into
their existing HTML pages. Reference librarians
at another library are using Dublin Core in CORC
to select resources.
Taylor Surface, CORC Program director,
compared the CORC project over the last 18
months to the first year of an infant’s life— with
significant growth, changes and development
being realized everyday.
Mr. Surface summarized CORC’s two- path
approach for upcoming development. CORC’s
electronic resource description capabilities will
be expanded, and CORC���s role will be expanded
in OCLC’s cataloging system. Mr. Surface thanked
the meeting attendees for their efforts in helping
build the CORC catalog to include more than
320,000 records and more than 650 pathfinders,
and for their input and feedback to help OCLC
design, build and deploy the CORC service. Users
were encouraged to keep providing input as
CORC continues to progress.
Gary Houk, vice president, OCLC Services,
presented the OCLC Strategic Update, outlining
plans for the future and discussing how CORC fits
into the strategy. Mr. Houk said OCLC is
continuing to build on the power of the global
library cooperative, engaging OCLC services
closer to the front of library workflows, providing
integrated access between libraries and vendor
partners, and expanding and enhancing WorldCat.
Lynn Kellar, director, OCLC Database and
Offline Products, and team leader, CORC Users
System Definition and Creation, updated the
group on CORC system development activities
and plans, describing the composition of the
CORC team, development statistics, system
features and goals for the next year, including
plans for software installations. The list of goals
for 2001 includes expanded metadata formats,
implementing basic physical object description
( e. g., online cataloging of books), migrating
WorldCat to new technology, and continued
guidance from user input. Ms. Kellar also thanked
the users and the CORC team for their efforts.
Users participated in two breakout discussion
sessions on the resource catalog, authority file,
pathfinders and collection development. Group
reports on the discussions provided a wish list of
items— with Medical Subject Headings and other
authority files at the top of the list. Where
collection development is concerned, questions
were raised such as “ How do electronic resources
fit with the current collection policy?” During
the resource catalog session users recommended
metadata formats and voted for the format they
would most like to see added to CORC. Encoded
Archival Description ( EAD) and Text Encoding
Initiative ( TEI) captured the top spots. The
pathfinder discussion recommendations included
URL maintenance for non- resource catalog
records and de- duping.
Rick Bean, manager, OCLC User Support, and
CORC team leader, and Bradley Watson, OCLC
consulting systems analyst, and CORC Users
Group coordinator, discussed “ Building a CORC
Users Group” and took user nominations for
president and president- elect of the group.
For more information, visit the CORC web site
at < http:// purl. oclc. org/ corc>.— Kay Covert is
OCLC marketing analyst.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 5
CORC participants listen to a presentation during the meeting.
Cameron Campbell,
University of Chicago,
talks about how CORC is
used in his library’s
workflow.
Jim Veatch, Nashville
State Technical Institute,
was recognized as the
top CORC record
contributor.
Gary Houk, vice president, OCLC Services, presents OCLC’s
strategic update.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
6 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
CORC Users Group elects officers
by Bradley C. Watson
The CORC Users Group was formed at the final
meeting of the CORC Founder’s Phase
participants, at the Chicago Public Library
following the ALA Annual Meeting. While the
group is too young to have formalized its mission
statement, the general goal of the CORC Users
Group is to promote the effective and efficient
use of the CORC system by OCLC member
institutions, both as a cataloging tool and a
reference tool, and to provide libraries and their
users the best possible access to the materials
available on the World Wide Web, as well as other
sources, as the CORC system expands beyond
electronic media beginning in July 2001.
At the July 12 meeting, the CORC Users Group
agreed to begin with two officers, president and
president- elect. Each office is held for a term of
one year, with the president- elect stepping up to
president after serving one year as president-elect.
In elections held the second week of
August via a web site mounted at OCLC, Suzanne
C. Pilsk, cataloger, Original Cataloging,
Smithsonian Institutions Libraries, was elected
president for a one- year term. Jackie Shieh,
Special Projects and Collections Team, Monograph
Cataloging Division, Harlan Hatcher Graduate
Library, University of Michigan, was elected
president- elect for a one- year term. They will
serve from Aug. 1, 2000, to July 31, 2001.
The CORC Users Group is currently scheduled
to hold short informational and business meetings
in conjunction with the ALA Midwinter and ALA
Annual meetings, and a multi- day meeting each
year in Dublin, Ohio. Membership in the CORC
Users Group is limited to professional library staff
at OCLC member institutions. Those interested in
the CORC Users Group are encouraged to
subscribe to CORC- L, a listserv maintained by
OCLC for the use of the CORC Users Group
members.— Bradley C. Watson is OCLC
consulting systems analyst and CORC Users
Group coordinator.
• • •
Suzanne C. Pilsk
Jackie Shieh
by Kathy Kie
Training resources for the
Cooperative Online
Resource Catalog ( CORC)
are now available from the
CORC page on the OCLC
web site at < http:// www.
oclc. org/ oclc/ corc/
training/ training. htm>.
CORC at a Glance
provides basic information about CORC. It is
useful for those considering CORC or who have
questions about implementation.
Using CORC: An OCLC Tutorial presents a
look at CORC in action. This self- paced tutorial
demonstrates the main functions of the CORC
service as well as general navigation functions in a
simulated system environment. Topics in this
tutorial are presented in the order most useful to
a novice user, however, each section is a stand-alone
unit and can be taken in any order.
Hands- on CORC offers realistic, hands- on
exercises to try in the CORC practice area. These
exercises offer users the opportunity to apply the
concepts discussed in the tutorial in a live, online
environment. They are a good final step in
learning to use the CORC service. Because this
resource is designed to be used while logged on
to the CORC practice system, a valid full or partial
OCLC cataloging authorization is required.
These tools were cooperatively developed by
OCLC, with input from OCLC- affiliated regional
networks and service centers both as content
developers and as reviewers. Members of the
CORC Implementation Task Force also played a
key role in this training development effort.
— Kathy Kie is OCLC training and
implementation specialist.
• • •
CORC training materials available on the Web
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 7
According to the Jerusalem Post, 1,800 librarians from 80 countries attended the
Aug. 13– 16 conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and
Institutions— the largest convention to be held in Jerusalem this year. The Post also
noted that this was the first time in IFLA’s 66 years that the meeting was held there.
The IFLA Conference aims to bring together delegates, experts and suppliers from all
over the world, to meet, exchange ideas, share experiences, introduce new technologies
and to influence the development of libraries and information centers, both nationally
and globally. This year’s theme was “ Information for Co- operation: Creating the Global
Library of the Future.”
OCLC hosted several events at the conference, including an Update Breakfast, a
reception, a lunch for national librarians, and an OCLC Institute Fellowship program.
Staff from the OCLC Europe, the Middle East and Africa office in Birmingham, England,
and from Dublin, Ohio, coordinated the events and set up and staffed the OCLC booth,
where they met conference attendees and demonstrated OCLC products and services.
• • •
Jerusalem hosts IFLA 2000
OCLC has signed a letter of intent with Virginia
Tech Intellectual Properties. and Atlas Systems, to
license and distribute ILLiad software, a leading
interlibrary loan management tool that automates
routine interlibrary loan functions and provides
sophisticated tracking statistics to library staff.
Pending completion of a final agreement,
OCLC, working with its U. S. regional networks and
international distributors, will become the sole
licensor of ILLiad software. Atlas Systems will
continue to develop and support the software.
OCLC ILLiad software will provide a
comprehensive interlibrary loan management
system that automates routine borrowing and
lending functions within a library’s interlibrary
loan department. ILLiad software includes
interfaces to the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL)
service, National Library of Medicine’s DOCLINE
service and RLG’s RLIN ILL service.
“ My staff and I were very impressed with
ILLiad’s capabilities and its potential for
streamlining our operation,” said John R.
Brunswick, head, Interlibrary Loan, University of
South Carolina. “ This product addresses a long-standing
need in our profession— the virtual
elimination of paper in the interlibrary loan
process.”
“ OCLC has great breadth of experience in
dealing with libraries of all sizes and types, and in
global resource sharing,” said Karen Oye, head of
Customer Services, University Library, Case
Western Reserve University, and chair, ILLiad
Users Group 2000. “ We can depend on OCLC
and ILLiad to help us increase the efficiencies
of our library staffs. This partnership will
provide the opportunities for continued growth
in ILLiad, library services and information
technology.”
“ This is a great opportunity on two fronts,”
said Dan Specht, business manager, Virginia
Tech Intellectual Properties. “ VTIP’s innovation
coupled with OCLC’s global reach will make
ILLiad software accessible to many more
libraries worldwide. And, under this
agreement, Atlas Systems will continue to be
the driving force in development and support
of ILLiad— which is one of the reasons ILLiad
has been so successful.”
“ This is an important addition to OCLC’s
resource sharing services,” said Frank Hermes,
vice president, OCLC Marketing and Planning.
“ Libraries have used the OCLC Interlibrary Loan
service to arrange more than 100 million
interlibrary loans over the last 21 years. The
“ We can depend on
OCLC and ILLiad to help
us increase the
efficiencies of our
library staffs. This
partnership will provide
the opportunities for
continued growth in
ILLiad, library services
and information
technology.”
Karen Oye
Case Western
Reserve University
OCLC plans to distribute ILLiad software to help
libraries streamline interlibrary loan process
The OCLC booth at IFLA in Jerusalem
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
8 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
addition of ILLiad software will streamline the
interlibrary loan workflow for library staff through
automation, resulting in faster service for library
users. ILLiad, combined with OCLC ILL, will
increase the availability of library resources and
reduce library costs.”
Current ILLiad licensees include: Amherst
College, Brigham Young University, California
Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland State, Cornell University,
Emory and Henry College, Georgetown University,
James Madison University, Johns Hopkins Medical
Library, Linda Hall Library, Marshall University,
Mary Washington College, NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, Nazareth College, New York State
Department of Health, Ohio University, Radford
University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Stony
Brook, Syracuse University, Trinity College,
University of Miami, University of New Hampshire,
University of New Mexico, University of North
Carolina– Chapel Hill, University of Rochester,
University of South Carolina, University of South
Florida, University of Tennessee– Knoxville,
University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wesleyan
University, and Western Washington University.
Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, Inc.
( VTIP) works to identify, develop, protect and
market discoveries resulting from research by
Virginia Tech faculty, staff and students. ILLiad
was created in the Interlibrary Loan office at
Virginia Tech, and the Borrowing module is
licensed through VTIP.
