OCLC newsletter

              M AY // JJ U N EE 2 0 0 0 II S S N :: 0 1 6 3 -- 8 9 8 X N O .. 2 4 5

C O N T E N T S May/ June 2000 No. 245

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/ Desktop Publishing: Tammy Miller

All photos taken by Rich Skopin or Lorna Williamson

unless otherwise noted.

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OCLC, a nonprofit membership

organization, is engaged in computer

library service and research.

Correspondents:

Barbara B. Alexander

Debra Brown- Spruill

Jenny Bushnell

Tam Dalrymple

Jennifer Hamilton

Don Johnson

Joy Kim

Beth Marsh

Sarah A. Mikel

Phyllis B. Spies

Eliza Sproat

Stuart Weibel

Membership News

Library leaders discuss future roles and contributions of research libraries during

International Research Library Directors Conference

PAIS continues dedication to libraries, custom of excellence

Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary Loan Center makes 98 millionth OCLC ILL

request for LaGrange County Library

Montana State University creates 99 millionth OCLC Interlibrary Loan request

University of Wisconsin– Madison uses OCLC SiteSearch software to create

‘ Africa Focus’

OCLC CJK Users Group meets in San Diego

Library leaders from Asia Pacific region meet to discuss issues, challenges

facing libraries

Asia Pacific library leaders participate in conference

Department of Defense uses SiteSearch to support military education

Partnership for Peace Information Management System designed to strengthen

bilateral cooperation

Collections and Technical Services Committee meets in Dublin

CIP Upgrade staff celebrates milestone

OCLC’s X. 25 backbone is decommissioned

Gary Marchionini is named Kilgour Award winner

Robert Wedgeworth is John Ames Humphry/ OCLC Forest Press Award winner

OCLC services to be unavailable Aug. 6– 7 during power upgrade

Erik Jul named executive director of OCLC Institute

OCLC Statistics

Robert Van Volkenburg named director, Product Marketing,

OCLC Library Resources

Research

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative: Frankfurt and beyond

Subscribe to ‘ DC– General’ for upcoming announcements

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set endorsed by European standard organization

Research Advisory Committee meets in Dublin

Consortia

Consortia: Leading change through cooperation

Illinois promotes equal access to libraries through partnerships

Library consortia come in all sizes, types

OCLC works with consortia worldwide

Product News

OCLC Reference Services moves to next stage of content management and

collection development

PromptCat provides fast, automatic copy cataloging

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OCLC & CONSORTIA:

FACILITATING

COOPERATION

F R O M J A Y J O R D A N

I n 1974, for the first time, the American

Library Directory introduced a section on

library consortia. Then, there were about

200 groups listed, including OCLC and its

U. S. regional network affiliates. The editors

noted,“ How extensive such consortium groups

will become is still to be decided and very

much in the future.” Today, the number of

consortia listed in the Directory has nearly

tripled to 584, and this is just in the U. S. and

Canada. Worldwide, the number of library

consortia continues to grow, thanks to the

confluence of Web technology and the urgent

need of libraries to work together.

Arnold Hirshon, executive director of

NELINET, the OCLC- affiliated network based in

Massachussetts, and editor of the e- journal,

Library Consortium Management: An

International Journal, has identified a number of

issues facing library consortia, including digital

library development, electronic information

licensing, and the management of print and

other traditional library resources. These issues

are transcending geography and are helping to

set the agenda for worldwide library

cooperation.

This issue of the OCLC Newsletter shows

how we are working with consortia on a global

basis. For example, in Greece, 28 libraries are

using OCLC to share access to e- journals

through the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link.

In Illinois, some 3,000 libraries are using OCLC

to catalog and share resources through the

Virtual Illinois Catalog. And, in New Jersey, the

Virtual Academic Library Environment ( VALE)

and OCLC provide 45 public and independent

colleges with access to shared electronic

information resources.

In our last annual report, you may recall

seeing the following vision statement: “ OCLC

will be the leading global library cooperative,

helping libraries serve people by providing

economical access to knowledge through

innovation and collaboration.”

We want to leverage the power of library

cooperation and help libraries accomplish more

by working together than any single institution

could independently. We want to continue to

build on our proven formula of providing

innovative services that help libraries

collaborate to serve their users better.

In other words, we want to extend the OCLC

cooperative well beyond the current 37,000

libraries in 76 countries by providing

collaborative tools that can be tailored to meet

local, national and regional needs of consortia and

other groups. Working together, we can make

this a great time for libraries and their users!

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 May/ June 2000

Library leaders from 26 countries discussed future

roles and contributions of research libraries as

they gathered March 13– 14 at OCLC in Dublin,

Ohio, for the OCLC 18th Annual International

Conference of Research Library Directors.