Atlas Systems, Inc. provides service and
support for the ILLiad system, as well as licensing
the Lending module. Founded in 1996, Atlas
Systems, Inc. also provides computer hardware
and software consulting services.
The OCLC Interlibrary Loan service came
online in 1979. In the 1998/ 99 fiscal year, nearly
6,200 libraries arranged over 8.2 million loans
through the system. OCLC offers a number of
products and services that support ILL, including
the OCLC ILL Direct Request service that allows
library users to enter ILL requests with little or no
staff intervention.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 9
by Nita Dean
In 1995, a group of library directors representing
about half of the 64 campuses in the State
University of New York system formed an ad hoc
committee to leverage their buying power for the
OCLC FirstSearch service.
“ I was involved with that committee,” said
Larry Randall, then director of the library at SUNY
Purchase,“ and we did get a good deal. We were
able to put together a package of FirstSearch
databases that was offered to SUNY campuses. At
that time, it wasn’t centrally funded but prorated
from each campus.”
The committee launched the SUNY FirstSearch
Consortium, which was able to leverage its
resources by sharing simultaneous access across
participating libraries.
“ The joint purchase of FirstSearch was the
keystone of the notion of selecting databases
centrally for all SUNY libraries,” Mr. Randall said.
“ FirstSearch was, as befits its name, first.”
Now project coordinator of SUNYConnect, the
digital library for the whole SUNY system, Mr.
Randall said the idea of working together to
provide online resources to libraries in New York
grew from there.
“ When it began in 1997, the project was
referred to as the SUNY Virtual Library,” Mr.
Randall said, and the prospect of being in on the
ground floor of such an exciting new project was
irresistible to him.
A year later, Carey Hatch, assistant provost,
Office of Library and Information Services, SUNY
Administration, identified funds to provide
service to all SUNY libraries and was instrumental
in bringing all the libraries in the SUNY system
into the consortium. Both the funding and the
cooperation have continued, and FirstSearch has
now become part of SUNYConnect.
According to Mr. Hatch,“ The FirstSearch base
package is an integral part of SUNYConnect
electronic resources. It provides a solid
foundation for all our libraries, and the pricing
from OCLC allows each campus to leverage that
foundation for better pricing on individually
purchased FirstSearch databases.”
In addition to the FirstSearch base package,
SUNYConnect now provides databases from six
major sources. The most recent offering is the
Associated Press photo archive.
Additional databases are being reviewed for
possible selection by the SUNY Library Contract
Advisory Team, which has representatives from
each type of library: doctoral, four- year,
community college and specialized institutions.
To permit the purchase of additional
resources, a database fee collected from each
campus now augments the project’s central
funding.
“ The libraries are very enthusiastic,” Mr.
Randall said. “ Although they now contribute
through the database fee, they love the idea that
they get so much more than would be possible if
they were to buy the resources on their own.”
“ There was genuine excitement among the
SUNY directors about a consortium FirstSearch
purchase, particularly in terms of making
available to SUNY students and faculty what we
couldn’t on an individual institution basis,” said
Cerise Oberman, dean of Libraries and
Information Services, Plattsburgh State
University, and one of the SUNY directors
of this early consortium initiative. “ However,”
she added,“ there was also a great deal of
naiveté in terms of the complexity of
negotiations, financial models and coordination.
SUNYConnect consortium benefits libraries in New York
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
10 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
But naiveté was our friend, allowing us to push
forward in the face of complexity. In the end,
this initial effort proved to be one of the early
steps in shaping the now outstanding
SUNYConnect program.��
“ Ironically, in my previous position as a SUNY
library director, I was a part of the initial group
that worked with OCLC for what was then a
groundbreaking consortial effort to purchase
FirstSearch for a group of interested SUNY
libraries,” said Mary- Alice Lynch, executive
director, Nylink, the OCLC- affiliated regional
network in New York. “ More recently, I am
pleased to have been able to participate in the
expansion of cost- effective FirstSearch service to
many of the libraries in New York.”
Today, SUNYConnect licenses FirstSearch
through Nylink as part of a statewide program
in New York, which benefits all types of
libraries.
“ It’s extremely advantageous to SUNY and
other libraries across the state that there is a
statewide FirstSearch program,” Mr. Randall said.
“ It vastly simplifies the process of identifying
databases for purchase. And, because of its size,
SUNY is an essential part of making statewide
pricing work.”— Nita Dean is manager, OCLC
Public Relations.
• • •
The International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions ( IFLA) and OCLC
have awarded the first four IFLA/ OCLC Early
Career Development Fellowships, which were
established to support library and information
science professionals who are in the early stages
of their career development and from countries
with developing economies. This year, the
American Library Association joined with IFLA
and OCLC to sponsor one of the four fellowships.
The fellows are:
· Tuba Akbayturk, senior systems librarian at the
Koç University Library in Istanbul, Turkey.
· Rashidah Bolhassan, coordinator of the State
Library Project— a digital library— in Sarawak,
Malaysia.
· Smita Chandra, a librarian at the Indian
Institute of Geomagnetism in Mumbai, India.
· Ayegbeni Igonor, Information Services librarian
at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, South
Africa.
The four fellowship recipients will travel to
OCLC Headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, for four
weeks to participate in an intensive program of
lectures, seminars and mentoring.
Early Career Development fellows will
participate in OCLC Institute seminars, observe
portions of an OCLC Users Council meeting, and
visit selected North American libraries.
Eight fellowship finalists were awarded a free
seat in any future qualifying OCLC Institute event.
The finalists are: Airenobeuan Adetimirin
( Nigeria), Dina Isyanti ( Indonesia), Sangeeta Kaul
( India), Hua Nie ( China), Chukwuemeka
Nwakanma ( Nigeria), Ashyme Saine ( The
Gambia), Roselyn Subair ( Nigeria) and Nthabiseng
Taole ( Lesotho).
Information on the fellowship program is
available from the OCLC Institute on the Web at
< http:// www. oclc. org/ institute/>, via telephone
at + 1- 614- 764- 6357, or by writing to the OCLC
Institute at 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, Ohio, USA,
43017.
The International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions ( IFLA), founded in
1927, is a worldwide, independent organization
created to provide librarians around the world
with a forum for exchanging ideas and promoting
international cooperation. IFLA is also doing
research and development in all fields of library
activities.
With over 1,600 members in more than 150
countries, IFLA is a truly global organization. The
federation is deeply rooted in the library
community worldwide. More information is
available at < http:// www. ifla. org>.
• • •
Librarians from India, Malaysia, South Africa and Turkey
named IFLA/ OCLC Early Career Development Fellows
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 11
The OCLC RetroCon service is converting into
machine- readable form approximately 150,000
catalog records representing monographs and
serials held in Yale University Library’s East Asian
Collection.
The conversion project will run through June
2003. The records will contain vernacular
characters and romanized information.
This three- year project is one of several
RetroCon projects currently under way that will
result in the retrospective conversion of more
than 2 million records representing materials held
in more than 10 libraries across the Yale
University campus.
“ The Yale Library is justifiably proud of its East
Asian Collection and the usefulness of the catalog
records representing those materials— many of
which were created by Yale’s talented catalogers,”
said Scott Bennett, university librarian, Yale
University. “ It will be gratifying to have these
records represented in Yale’s online catalog and in
the bibliographic utilities, where they will be of
value both to Yale researchers and to the
community of students and scholars beyond New
Haven.”
“ Yale University Library’s East Asian Collection
is one of the most important collections of East
Asian materials in the United States,” said Gary
Houk, vice president, OCLC Services. “ This OCLC
RetroCon project will enhance the richness of
the CJK collection in WorldCat ( the OCLC Online
Union Catalog), thereby enabling researchers
beyond the Yale campus to discover and gain
access to these valuable materials.”
Yale University Library’s East Asian Collection
consists largely of more than 640,000 volumes of
works in Chinese, Japanese and Korean that
support research and teaching in a variety of
disciplines including anthropology, art history,
Buddhism, economics, history, linguistics,
literature and sociology.
“ We are extremely pleased that the
retrospective conversion of our records
representing East Asian language materials will be
completed by the OCLC RetroCon service in
three years,” said Hideo Kaneko, curator, Yale
University’s East Asian Collection. “ We have been
creating machine- readable catalog records for
currently received materials since 1984, and we
have succeeded in accomplishing some
retrospective conversion in house. As a result, we
have nearly 200,000
records that are in
machine- readable
form today.
However, it is
imperative that we
make all of our
records accessible
via the online
catalog as soon as
possible so that
readers can make
full use of our rich
resources. Readers
at Yale and beyond,
as well as library
staff, eagerly await
the completion of
this critically
important project.”
The Yale University RetroCon project coincides
with a change in standards to represent Chinese
characters with roman letters in catalog records.
The Wade- Giles system of romanization, widely
used throughout most of the 20th century, will be
replaced by the Pinyin system beginning Oct. 1,
2000.
Known for its rich collections and
architecturally distinguished buildings, the Yale
University Library is among the finest research
institutions in the world. A full spectrum of
library resources, from rare books and
manuscripts to a rapidly expanding network of
electronic resources, is one of Yale’s great
strengths. Nearly 600 staff and student
employees are engaged on a daily basis in
selecting and cataloging material for the
collections, building a sophisticated online
information system, helping readers use the
collections thoughtfully, and preserving Yale’s
300- year accumulation of research materials.
Since 1976, the OCLC RetroCon service staff
has converted millions of records for libraries.
Over 200 RetroCon specialists perform online and
offline creation of records from cards or other
bibliographic records, as well as conversion of
Chinese, Japanese and Korean titles. In addition to
monographs, OCLC RetroCon staff is trained in
converting serials, music, manuscripts and all other
special formats, including serial local data records.
• • •
OCLC RetroCon service staff members working on the Yale
University Library East Asian Collection project include, left to
right: Ling Park, operator; Wendy Conner, technical specialist;
Mei- Ling Wong, operator; and Kim Fry, RetroCon Section manager.
OCLC RetroCon service to convert 150,000 records
for Yale University Library East Asian Collection
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
12 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Tony Melvyn
The libraries in OCLC’s annual list of top
borrowers and lenders manage and maintain a
huge volume of interlibrary loan activity with the
help of dedicated library staff and new services
and software programs. OCLC designed these
new services and programs to improve staff
efficiency and to manage the ever- increasing
workload in libraries.
· OCLC ILL Custom Holdings takes groups of
preferred lenders and organizes them online.
This reduces keystrokes and eliminates the
need to trace how often a lender is used.
· OCLC ILL Direct Request service automatically
receives and then sends library user requests to
the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service for
fulfillment.
· The OCLC ILL Fee Management service helps
libraries significantly reduce administrative costs
by tracking and reconciling ILL charges, for both
loans and copies, through their OCLC bills.
· The OCLC ILL Micro Enhancer for Windows
software improves productivity by automating
many repetitious and time- consuming
borrowing and lending tasks.
· The OCLC ILL Management Statistics service
offers subscribers electronic files of OCLC
Interlibrary Loan activity statistics that can be
used with standard third- party spreadsheet and
database software applications such as
Microsoft Excel or Access.
All of these services were the direct result of
input from the OCLC membership, who advised
and assisted OCLC in their development.
UCLA, featured on both lists, employs all of
these services to maintain and manage an
impressive volume of activity in support of their
users and other OCLC member libraries.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University ( VPI) has recently seen an explosive
growth in OCLC ILL borrowing, which was
accomplished through their use of ILLiad
software, an ILL management software program
they created to improve service to their library
users. OCLC has recently announced its intention
to become the sole distributor of ILLiad software,
and we hope VPI’s success will be duplicated
across the OCLC membership.— Tony Melvyn is
OCLC senior consulting product support
specialist.
• • •
Top interlibrary loan borrowers
and lenders enhance efficiency
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 13
OCLC Symbol Institution Name Loans Requested
COF Colorado State University 66,479
NJQ New Jersey ILL Access Center 51,890
ILU Texas Tech University 39,555
COD University of Colorado at Boulder 37,163
CLU University of California, Los Angeles 36,200
VPI Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 33,996
UPM Pennsylvania State University 33,690
IUL Indiana University 32,538
UIU University of Illinois 30,557
VA@ University of Virginia 30,038
Top Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Institutions
( July 1, 1999 through June 30, 2000)
OCLC Symbol Institution Name Loan Requests Received
IUL Indiana University 83,582
CAI Canada Institute for Scientific
and Technical Information 83,277
COD University of Colorado at Boulder 78,387
IXA University of Texas at Austin 71,765
UIU University of Illinois 67,824
CLU University of California, Los Angeles 65,867
EYM University of Michigan 65,491
GUA University of Georgia 63,779
TXA Texas A& M University 63,277
AZS Arizona State University 61,810
Top Interlibrary Loan Lending Institutions
( July 1, 1999 through June 30, 2000)
compiled by Kevin Skarsten, OCLC consulting systems analyst
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
14 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by George S. Ouyang
China Academic Library and
Information System ( CALIS)
in China has entered into an
agreement with OCLC for its
member libraries to use
OCLC in cooperative
cataloging. Under the
agreement, CALIS member
libraries will be able to download bibliographic
records from WorldCat and upload, for resource
sharing among those libraries, the records into the
CALIS Union Catalog housed in Peking University
Library, the largest university library in Asia.
“ OCLC is the largest library network, with
libraries in 76 countries,” said Qinfang Xie, deputy
director of CALIS Center at Peking University and
deputy director of Peking University Library.
“ WorldCat, the largest bibliographic database in
the world, is certainly the most important data
source for the construction of local bibliographic
databases. The cooperation between CALIS and
OCLC will definitely accelerate the involvement
of CALIS member libraries in this global resource
sharing system.”
“ This is indeed another major milestone in the
development of a cooperative relationship between
OCLC and the academic community in China,” said
Andrew H. Wang, executive director, OCLC Asia
Pacific. “ The OCLC Service Center at Tsinghua
University was established in 1996 and has made
the OCLC FirstSearch service available to CALIS
members. I am very pleased that we have now
reached an agreement on cooperative cataloging
with CALIS through Peking University. It is my
sincere hope that CALIS and OCLC will further our
cooperative relationship to cover additional
initiatives and services in the years ahead.”
CALIS was established under the auspices of
the China Educational Ministry in September
1998, in an effort to facilitate information resource
sharing among 61 university libraries in China.
Initially, 15 institutions out of the 61 CALIS
members will participate in OCLC as OCLC
member libraries in cooperative online cataloging.
They will also use the OCLC Interlibrary Loan
service.
As the network infrastructure improves in
China, more and more CALIS member libraries
will be involved with OCLC in global resource
sharing.— George S. Ouyang is executive, OCLC
Asia Pacific Services.
CALIS libraries participating in OCLC cataloging:
Peking University Libraries
Tsinghua University Library
China Agricultural Library
Fudan University Library
Shanghai Jiaotong University Library
Shanghai Tongji University Library
Shanghai University of Medical Science Library
East China Normal University Library
Nanjing University Library
Zhejiang University Libraries
Wuhan University Libraries
Zhongshan University Libraries
Xiamen University Library
Xi’an Jiaotong University Library
Jinlin University Libraries
• • •
CALIS members to use OCLC Cataloging Service
In June, the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro,
México, hosted the first meeting of OCLC
catalogers in Mexico. The meeting established an
OCLC cataloging users group in the Mexican
region to promote cooperation and support in
solving cataloging problems and to explore other
areas that might be improved by means of
cooperation.
In the group’s first meeting, Nicholas Cop,
director, OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean,
met with directors and technical services staff of
libraries using OCLC cataloging services in
Mexico. Mr. Cop said the occasion provided an
opportunity for the exchange of experiences and
opinions and to promote camaraderie among
Mexican professionals.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 15
by Hisako Kotaka
OCLC CJK 3.02, an updated
version of the 32- bit OCLC
CJK software, is now
available. Version 3.02 is
compatible with both
Windows NT and Windows
2000 platforms and includes
changes that support OCLC
projects such as OCLC symbol expansion,
authority file updates and OCLC- MARC
Bibliographic Update 2000 installation.
This new version continues to support full
OCLC CJK vernacular cataloging features and
functionality as the previous version did. User-manageable
local files, batch processing in online
and local transactions, and efficient data entry
tools will continue to enhance CJK cataloging
productivity.
The stand- alone OCLC CJK Z39.50 Client
module that was packaged together in the earlier
version has been removed from the main OCLC
CJK cataloging application. It will be released as
an independent OCLC Multiscripts Z39.50 Client
later. The enhanced Z- client will be available to
OCLC members as well as non- members as a
vernacular information access tool. User-definable
interface language; profiling choice of
character code conversion standards, including
East Asian Character Code, ANSI Z39.64- 1989
with Unicode, and other East Asian character
coding schemes with Unicode; and vernacular
search and display capability in the Unicode-based
Windows NT or Windows 2000 platform are
new features for this application.
Until the OCLC Multiscripts Z39.50 Client is
released, both OCLC CJK 3.01 with OCLC CJK
Z39.50 Client and OCLC CJK 3.02 are available on
the OCLC web site for users to download. For
more OCLC CJK- related information, see
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/ cjk. htm>.
— Hisako Kotaka is consulting product support
specialist, OCLC.
• • •
OCLC CJK 3.02 software is now available
The library system of the Universidad de la Frontera, located in Temuco, Chile, is now using the
OCLC FirstSearch service. Among the university’s major schools are Engineering and
Administration, Medicine, Education and the Humanities, and Agricultural and Forest Sciences.
The university library system is an information center specializing in service to higher
education, helping the development of academic programs and satisfying the demand for
information at the university.
• • •
Universidad de la Frontera, Chile, now using FirstSearch
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
16 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Dawn Lawson
At the Dewey
Breakfast/ Update held at
this year’s ALA Annual
Meeting in Chicago, Lucy
Evans, cataloging manager at
the British Library, regaled a
large crowd of fascinated
librarians with a
presentation titled “ Two
Epic Tales.” Both tales involve a change in
classification schemes, which, Ms. Evans noted—
evoking a hearty round of appreciative laughter—
is as traumatic an event in a librarian’s
professional life as moving or divorce is in one’s
personal life.
The first reclassification project involves the
120,000 monographs and 29,000 serials in the
library’s Science, Technology, and Business
Collections ( known as the “ STB”), which are
arranged according to a local classification
scheme. It took five long years of debate before
the decision was made to shift the classification
of these collections from the local scheme to the
Dewey Decimal Classification system as of 2001.
A combination of factors helped swing the
debate in favor of the DDC. The physical move of
the STB, part of the British Library since 1974, to
reading rooms in the newly built British Library at
St. Pancras in 1997 marked the first time these
collections have been housed together in one
openly accessible location. The DDC— used by
both public and academic libraries in the United
Kingdom— enjoys wide familiarity among readers
there, whereas the STB’s local classification
system is known only by those who have had
extensive experience with it. Also, it was felt to
be only fitting that a component collection of a
well- known national library use a classification
scheme that is widely understood worldwide and
language- independent, and that enables sharing
records with other libraries. The British Library
will realize economic long- term benefits from the
shift as well, because the cataloging records for
STB are already classified with the DDC for their
entry into the British National Bibliography.
Ms. Evans emphasized that introducing the
DDC and applying it to 20,000 current serials and
to all materials acquired from 2001 onward across
five separate reading rooms was itself so large a
task that retrospective conversion of the existing
materials is not being considered at this time. It
is estimated that the DDC and the STB scheme
will be used in parallel for the next 10 years.
The setting of Ms. Evans’ second tale was the
British Museum. With the opening of new
reading rooms in the new British Library at St.
Pancras, the world- famous round reading room at
the British Museum��� yes, the one where all those
famous literati of past and present are known to
have studied— is going to be reborn in December
of this year. Its new incarnation will be as the
museum’s Paul Hamlyn Library, which will house
a new collection of 25,000 publications relevant
to the civilizations and societies represented in
the holdings of the museum. The collection will
be openly accessible to all visitors. The factors
motivating this library’s decision to use the DDC
are similar to those that applied in the STB’s case.
Ms. Evans noted that her research had
uncovered few recorded accounts of large- scale
operational changes in libraries comparable to
those she faced. She expressed her hope that
others would benefit from her discussion of the
dilemmas her institution has had to confront. It
was clear that learning of her experience was
useful— and enjoyable— for the librarians who
gathered to hear about it at ALA. In accordance
with their request, OCLC Forest Press has made
available her presentation, which includes color
photographs, at < http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/
worldwide/ libraries/ british/ blcolor. ppt>.
— Dawn Lawson is manager, Electronic
Products, OCLC Forest Press.
• • •
‘ Two Epic Tales’ from the British Library
and the British Museum
Dawn Lawson
Walters State Community College in Morristown,
Tennessee, created the 101 millionth request on the
OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) service on July 24.