The 124 conference participants heard

featured speakers including Patricia Maes,

associate professor, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, Media Laboratory, Cambridge,

Massachusetts; Jonathan Zittrain, executive

director, Berkman Center for Internet and Society,

Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts;

and Jay Jordan, president and chief executive

officer, OCLC.

The library directors discussed strategic

directions and governance of OCLC. Senior

OCLC staff members presented updates on OCLC

services. Conference participants broke into

small discussion groups to consider questions of

shared values, open networks and the role of

libraries on the World Wide Web.

The conference was sponsored by the

Research Libraries Advisory Committee and

OCLC. Kenneth Frazier, chair, Research Libraries

Advisory Committee, and director of libraries,

University of Wisconsin, Madison, welcomed

conference participants.

Dr. Maes described her research on

information filtering systems in her presentation,

“ Emerging Technologies for Managing

Information Overload.”

She discussed types of automated information

filtering systems being developed to help users

find high- quality information they are seeking on

the Web, including: feature- based filtering

systems, in which sites are recommended to users

based on a profile of the user’s interests;

collaborative systems, in which sites are

recommended to users based on what similar

users have found helpful; history- of- use or

popularity- based systems, in which a site is

recommended based on the popularity of the site;

and context- based systems that are inspired by

associative memory and offer users reminders of

related topics.

Dr. Maes pointed out limitations to each

information filtering technique. “ All of these

techniques are useful but none are perfect,” she

said. “ What we are trying to do in information-filtering

research is to build complementary

systems that can automate some of these

techniques. I’m hoping we will invent even other

types of totally different strategies for finding the

information we are interested in.”

Dr. Maes said research in information filtering

is moving at such a fast pace that she gets most of

the information she needs online because by the

time paper publications are available, research has

passed them.

“ I must admit that I’m one of those people

who used to go a lot to the physical library, but I

haven’t been to the library in the last four years,”

said Dr. Maes. “ Most of the collections that I

would reference are online. The research is

evolving so quickly— at least in our area— that

there is no use anymore in publishing in paper.”

Dr. Maes said librarians could play a key role in

helping to get communities to work together to

conquer the scalability challenges of managing

Web resources.

Mr. Zittrain spoke about “ Global Library

Solutions in the Digital World— Creating and

Sustaining Innovation.”

He said we treat the Internet as a public

resource that came out of a sense of public

interest to explore knowledge and connect with

other people. “ The World Wide Web is the patent

that never was,” Mr. Zittrain said. “ It’s the set of

protocols that could have been bottled and sold—

yet it turns out we can all use it freely. This is

significant not only in that this may explain how

the Internet has taken off the way it has. But it

also is suggestive of questions such as: ‘ How do

we, together, direct the Internet’s future?’”

With a rich history as valuable information

centers, libraries should have more of a presence

on the Web, according to Mr. Zittrain. “ I wonder

why ‘ library. org’ does not exist and it’s not the

first stop— or even a middle stop— on people’s

way as they look for information.”

Library leaders discuss future roles and contributions of

research libraries during International Research Library

Directors Conference

Patricia Maes

Jonathan Zittrain

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 5

Following small group discussions on issues

facing research libraries in the digital age,

participants heard group leaders report findings.

“ What we are here to accomplish is as much to

inform each other about the differences that

exist— the different perspectives, the different

definitions— as it is to take away some shared

action plan or common goal,” said Mr. Zittrain.

Mr. Jordan delivered “ The OCLC President’s

Report,” an update on OCLC’s progress and plans.

“ Our vision can be summed up as follows: OCLC

will be the leading global library cooperative,

helping libraries serve people by providing

economical access to knowledge through

innovation and cooperation,” said Mr. Jordan.

“ We are engaged in translating that vision into

an integrated strategy. This includes not only

products and services, but alliances and

partnerships as well. We want OCLC services to

provide opportunities for libraries to take a

leadership role in the digital age,” said Mr. Jordan.

Gary Houk, vice president, OCLC Services,

presented an overview of OCLC’s plan for services

being designed to integrate the selection,

acquisition and cataloging functions for all library

resources. “ OCLC and the global library

cooperative are in a position to build the best

library services portal on the World Wide Web,” said

Mr. Houk. “ This portal would be different than the

current OCLC home page. It would be

the place for libraries to go to log on to

all OCLC services, integrating WorldCat

with content partners, and it would be

developed in consultation with

libraries.”

Taylor Surface, program director,

OCLC CORC, offered participants an

in- depth look at the Cooperative

Online Resource Catalog ( CORC)

service, an international effort to

organize and facilitate access to

electronic information resources on

the World Wide Web.