The request was for an article in the Journal of
Nursing Education, an electronic journal that
provides a forum for original articles and ideas for
nursing educators in various nursing programs.
“ I heard about reaching this record only after I
did it,” said Hans Jehle, library clerk, who entered
the milestone request. “ I hope to process more
millionth records in the future.”
Mr. Jehle has been working with the OCLC ILL
service since he joined the Walters State
Community College Library staff in May. He
works with Lynn Carter and James Damewood in
the Interlibrary Loan Department.
“ Interlibrary loan has increased dramatically in
our library the last two to three years,” said Doug
Cross, director, Walters State Community College
Library ( OCLC symbol: TOD). “ We have 10 to 15
instructors at the college working on their
doctorates, and that has made an impact on our
interlibrary loan traffic.”
Mr. Cross said the library has been averaging
50 to 60 interlibrary loan requests each month for
the past few months. Students have electronic
information and public access catalogs available
through 53 computers in the library’s information
center.
With an enrollment of over 6,000, Walters State
Community College is named for former U. S.
Senator Herbert S. Walters, who played a key role
in establishing the institution in Morristown in
1970. In 1994, the college began phase II of a
master building plan that included construction
of a new library, math and science building. The
new library opened in May 1997.
The Knight Library of the
University of Oregon ( OCLC
symbol: ORU) created the 100
millionth OCLC ILL request June 5.
The OCLC Interlibrary Loan
service came online in 1979. In
the 1998/ 99 fiscal year, nearly
6,200 libraries arranged over 8.2
million loans through the system.
OCLC offers a number of products
and services that support ILL,
including the OCLC ILL Direct
Request service that allows library
users to enter ILL requests with
little or no staff intervention.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 17
Walters State Community College creates 101 millionth
OCLC ILL request
Hans Jehle entered the 101 millionth OCLC
ILL request.
Walters State Community College Library is holding a series of eight Internet training classes
for 200 senior students.
Walters State Community College Library
photos provided by Walters State Community College
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
18 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
OCLC Statistics
( as of Sept. 1, 2000)
Current statistics are at
< http:// www. oclc. org/
oclc/ new/ stats. htm>.
Participating
libraries
37,913
New member libraries
( July 1– Aug. 30, 2000)
165
Total interlibrary loan requests
101,782,040
by Jennifer Hamilton
Four new members were
appointed to each of the
three OCLC product
advisory committees—
Collections and Technical
Services, Reference Services
and Resource Sharing.
These new members will
offer expertise to OCLC by discussing ideas for
new services and products and evaluating OCLC
strategic plans.
New members to the Collections and Technical
Services Advisory Committee include: Sam Kalb,
Queen’s University Libraries ( OCLC Canada);
Linda Barnhart, University of California, San Diego
( OCLC Pacific); Richard Amelung, Saint Louis
University School of Law ( MLNC); and Janet
Padway, University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee
( WiLS), who was re- appointed and will serve a
second term.
New members to the Reference Services
Advisory Committee include: Giles Caron,
Bibliothèque Paul- Émile- Boulet, Université de
Québec ( OCLC Canada); Carole Richter, University
of Notre Dame ( INCOLSA); Constance Scofield,
University of Wisconsin ( WiLS); and Lynn Sipe,
University of Southern California ( OCLC Pacific).
New members to the Resource Sharing
Advisory Committee include: Maureen Welch,
Indianhead Federated Library System ( WiLS);
Alexis Gibb, University of Alberta Cameron
Library, Edmonton ( OCLC Canada); Terry Ann
Sayler, University of Maryland– College Park
( PALINET); and Suzanne Ward, Purdue University
( INCOLSA).
All new committee members’ terms expire
June 30, 2003.
Continuing members of the Collections and
Technical Services Advisory Committee include:
Judy Dyki, Cranbrook Academy of Art Library
( Independent); Martha O’Hara Conway, Yale
University Library ( NELINET); Lois Fenker, Seattle
Public Library ( OCLC/ WLN); John Edens, State
University of New York at Buffalo ( Nylink); Robert
Neville, College of Charleston ( SOLINET);
Kathryn Hughes, National Library of Wales ( OCLC
Europe, the Middle East and Africa); Louise
Sevold, Cuyahoga Public Library ( OHIONET); and
John Schalow, University of Maryland ( PALINET).
Continuing members of the Reference Services
Advisory Committee include: Carol Antoniewicz,
Washington University ( MLNC); Barbara Berg,
Juneau Public Library ( OCLC/ WLN); Stewart
Bodner, New York Public Library ( Nylink); Jim
Soester, Chadron State College ( NEBASE);
Maryhelen Jones, College of Santa Fe ( Amigos);
Ellen Seidel, Michigan Technological University
( MLC); John Tombarge, Washington and Lee
University ( SOLINET); and Paul Ulrich, Zentral-und
Landesbibliothek, Berlin ( OCLC Europe).
Continuing members of the Resource Sharing
Advisory Committee include: Tom Delaney,
Colorado State University ( BCR); Susan Hill, Case
Western Reserve University ( OHIONET); Lone
Knakkergaard, Universitesparken, Denmark
( OCLC Europe); Dorcas MacDonald, Syracuse
University ( Nylink); Susan Niewenhous, Lewis-
Clark State College Library ( OCLC/ WLN); Anne
Nolan, Brown University ( NELINET); Julie Blume
Nye, State Library of North Carolina ( SOLINET);
and Nada Vaughn, Washington University
( MLNC).— Jennifer Hamilton is intern, OCLC
Public Relations.
• • •
Product advisory committee members named
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 19
Highest OCLC
record number
44,928,455
Location listings
( holdings)
773,100,463
FirstSearch libraries
16,738
Martin Knott, of the monograph cataloging
division, University of Michigan Library, is the
winner of the 2000 LITA/ OCLC Minority
Scholarship in Library and Information
Technology.
Mr. Knott, of Detroit, Michigan, is the 10th
winner of the scholarship. Established to
encourage minority students to pursue careers
in library automation, the scholarship is funded
by OCLC with a $ 2,500 stipend, which is
granted to the student entering or currently
enrolled in a master’s degree program
accredited by the American Library
Association.
Mr. Knott will enroll in the University of
Michigan School of Information. He has a
bachelor’s degree in communication from the
University of Michigan with a focus on
television and film writing.
Displaying a “ fondness for libraries,” Mr.
Knott has been associated with the University
Library, first as an undergraduate working with
special collections, and since August 1992,
with the Monograph Cataloging Division.
The applicant for the scholarship must be a
U. S. or Canadian citizen and a member of a
principal minority group. Qualifications
include a record of academic excellence,
leadership skills, evidence of commitment to a
career in library automation and information
technology, and prior experience in these
areas.
For more information, contact the LITA
office, LITA/ ALA, 50 East Huron Street,
Chicago, Illinois, 60611- 2795.
• • •
Martin Knott named LITA/ OCLC
Minority Scholarship winner
R E S E A R C H
20 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
Office of Research explores management of electronic
theses and dissertations
by Robert C. Bolander
For some time now,
segments of the higher
education community have
been considering the
possibilities for new
publishing activities
provided by rapidly
developing digital
information technology.
Discussions have been held and initiatives
proposed or implemented by faculty,
administration, combined groups and conference
participants. Among others, these activities have
involved graduate schools, libraries, computer
science departments and institutional computing
facilities.
Although universities traditionally had been
active participants in the publication process for
their faculties, in recent decades this involvement
diminished greatly. Theses and dissertations
represent the last area of general institutional
involvement in the publishing process. Thus,
these publications also present a natural
opportunity for institutions to experiment with
electronic publishing possibilities. Libraries
frequently are involved deeply with on- campus
electronic thesis and dissertation ( ETD)
initiatives, partly as a natural extension of their
role with the traditional forms of these
publications.
Public discussions regarding ETDs were held as
early as 1987, but pragmatic implementations
were not possible until Adobe Systems marketed
the Acrobat software for creating and reading
Portable Document Format ( PDF) computer files.
By late 1995, with the support of the
Southeastern Universities Research Association,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
( Virginia Tech) was leading a regional effort to
build tools, infrastructure and training materials,
and disseminate workable techniques to
interested universities < http:// www. ndltd. org/
pubs/ FIPSEfr. pdf>.
Shortly thereafter, with the support of the U. S.
Department of Education’s Fund for the
Improvement of Post- Secondary Education,
Edward A. Fox, professor of computer science at
Virginia Tech, initiated what came to be called the
Networked Digital Library of Theses and
Dissertations ( NDLTD), an initiative to improve
graduate education, increase sharing of
knowledge, help universities build their
information infrastructure, and extend the value
of digital libraries < http:// www. ndltd. org/>. Dr.
Fox currently serves as director of the Digital
Library Research Laboratory at Virginia Tech, and
as director of the NDLTD. He also served on the
OCLC Research Advisory Committee from
1997– 1999.
In 1997, Virginia Tech became the first
institution to require students to submit theses
and dissertations in electronic form. In 1999, two
universities required that graduate students
submit ETDs; today, four universities do so, and
there are over 7,500 ETDs available from the 78
loosely federated member institutions of the
NDLTD, according to “ Managing Electronic Theses
and Dissertations: The Third International
Symposium,” by Gail McMillan, in College &
Research Libraries News ( May 2000): 413- 414.
Holdings are accessible via individual member
sites, as well as through a prototype federated
search service at the NDLTD site.
Clearly, we are in the early stages of
development for institutional requirements that
students submit electronic versions of theses and
dissertations. However, the recent increase in
interest after a long incubation period suggests
that the time is right for investigation of the
problems and opportunities involved in
implementing ETD programs.
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 21
To this end, the OCLC Office of Research ( OR)
will be initiating a research project on ETDs, to be
led by Thom Hickey, chief scientist. Dr. Hickey
developed and led the OCLC CORC project
during its first year as an OR activity. His
association with CORC continued for another
year as the project migrated from the OR into
production as an OCLC service.
“ Along with many libraries, we see electronic
theses and dissertations as an opportunity to
enter into scholarly publishing,” said Dr. Hickey.
“ OCLC is positioned, perhaps uniquely, to
develop a new model for such activities, one
based on direct library involvement in the
publishing process. OCLC has a definite
opportunity to contribute a shared ETD database,
networking tools, metadata and preservation
standards, and to structure collaboration among
libraries to avoid duplication of efforts and waste
of scarce resources.”
Likely goals of the OR project involve
developing shared, open- source solutions for the
implementation of local ETD projects. Functional
areas that could be examined include managing
submissions, metadata creation, tracking and
certification activities, as well as access and
preservation issues.
In conjunction with this project, the Office
of Research has commissioned a white paper
from Ms. McMillan, associate professor,
Virginia Tech University Libraries, and director
of Virginia Tech’s Digital Library and Archives
< http:// scholar. lib. vt. edu/>. Ms. McMillan has
been asked to identify and address key issues
involved in the processing and management of
ETDs, including who is or should be involved in
processing ETDs, what processes and workflows
are necessary, access issues, programmed
applications, system administration, copyright,
outreach and usage, and archiving and
preservation.
“ NDLTD is pleased to see continuing support
by OCLC as we work together to increase the
involvement of libraries in assisting with the
creation, collection and dissemination of
electronic theses and dissertations,” said Dr. Fox.
“ Gail McMillan, one of the co- PIs ( principal
investigators) in the U. S. Department of
Education- funded project that established NDLTD,
is uniquely qualified to help other libraries
support their universities’ handling of electronic
theses and dissertations. With OCLC’s support,
her knowledge and experience can be more
widely shared.”
In addition to the white paper, Ms. McMillan
plans to visit OCLC’s Dublin campus later this
year as part of the OR- sponsored Distinguished
Seminar Series, so that the early stages of the OR
project might benefit from her extensive
knowledge and experience. Her full report is
anticipated by early next year.
Libraries seeking more information about the
Office of Research ETD project may visit
< http:// purl. oclc. org/ ETD>. This site will have
preliminary information later this year, with more
detailed information made available as the project
matures.— Robert C. Bolander is manager,
Communications and Programs, OCLC Office of
Research.
• • •
R E S E A R C H
R E S E A R C H
22 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Jean Godby and Diane Vizine- Goetz
The International Society of Knowledge
Organization ( ISKO) held its sixth biennial
conference in Toronto, Canada, July 10– 13.
Approximately 60 scholars of classification
research were guests of the University of
Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies.
Attendees represented research communities in
17 countries, including Brazil, Denmark, France,
Germany, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Thailand and
the United Kingdom, as well as Canada and the
United States. Among the many academic
disciplines represented were cognitive
psychology, computer science, library and
information science, linguistics, mathematics and
philosophy. But this diverse group of researchers
was remarkably united in its goal: to facilitate
access to the written record of the world’s
cultural heritage, primarily by using the principles
of librarianship to improve the responsiveness of
the Web and other electronic media.
The theme of the ISKO Conference was
stability and dynamism in knowledge
organization. In the keynote address, Hanne
Albrechtsen ( Centre for Human- Computer
Interaction, Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde,
Denmark) argued that the most useful
classification schemes are local to a particular
domain of knowledge. These schemes must
encode the stable or invariant structures in a
domain but must also accommodate the
inevitable evolution of concepts or the needs of
new information- seeking tasks. Dr. Albrechtsen’s
view implies that library classification schemes,
such as the Dewey Decimal Classification system
and the Library of Congress Classification, which
reflect many generations of sustained intellectual
effort, may not be suitable for the organization of
information like that found on the Web.
However, other researchers at the conference
described the shortcomings of knowledge
organization schemes that have developed on the
Web without input from the classification research
community. Many of these schemes have evolved
from the bottom up, reflecting attempts by a site’s
sponsor to cope with increasingly unwieldy links
that exert pressure to be organized in some
fashion. In Dr. Albrechtsen’s terms, they are
perhaps skewed too much toward a commitment
to dynamism.
For example, Michèle Hudon ( École de
bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information,
Université de Montréal), analyzed several web-based
organization schemes, including the ones
used at Yahoo! < www. yahoo. com>, LexUM
< www. lexum. umontreal. ca>, the World Wide Web
Virtual Library < http:// vlib. org/>, the Linguist List
< www. emich. edu/~ linguist>, and the Librarians’
Index to the Internet < www. lii. org>.
Dr. Hudon concluded that though some of
these schemes may be widely used, they exhibit
weaknesses such as a lack of concern for
standardization, a lack of consistency in the
definition and arrangement of categories, a
lack of specificity, and a lack of well- defined
relational structures. In other words, the
fundamental principles that motivate the design
of traditional classification schemes are rarely
found in empirically derived taxonomies of
Internet resources. Similar conclusions were
reported by Barbara Kwasnik and Xioyong Liu
( School of Information Studies, Syracuse
University) from their analysis of the classification
scheme developed for eBay < www. eBay. com>.
Users can cope with Internet classification
schemes right now, but it is hard to predict what
will happen when these systems grow by several
orders of magnitude in the near future.
Like many researchers who attended the ISKO
conference, we are interested in enlisting the
principles of knowledge organization to facilitate
the discovery of textual resources on the Web.
We gave a progress report on work being done in
collaboration with NetLab at Lund University in
Sweden < http:// www. lub. lu. se/ netlab/>. In
1994, information scientists at NetLab developed
the Engineering Electronic Libraries Service
( EELS) < http:// eels. lub. lu. se/> on behalf of the
Swedish Universities of Technology Libraries. In
the EELS service, 1,400 Internet resources about
engineering were manually selected and classified
using the Engineering Index ( EI) Thesaurus, a
ISKO participants discuss ways librarianship can
improve responsiveness of the Web
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 23
standard engineering thesaurus. These
documents were supplemented with
approximately 250,000 documents that were
automatically identified, harvested and classified
using the EI Thesaurus. The results are available
in a searchable and browsable web interface
maintained by NetLab and are accessible at
< http:// eels. lub. lu. se/ ae/>.
We are implementing a separate system for
browsing and searching the EELS collection using
software developed for several OCLC products
and research projects, including SiteSearch < http://
www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/ site. htm>, CORC
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ corc/ index. htm>,
Scorpion < http:// orc. rsch. oclc. org: 6109/> and
WordSmith< http:// orc. rsch. oclc. org: 5061/>. We
want to find out if engineering terminology can
be extracted using WordSmith, and if the EELS
collection can be automatically classified using the
DDC. If so, several OCLC projects can be
integrated, providing users with a rich set of
options for browsing and searching a specialized
collection of web documents that complements
the work of our Swedish collaborators. This work
also addresses the questions of stability and
dynamism in knowledge organization, as discussed
in Dr. Albrechtsen’s keynote address.
At the start of our project, it wasn’t clear
whether a general knowledge organization
scheme such as the DDC would be appropriate as
an organizing tool for a document collection that
is known to be focused. We had two concerns: Is
the DDC rich enough in vocabulary to classify
documents in a highly technical domain? And if
DDC numbers are automatically assigned, isn’t
there enormous potential for incorrect
classifications?
A simple tabulation can shed light on the first
question. The EI Thesaurus contains 700
classification categories and 16,000 terms
mapped to the class structure, 8,273 of which are
preferred terms. The DDC has 2,100 relevant
class numbers in engineering, natural science and
social science and 3,699 Dewey index terms. An
additional 587 terms from the Library of Congress
Subject Headings were mapped to the 2,100
classes by the Dewey editors, and 2,263 were
statistically associated by reference to WorldCat
records that contain Dewey numbers paired with
LC headings. With a total of 6,549 relevant
engineering terms, the DDC compares favorably
with the EI thesaurus, though it has more classes
and a smaller average number of terms per class.
Figure 1 shows a sample DDC class that contains
a rich set of engineering vocabulary.
To help answer the second question, we
automatically classified a large subset of the EELS
documents using the DDC represented as a
Scorpion database. Some 50,000 English language
documents that passed minimal standards for
length and uniqueness were submitted as queries
to Scorpion, which returned a ranked list of
10 DDC classes for each document. All 500,000
results were tabulated without making any effort
to select the best classifications for each
document. Seventy- two percent of the results fall
into four hierarchies: 000 Computers,
Information & General Reference
( 27 percent), 300 Social Sciences ( 28 percent),
500 Science ( 9 percent), and 600 Technology
( 28 percent). Table 1 contains a further
breakdown of this data, showing the distribution
of at least 70 percent of the classifications for
each of the four hierarchies.
Figure 1. A DDC class definition for a topic
in Engineering
DDC Number:
621.38152
Caption:
Semiconductors
Notes:
Class here crystal devices,
miniaturization,
optoelectronic devices,
thin- film technology
DDC Index Terms:
Crystal devices— electronics
Miniaturization— electronics
Modules— electronics
Optoelectronic devices
Semiconductors
Thin- film technology
Wafers ( electronics)
Mapped Terms ( partial list):
Quantum dots
Amorphous semiconductors
Compound semiconductors
Electric contacts
Ferroelectric thin films
Gallium arsenide
semiconductors
Hot carriers
R E S E A R C H
24 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
Table 1. Automatically assigned DDC class numbers in a subset of EELS records
000 Computers, Information & General Reference
000 Computers, Internet & Systems 60%
020 Library & Information Science 30%
Total: 90%
300 Social Sciences
330 Economics 22%
340 Law 12%
370 Education 28%
380 Commerce, Communications & Transportation 9%
Total: 71%
500 Science
510 Mathematics 17%
530 Physics 27%
540 Chemistry 13%
550 Earth Sciences & Geology 15%
Total: 72%
600 Technology
620 Engineering 46%
650 Management & Public Relations 21%
660 Chemical Engineering 9%
Total: 76%
These results paint a high- level view of the
contents of the EELS records. Many of the
documents are web pages from university
departments, primarily engineering, computer
science, natural sciences and mathematics. These
subjects are discussed from multiple perspectives.
Scholars formulate and debate emerging ideas;
sophisticated bystanders discuss legal, commercial
and philosophical implications; students assemble
bibliographies and pursue degrees; and employers
recruit. Of the approximately 30,000 Dewey
classes available to the Scorpion automatic
classifier, we are encouraged that the selections
overwhelmingly represent the subjects
legitimately discussed in the data, replicating some
of the results reported by our Swedish colleagues
with the EI Thesaurus and supplementing them
with clues about the current social context of the
engineering profession.
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 25
Of course, our study is not complete until we
answer another important question. For a given
document, which, if any, of the 10 automatically
assigned classifications best characterizes the
subject? Unfortunately, this is a difficult question.
One of our pilot studies on a different data set
suggests that relatively few automatically assigned
DDC numbers match the numbers assigned by
expert catalogers— approximately 15 percent.
But the agreement increases dramatically when
DDC numbers that are more abstract than the
human- assigned numbers are scored as correct.
Looking at the results this way makes sense
because the output from an automatic classifier is
potentially valuable even if it does not match the
quality of the human expert. For example,
consider a document that was assigned the DDC
class 621.38152 semiconductors by a subject
cataloging expert and whose closest Scorpion
assignment is 621.38153 printed circuits. Though
the automatic assignment is scored as incorrect
( but close), Figure 2 shows that the two
classifications share a rich hierarchy that may be
more than adequate to support subject browsing
in a document collection that is too large or is
changing too fast to be managed by direct human
involvement.
Moreover, our pilot data suggests that we can
have more confidence in the automatically
assigned classification as we loosen the criteria
for a correct match. For example, 90 percent of
the documents were automatically classified in
the hundreds category that matched the human
classifications. This number was reduced to about
60 percent when matches scored as close
required some overlap in numbers to the right of
the decimal point.
Thus an important research problem is to
define a view of the DDC that provides the most
useful browsing structure to which documents
can be automatically classified with the highest
possible degree of confidence. We can make
progress on this problem only because we are
using a knowledge organization scheme that
encodes the stable conceptual structure of
engineering and related subjects with a
meaningful notation and well- defined categories
and hierarchies, a scheme that can also be
dynamically adapted to the demands of the
current task.— Jean Godby is senior research
scientist and Diane Vizine- Goetz is consulting
research scientist, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
Figure 2. A subject hierarchy in engineering
600 Technology
620 Engineering
621 Applied physics
621.3 Electrical engineering; lighting; superconductivity . . .
621.38 Electronics, communications engineering
621.381 Electronics
621.3815 Components and circuits
Research
abstract: The
role of
classification
in CORC
by Thomas B. Hickey
and Diane Vizine- Goetz
The use of the Dewey Decimal Classification
system in metadata offers unique opportunities
for organizing and searching web resources. In
this paper, we describe CORC tools for applying
and using the DDC as a metadata element. Both
the CORC system and the DDC are benefiting
from the inclusion of Dewey in the CORC
project. CORC benefits from having integrated
access to a rich classification system that can be
used to organize its metadata; the DDC benefits
from its inclusion in an easily adaptable web-based
system that facilitates the exploration of
what a classification system can do in this new
environment.
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
26 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Frank Hermes
The new OCLC WebExpress
service is a breakthrough in
technology for libraries that
want to integrate access to
their electronic resources.
OCLC has developed this
service together with
librarians in response to
their challenges in the
evolving web environment. Listening to librarians
from the beginning of development, we heard
that there are many challenges in organizing
diverse databases, handling user authentication
and creating a presence for the library in an easy
and straightforward interface to all the library’s
resources.
The OCLC WebExpress
service responds to these
challenges by providing an easy-to-
use, integrated gateway to
local and remote Z39.50
information resources through a
single, locally customized
interface that puts the library at
the forefront as an information
provider. OCLC WebExpress
gives librarians the power to
create a system that is uniquely
designed to meet the needs of
their users. And with OCLC
WebExpress, librarians without
programming experience can
facilitate information access to
their users through an interface
they can design themselves.
OCLC WebExpress makes full
use of librarians’ expertise in
delivering superior information
access to their users, increasing
the visibility and viability of
libraries. Librarians know their
users best, so OCLC will
continue to provide
customizable solutions that
allow librarians to apply their
knowledge and experience.
OCLC WebExpress had a
dynamic development cycle,
engaging library partners
throughout the process to remain focused on
meeting libraries’ needs. This system not only
allowed OCLC WebExpress to better meet the
needs of library users, but also permitted a rapid
development cycle so users could quickly take
advantage of new technologies and services.
OCLC will continue to use our relationships with
libraries as partners and engage them in the
development process of our products and
services.
By working together to design OCLC
WebExpress, OCLC and libraries have created a
service that helps to identify the local library as
the source for a world of information.
— Frank Hermes is vice president, OCLC
Marketing and Planning.
• • •
Libraries and OCLC design easy- to- use tool to provide
integrated information access
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 27
by Shirley Hyatt
On July 1, the OCLC
WebExpress service was
introduced as a solution to
the confused mass of
interfaces, passwords, URLs
and search engine
conventions that make it
difficult for librarians to
manage information
resources— and difficult for library users to find
the information they need.
I believe librarians will find that OCLC
WebExpress is easy to implement, and that it
makes it easy for library users to retrieve good
results. It is, above all, easy: easy to install and
set up, easy to build a library web site, easy to
modify with a library’s “ image,” and easy to
establish links between the modified interface
and targeted databases.
OCLC staff have already tested and configured
OCLC WebExpress with more than 100 Z39.50
databases— including databases in OCLC’s
FirstSearch service and from non- OCLC library
automation providers. New configurations are
frequently made available to OCLC WebExpress
users.
OCLC WebExpress uses advanced technology
borrowed from another OCLC product, OCLC
SiteSearch WebZ software, which is a toolkit for
building interfaces and web- to- Z39.50 gateway
services. Those familiar with OCLC SiteSearch
may wonder what the relationships are between
these two products. OCLC SiteSearch WebZ
software is very robust, has enormous interface
customization capabilities, and is interoperable
with other systems; OCLC WebExpress is a
testimony to that flexibility. Whereas WebZ has
many interface customization possibilities, OCLC
WebExpress provides just the mission- critical
ones, such as colors, logos and site- specific
information. WebZ requires a team of
knowledgeable staff— including a librarian to
provide input on the interface, a UNIX or NT
administrator, and a programmer knowledgeable
in basic HTML and Java— to maintain and
implement it. OCLC WebExpress is designed for
libraries unable to staff their gateway effort at that
level. And of course, there are pricing differences
to match the level of sophistication: OCLC
WebExpress pricing is simple and economical.
The Distributed Systems group is proud to
extend its family of products to include this new
offering.— Shirley Hyatt is director, OCLC
Distributed Systems.
• • •
OCLC extends family of services with OCLC WebExpress
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
28 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
by Jane C. Neale
A little over a year ago, at a
meeting here at Nylink with
OCLC staff, I learned of
OCLC’s plans for a new
service, a library toolkit
based on OCLC SiteSearch
WebZ software, a core
component of OCLC’s
SiteSearch software suite.
This affordable new service would make it
possible for a librarian to customize an integrated
web- based gateway to many of the library’s
electronic resources without needing lots of
technical expertise. The new service would also
alleviate the need to track down and set up
Z39.50 attributes for Z39.50 resources. User
authentication and easy software updates would
also be features of the new service.
The OCLC WebExpress service had great
appeal to me as a librarian with a background in
both library systems and reference. Its appeal
stemmed from a number of sources: ease of use
is a plus no matter one’s level of technical ability;
the service center approach to providing Z39.50
resource information would make setting up
Z39.50 server destinations a snap; it was exciting
that OCLC was embracing Linux, the up and
coming UNIX- like operating system that was
available at low or no cost, while also providing
an option for libraries with existing investments
in Sun hardware and the Solaris operating system;
user authentication was becoming more and more
important; and as users of OCLC WebExpress,
small to medium- sized libraries would be able to
provide their patrons with a single customized
interface for searching a broad spectrum of
resources.
Not only was the concept of OCLC
WebExpress exciting, but so was the
development process. OCLC was committed to
developing this new service by mid- 2000. Four
libraries, a mix of public and academic, had
stepped forward to become development
partners. These libraries — University of Dallas,
Austin College, LeRoy Collins Leon County Public
Library and Northwest Regional Library
System/ Bay County Public Library — worked long
and hard with OCLC WebExpress staff to help
develop the vision and reality of OCLC
WebExpress. The OCLC regional networks also
got involved, providing feedback to OCLC about
various aspects of OCLC WebExpress. Staff
members from several networks volunteered to
serve on an OCLC WebExpress Rollout Task Force
created to help define the regional networks’ role
with OCLC WebExpress and address rollout
questions that needed to be resolved by the
release date.
As the co- chair of that task force, I had the
opportunity to work with talented and committed
people from other networks and from OCLC.
Victoria Miller, the product manager for OCLC
WebExpress, was also co- chair. Other task force
members included: Mark Beatty ( WiLS); Mary Jo
Boland ( NELINET); Cheryl Selbe ( OCLC); Robert
Hulshof ( SOLINET); Simon Day ( OCLC Europe,
the Middle East & Africa) and Deb Kinsella
( MLNC). Jeff Penka, a consultant, Meredith Dean
and Susan Olson, of OCLC, also joined us during
the process. We worked on issues such as
network staff training, order processing and
product support.
My work with the task force, my attendance at
network staff training for OCLC WebExpress, and
my installation of OCLC WebExpress here at
Nylink have given me the opportunity to learn
about the OCLC WebExpress service and the
opportunity to peek into the world of new
product development at OCLC. I have
encountered a team of people who are genuinely
excited and enthusiastic about developing an
excellent service that will fill an important niche
in the library world. They are extremely
responsive to suggestions and comments
regarding OCLC WebExpress. I feel privileged to
have been able to share in some of their
excitement about OCLC WebExpress, and I am
proud to have played a very small part in its
release.
Now that OCLC WebExpress has been
released, I am looking forward to managing our
local implementation of it here at Nylink ( the
initial installation and configuration went very
smoothly!) and introducing Nylink members to
OCLC WebExpress, a service that has great
potential, especially in the world of small and
medium- sized libraries.— Jane C. Neale is
Information Technology coordinator, Nylink.
• • •
Helping OCLC WebExpress develop from a concept
to a service
photo provided by Jane C. Neale
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 29
by Robert Scott Dupree
The Blakley Library at the
University of Dallas
consists of some 300,000
volumes and a growing
number of databases that
serve a student population
of just under 3,000. When
I was asked to assume the
directorship two years
ago, I was aware of the awkward situation that
then prevailed: access to the online catalog was
limited to a group of terminals, all clustered in
one place; access to CD- ROM databases was
confined to a group of personal computers
installed in one room, some of which were locally
networked; and an additional machine stood
alongside the catalog terminals for Internet
access. We were unable to provide our users with
access to any of the full- text databases that had
become available on the Internet, and they were
obliged to search for bibliographical information
in a dozen different places.
While the wonders of electronic access and
searching were still fresh for most of us, the
management of this multiplicity of resources was
a constant headache for the staff. Some of the CD-ROM
databases had burgeoned into collections of
discs well into the thousands. Though a few of
them did provide the convenience of immediate
full- text access, keeping track of individual items
and making them simultaneously available to users
was becoming a nightmare. Maintaining the three
dedicated workstations that were needed for
viewing and printing from this database alone
occupied a significant portion of our circulation
staff’s energies.
Fortunately, we were able to eliminate the
scattered stand- alone machines by upgrading our
equipment and connecting all our machines. CDs
were moved to a multi- drive, networked tower.
Thanks to a general shift worldwide away from
locally held copies of electronic materials to
databases available through Internet access, the
necessity of storing and sorting a large number of
discs was obviated during my first year as
director. We had the good fortune to have been
in a position to take advantage of this shift at just
the right time. I am sure that our experience was
typical of most libraries enmeshed in the
complications of keeping up with rapidly
changing modes of access to information on an
unprecedented scale. The move toward
centralization, while perhaps inevitable, has
nevertheless come much more quickly than most
of us expected.
However, difficulties remained. The databases
themselves, now all accessible from any of our
networked computers, still required the mastery
of a bewildering array of different search
methods. Library users were confronted with a
long list of passwords before they could consult a
database, and after entering the desired portal,
they were greeted with incompatible interfaces,
many of which were far from obvious to use.
Again, a significant amount of time was
required from our reference and circulation staff
simply to show library users how to gain access
to the means for retrieving information. We were
dismayed that we were often exerting more effort
to get them into the databases than in guiding
them toward the intelligent selection of materials.
A long- overdue upgrade of our library
management software, undertaken at the same
time as our comprehensive networking, promised
to ease the situation somewhat by providing a
graphical interface for access to our public access
catalog ( PAC), but the actual implementation
turned out to be something of a disappointment.
Options for customization were more limited
than we had hoped, and our patrons tended to
prefer the older text- based screens, which seemed
more straightforward and familiar. It was for
these reasons that my interest was piqued by an
invitation to a presentation at AMIGOS, our OCLC-affiliated
regional network, with headquarters
here in the Dallas area.
After listening to the plans for a new product
proposed by OCLC— a graphical interface
designed to unite the disparate databases that
now constitute the contemporary library’s main
mode of identifying its available materials— I was
convinced that it was just what we needed and
immediately volunteered our staff as partners in
its development.
Library users will spend more time assessing
content, less time trying to get at information
with OCLC WebExpress
photo provided by Robert Scott Dupree
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
30 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
We were among four public and academic
libraries consulted in the course of its evolution,
and it was a great pleasure to work with the team
at OCLC alongside our colleagues at other
institutions. The weekly conference calls became
something of an event for us. Five of our staff
members were involved, and we brought to the
discussion every one of our problems and
frustrations. The development team was
consistently attentive to our concerns, and we
responded accordingly by trying to push them to
supply as many useful features as we could
imagine.
It was fortunate that one of our fellow
academic participants, Austin College, was a
neighbor ( at least by Texas standards) and
comparable in size and aims to our own library.
There was a sense of camaraderie throughout the
discussions, and we developed an intense
curiosity about the other partners in the
enterprise. Suffice it to say that OCLC could not
have been a more pleasant virtual host.
The significance of the OCLC WebExpress
service for libraries is comparable to that of the
Macintosh interface for personal computers. As
the Mac made it possible for the first time to
bring uniformity to software functions such as
opening and closing, cutting and pasting,
searching and deleting files, so OCLC WebExpress
will finally bring an end to the tangle of
conventions and screens that we have had to
cope with ever since the personal computer
emerged as a significant tool in the library.
WebExpress gives library users a powerful
means of obtaining information that focuses their
energies where they belong: on assessing content
and not on the frustrations of trying to get to it.
The developers have managed to strike just the
right balance between allowing plenty of
customization and maintaining the central
features of the interface that make for
consistency and ease of use.
At the University of Dallas, we will use OCLC
WebExpress as the front end for all our access
tools, replacing the panoply of interfaces that
come with our PAC and individual databases.
Some of the features not in this first release, but
promised for later ones, will be particularly
popular with academic researchers, but the ability
to choose between defaults for public and
academic libraries allows systems managers to get
up and running right away, whatever the nature of
the institution.
Installation of OCLC WebExpress is
straightforward and clean; it takes very little time
to complete and demonstrates just how far we
have come in making this process less onerous
than in the past. The hardware requirements are
modest; we had an existing server that was
pressed into use. Though not quite as powerful as
the recommended minimum in terms of CPU
clock speed, it has shown no signs of strain in use
and has taxed very little of its total resources.
The consistently falling prices of hardware have
ensured that getting OCLC WebExpress up and
running is even less expensive than it would have
been 10 months ago, when it was first proposed
to us. The adoption of the Linux operating
system, familiar to anyone who knows UNIX but
offering the supreme advantage of being cost-free,
was a welcome decision and helps cut
through the complications of compatibility on
the level of systems management.
The OCLC WebExpress development team is to
be congratulated for an achievement that is rare
indeed: the team not only delivered a product
that will take library management to a new
plateau, but delivered it on time. This next phase
in information integration still required a great
deal of coordination and planning to bring about.
We at the University of Dallas— along with our
colleagues at the other libraries, I am sure— are
proud to have been a part of this achievement.
— Robert Scott Dupree is director, Library and
University Research, University of Dallas.
• • ��
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 31
by David Carlson
Maxwell Library at
Bridgewater State College
( BSC) in Massachusetts has
made an aggressive effort to
provide electronic
resources, especially online
full text, to its community of
faculty, staff and students.
As a result of this effort, a
significant change occurred in the 1996/ 97
academic year. For the first time, Maxwell Library
offered more online full- text journals than
traditional paper current subscriptions. This was
not due to a cut in current serials but an
aggressive program of electronic full- text
resources made possible through aggregator
databases, such as EBSCOhost and the OCLC
FirstSearch service, as well as publisher platforms,
such as Project Muse and Academic Press’ IDEAL.
Four years later, the change is even more
striking. In 2000, Maxwell Library offers nearly
10 times the number of journals in online full-text
format than it offers in its stable of current
print subscriptions. And the change continues:
when classes start in September, Maxwell
Library will have added approximately 8,000
electronic monographs through NELINET’s
shared collections agreement with netLibrary.
How long will it be before our e- book
collection is larger than our paper monograph
collection?
Any single statement comparing the paper-based
collection with digital resources is bound
to be incomplete and simplistic, yet it can be
argued that Maxwell Library offers a digital
collection of journal literature that surpasses the
overall value and strength of its traditional print-based
journal collections. This is a mission- level
change affecting all areas of library activity and
use. As we have considered the effects of this
change, we have realized that it is not a matter of
which format is more valuable but the value and
strength of our collections as a whole. For
example, while our online full- text titles
outnumber significantly our paper- based
subscriptions, our current paper subscriptions
supplement our electronic resources in unique
and critical areas.
The real value of our collections is the totality
of all available formats, but the access we offered
to it was widely disparate, disjointed and
disconnected. For nearly every electronic
resource, there was a separate and unique
interface with a wide range of capabilities. There
was no one tool that enabled users to access the
most important resource available— the wide,
diverse collection of formats and resources
which, taken together, made up the collection of
information resources at BSC. The online public
access catalog came closest. It included holdings
for print books and journals as well as videotapes,
DVDs and a limited selection of e- journals. But
the gaps, especially for our electronic full- text
journal collection, were significant. The Z39.50
standard held out some additional promise but it
focused on OPACs. There was no tool available
that allowed us to apply this promising standard
across the wide diversity of aggregator databases,
publisher web sites, web resources and online
catalogs that were available to our faculty and
students.
Enter OCLC WebExpress.
Building on the experience of the OCLC
SiteSearch software suite, OCLC WebExpress
applies the promise of Z39.50. OCLC
WebExpress enables us to offer a unique tool for
our faculty and students to search the wide range
and diversity of library resources available to
them in a single user interface. For example, as
an institution with teacher education as a
strategic mission, Maxwell Library can create a
single education portal to all collections with
OCLC WebExpress. This portal will permit
simultaneous searching of ERIC, PsycInfo and
Professional Development Collection
( EBSCOhost) with Education Abstracts Full Text
( Wilson), Sociological Abstracts ( Cambridge
Scientific Abstracts) and the excellent local
education resources represented in our Endeavor-based
online catalog. Perhaps most importantly
for a mid- sized academic library with limited
staffing and resources, OCLC WebExpress offers a
difficult balance of ease of use with power,
customization and configurability.
OCLC WebExpress is a powerful tool of
integration, but it will not be our only tool of
access. OCLC WebExpress will not replace our
OCLC WebExpress allows users to access collections in
integrated, seamless way envisioned by librarians
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
32 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
online catalog; we will continue to promote the
direct links to EBSCOhost, the OCLC FirstSearch
service and JSTOR. However, for those students
and topics where any one of these resources offer
a limited, restricted piece of the information
resources available to them, OCLC WebExpress
will offer the unique ability to search and
integrate the results of all related resources into a
comprehensive whole.
The information resources at Maxwell Library
are built carefully and thoughtfully by a talented
group of professional librarians. Each resource is
acquired with careful consideration as to how it
complements other information resources in a
seamless, integrated collection in support of
teaching and research at Bridgewater State. OCLC
WebExpress permits us to fulfill this approach
and allows our users the ability to access our
collections in the same integrated and seamless
way they are envisioned.— David Carlson is
director of Libraries, Bridgewater State College.
• • •
by Victoria Miller
The OCLC WebExpress
service provides easy- to- use
tools for librarians to create
a single interface that pulls
together a library’s full
range of remote and local
Z39.50- based information
resources, such as the
library catalog, the OCLC
FirstSearch service and non- OCLC reference
databases.
The OCLC WebExpress service comprises two
components: the OCLC WebExpress Service
Center, a web site intended for use by librarians
or service administrators that provides automatic
configuration updates for information resources
and includes demonstrations, ordering
information, documentation and training material;
and integration software, which is stored at the
library site on the library’s Linux or Solaris server
and includes the administrative module that
allows the librarian to customize the user
interface, select and add Z39.50 resources, and set
up various levels of user authentication and
profiling.
The core of the service is built on OCLC
SiteSearch WebZ software, a robust Z39.50 client
that was introduced in 1995. This core software,
along with the experience of WebZ’s
implementers, helped us define the base
functionality when developing a Z39.50 client
and interface toolkit.
Using this service concept and requirements as
a starting point, we met with the directors,
reference librarians and technical staff of several
libraries to better understand challenges they face
in the evolving web environment. As a result of
these meetings, we had four development
partners and 90 percent of the service
requirements defined.
Over the course of several months, we met
regularly over the phone, e- mail and web with our
development partners, OCLC staff and OCLC
network staff. Our focus groups worked hard to
determine the best way of installing,
implementing, documenting and training for the
new service. As a result of this team effort and
dedication, OCLC WebExpress had a successful
outcome.
So what’s next for OCLC WebExpress? There
are many possibilities, and we are already working
on requirements for phase two. As we define the
future, there are some high- level directions that
will guide us, including:
· A commitment to standards. We will
continue our interoperability work with
Z39.50 but also look beyond to the best ways
to include non- Z39.50 resources without
compromising true integration. We will be
expanding our interoperability testing with
interlibrary loan servers using the ISO 10161
standard. As an early implementer, we will be
working closely with the NISO Circulation
Interchange Protocol committee to implement
this powerful standard when it is approved.
This standard will allow us to develop
circulation features in the interface such as the
ability to place holds and check user records
across different local systems.
OCLC WebExpress gives librarians power to create
system uniquely designed to meet their users’ needs
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 33
· A commitment to the dynamic nature of
the service. The OCLC WebExpress Service
Center provides an external face and an
internal backbone for growth of the service.
Through the service center, we will add more
documentation such as advanced topic areas
and implementation guides, and we will
distribute more Z39.50 configurations and
interface features.
· Co- development with libraries. Current
subscribers and potential subscribers help us
build the service that libraries need. The input
and feedback from librarians and library users
will be the primary source of new
development and continuous improvement.
For example, as we create new interfaces, we
will continue to have focus groups help guide
development requirements.
OCLC Distributed Systems staff members have
enjoyed this initial service development phase.
We had a great time connecting with everyone
and experienced a synergy that is reflected in the
service. As we move on to the next phase of
development of library portal management tools,
we look forward to creating new features and
working with more libraries.— Victoria Miller is
manager, OCLC Distributed Systems.
• • •
by Jeff Penka and John Trares
OCLC WebExpress provides more than a
downloadable software package and access to a
web site. From its inception, its service model
centered on the interaction of three elements:
subscribers, integration software and the OCLC
WebExpress Service Center.
Using the integration software in OCLC
WebExpress, subscribing libraries can locally host
and administer their information gateways. And
to help guide these libraries from initial research
to the implementation and maintenance phases of
their information gateway creation, the OCLC
WebExpress Service Center complements the
process with a blend of web- based resources and
communication links to the integration software.
What is the Service Center?
Housed at OCLC, the OCLC WebExpress Service
Center acts as the central communication point for
ongoing interactions among subscribers, the
integration software and OCLC resources. These
interactions are constant, resulting in benefits such
as shared information and immediate and seamless
software updates. This characteristic distinguishes
OCLC WebExpress from other services and typical
stand- alone software packages.
Throughout the development of the service,
designers partnered with libraries to ensure that
the service met the actual needs of libraries in
ways that enable them to use their time most
effectively. Feedback from analysis through
implementation of the service played a key role
in service center content development,
presentation and integration of its components.
As a library considers how OCLC WebExpress
can meet its users’ needs, the service center
guides it through the features of the service.
Using demos, a guided tour, and information like
system requirements and Frequently Asked
Questions, potential subscribers can form a clear
image of how the service addresses their needs.
Libraries can also use the OCLC WebExpress
Service Center to locate the appropriate contact
to answer additional questions quickly.
Ordering and Installation
The service center makes ordering easy. After a
library completes a simple web- based
subscription form, OCLC and the library’s
regional network process the order, and OCLC
activates the subscription and sends e- mail
confirmation with the library’s user identification.
Supplying this user identification allows access to
the subscriber area of the service center. This
support area blends user documentation, training
material, user news, a listserv, contact information
and targeted support material.
OCLC WebExpress Service Center provides service and
integration in a distributed world
O C L C W E B E X P R E S S
34 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000
After a site configures its Linux or Solaris
computer to host the OCLC WebExpress
integration software, it uses the service center’s
web- based installation to load the software onto
its host computer. When the installer finishes, the
web- based administrative module starts
automatically.
Later, when software updates become available, a
notification to the administrator appears on screen.
With a simple mouse click, an administrator obtains
and installs any update seamlessly.
Implementation
The service center provides an ever- expanding
and evolving set of information tools and
resources for the OCLC WebExpress
implementation process. The conventional model
of a single user manual has been replaced with a
collection of usable workflow and procedural-based
documentation. This information
complements the administrative module’s wizard-based
tools. To minimize implementation time
and shorten the learning curve, training materials,
workbook- based implementation guides, scenario-based
documentation and an interactive tour
provide subscribers with a clear understanding of
what they can do with OCLC WebExpress and
how to proceed with their implementation. Each
of these resources is accessible by library- wide or
resource- specific keyword searching.
When subscribers are creating their
information gateways, a database of tested Z39.50
targets built by service center staff enables
subscribers to integrate a variety of data
resources. Access to this database of resources
( housed at the service center) integrates
seamlessly with the administrative module and
provides configuration and descriptive
information for the OCLC FirstSearch service,
integrated local library systems, and a variety of
information providers’ Z39.50 resources.
Subscribers can submit requests for new
resources to add to the target database. After the
service center team completes a testing process
and adds them to the target database, additions
quickly become available to all subscribers.
Each time a subscriber logs into the
administrative module, the service center
confirms that the subscriber has the latest
resource configurations. If updates have occurred
to any resource information from the service
center, the administrative module automatically
applies the latest configuration information, while
maintaining locally customized settings.
Maintenance
After a library’s resources have been added to its
gateway, a unique library user interface has been
created and any authentication requirements
defined, the maintenance phase begins. The
service center’s resources, automated processes,
and interaction with the integration software
simplify the chores of software maintenance.
This functionality of the service allows a library
to focus attention on identifying additional user
and library needs.
The Future
The OCLC WebExpress Service Center continues
to expand. Areas under development include a
community area allowing users to easily share
experiences and materials with one another and
providing articles showing how others have
implemented the service on their sites. We will
also continue to add new resources in the Z39.50
database.
Consistent with its service model, OCLC
WebExpress and its service center resources
continue to grow in response to the needs of
subscribers.
Learn more about OCLC Web Express, take the
guided tour, go through demonstrations, see a list
of configured resources, see the implementation
guide and more at the OCLC WebExpress Service
Center < http:// www. oclc. org/ webexpress>.
— Jeff Penka is a consultant and John Trares is
product support specialist, OCLC Distributed
Systems.
• • •
P R O D U C T N E W S
OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2000 35
Over 350 new journals were recently added to
the OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections
Online service, bringing the online total to 2,895.
The number of publishers under contract is 56,
and the number of journals under contract for
distribution through OCLC Electronic Collections
Online is over 3,000.
Additional information about these titles,
including ISSN, format and Print Subscriber
Program status is available in “ Electronic
Collections Online Publishers and Journals” at
< http:// www2. oclc. org/ oclc/ fseco/ publish. htm>.
• • •
Journals added to Electronic Collections Online
Migration of OCLC FirstSearch service users to
the new and enhanced version of FirstSearch has
been successfully completed. Since August 20,
OCLC has been automatically directing
FirstSearch users to the new version of the
service. Now, users of FirstSearch and the fully
integrated OCLC Electronic Collections Online
service may log on to the service using either
< http:// firstsearch. oclc. org> or < http:// newfirst
search. oclc. org>, or variations of these URLs for
access from Europe or through the Digital Island
or Dedicated TCP/ IP.
• • •
Migration to new FirstSearch
service successfully completed
Book Wholesalers Inc., a vendor specializing in
books and non- print media for children and
young adults, is now participating in the OCLC
PromptCat service.
Based in Lexington, Kentucky, BWI provides
public libraries nationwide with a full range of
services, including collection development and
acquisition services.
The OCLC PromptCat service helps libraries
automate their copy cataloging, place materials
on shelves faster and decrease backlogs. With this
service, libraries receive materials from vendors
and corresponding bibliographic records from
WorldCat. Then, working with book vendors,
OCLC sets holdings in WorldCat and produces
OCLC- MARC records. PromptCat can also
provide electronic files of labels, added local data
and automatic record editing.
More information about PromptCat and
OCLC’s full line of cataloging solutions is at
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/
cataloging. htm>. Information is also available
from OCLC- affiliated regional networks and
service centers, international distributors or
OCLC. See the OCLC Web site at < http:// www.
oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/ office. htm> for contacts and
addresses.
• • •
Book Wholesalers is new PromptCat vendor
P R O D U C T N E W S
Non- Profit Org.
U. S. Postage
PAID
Columbus, Ohio
Permit No. 5391
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH 43017- 3395 USA
Product Code NEW8442
0008/ 10998– 50M, TPC
Wilson Select Plus, a new database that includes
approximately 500 more full- text titles than the
Wilson Select database, is now available on the
OCLC FirstSearch service.
“ We are pleased to announce that we have
enriched the Wilson Select Plus database with
additional multidisciplinary journals in full text
that are essential for reference and research
value,” said Deborah Loeding, vice president,
Sales and Marketing, the H. W. Wilson Company.
“ These periodical titles are selected by
subscriber vote with assistance from subject
specialists and ALA’s Reference and User
Services Association. Wilson Select Plus
comprises the core, peer- reviewed journals in
each field, providing authoritative information
for the user.”
“ Users continue to request more full- text
information online, and Wilson Select Plus
significantly increases the amount of full text
we can provide through the new FirstSearch
service,” said Frank Hermes, vice president,
OCLC Marketing and Planning. “ The addition of
this database represents one more step in
OCLC’s ongoing efforts to add value to the new
FirstSearch by making relevant content even
more accessible.”
A complete list of periodicals covered by
the Wilson Select Plus database is available at
< http:// purl. oclc. org/ oclc/ fs- wilsonselect- plus>.
Full- text articles in Wilson Select Plus have
been linked to citations in databases available
through FirstSearch.
Wilson Select Plus has replaced the Wilson
Select database in the FirstSearch Base Package
with Full Text and the General Reference
Collection subscription packages. The Wilson
Select database will continue to be available to
libraries that prefer the smaller file.
The H. W. Wilson Company has been a leading
provider of electronic and print information to
librarians and researchers for over 100 years.
Headquartered in New York and Dublin, Ireland,
H. W. Wilson provides full- text, abstracts and
index databases focusing on biography, business,
the humanities, general science, the social
sciences, research for young people, as well as
expansive general- interest databases covering
diverse academic specialties.
• •
Wilson Select Plus available on
the OCLC FirstSearch service
OCLC Newsletter