“ CORC is a collaborative effort to

create a high- quality, library- selected

database of Web resource descriptions

modeled after the creation of WorldCat

( the OCLC Online Union Catalog),”

said Mr. Surface. “ CORC gives libraries

an opportunity to build locally and

share globally, reducing duplicated effort between

and within libraries and improving integration

with local resources.”

Mr. Surface said there are currently 334 CORC

participants worldwide. CORC is scheduled to be

released as an OCLC service later this year.

William J. Crowe, chair, OCLC Board of

Trustees, and Spencer librarian, Kenneth Spencer

Research Library, University of Kansas, and Nancy

L. Eaton, chair, Strategic Directions and OCLC

Governance Advisory Council, and dean of

University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University,

introduced and participated in a discussion of

strategic directions and governance of OCLC. The

discussion was facilitated by Homer Hagedorn, of

Arthur D. Little, a consultant to the OCLC

governance study.

“ We heard a thoughtful presentation of

developing technologies, and had an interesting

community exploration of the social, cultural and

professional values and goals which must underlie

this emerging global library community,” said

David Kohl, vice- chair, Research Libraries

Advisory Committee, and dean and university

librarian, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, in his

closing remarks.

Linda Arnold, OCLC Library Member

Relations Program manager, coordinated

planning for the event.

• • •

Patricia Maes makes a presentation to research library directors.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

6 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

by Debra Brown- Spruill

On Jan. 1, PAIS greeted

the 21st century with a

new identity— OCLC

Public Affairs Information

Service— having merged

with OCLC. While we

have a new identity, our

purpose remains

unchanged. We continue

our role as chronicler of the world’s public

policy and public affairs literature.

In closing the last century and looking

forward to the next, I am prompted to recount

the long and prestigious history of PAIS.

In 1914, John A. Lapp, the first editor of the

Public Affairs Information Service bulletin noted,

��� One of the marked phenomena of the present in

public affairs is the use of print for the purpose of

swaying opinion or in the unbiased education of

the public.” Because of that recognition, he and a

group of special librarians established the

Bulletin of the Public Affairs Information

Service.

Today we recognize the marked phenomena of

the Internet in the distribution of materials, ideas

and publications. Throughout the years, as the

timeline illustrates, PAIS has recognized the

phenomena of all manner of distribution media—

from online to CD- ROM to database leasing— as

mechanisms to make the collection of public

policy information available in every practical way.

The bulletin was originally issued weekly, with

frequent cumulations throughout the year and a

permanent annual volume. It contained English

language items from around the world and

covered the entire field of the social sciences—

statistics, political science, economics, law,

administration, social welfare, education,

transport, customs, anthropology, etc. It included

all forms of printed material: books, pamphlets,

mimeographed material, restricted items—

everything and anything deemed an original

contribution to the subject. All items were

alphabetically arranged under established subject

headings. Preceding the subject index was a

directory of publishers and a listing of periodicals

and books analyzed. That general collection and

format remain intact today, with some

modifications over the years.

PAIS continues dedication to libraries,

custom of excellence

OCLC Public Affairs Information Service offices are located in the New

York Public Library Annex.

photos provided by OCLC Public Affairs Information Service

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 7

In recognition of the growing number of

materials published throughout the world in

languages other than English, a new bibliography

titled The Foreign Language Index ( FLI) was

introduced in 1972. FLI was the first PAIS

publication derived from a machine- readable

database. The bulletin remained unchanged in its

content and editorial scope through 1990. FLI

and the bulletin were combined in 1991 to form

PAIS International in Print. This new print

product reflected the composition of the full

database available online since 1979 and on CD-ROM

since 1987 combining the English and non-

English materials.

The PAIS Decade database became available on

the OCLC FirstSearch service in January 1992,

shortly after FirstSearch was launched in October

1991. PAIS Decade was a truncated version of

the full online PAIS International file. OCLC and

PAIS made the full PAIS International database

available on FirstSearch in July 1997.

In 1995 we launched the PAIS Web site

< http:// www. pais. org> to serve primarily as a

marketing tool. Regularly changing Hot Topics

demonstrating the breadth and depth of the

content can be found on the Web site. It also

includes the PAIS Journals Indexed listing with

links to available URLs, exhibit schedule and other

useful information. PAIS introduced PAIS Select, a

full- text CD- ROM in 1996. In 1997 PAIS began

including electronic documents captured from

the Internet in the PAIS International database.

Since its inception, PAIS has been fortunate to

have great friends. The first 13- page bulletin was

printed and distributed by the H. W. Wilson

Company. Halsey W. Wilson even provided free

editorial space and equipment initially. Later, the

New York Public Library ( NYPL) provided

editorial space within the Economic Division to

the PAIS team. The special relationship with

NYPL remains today, with PAIS editors selecting

materials from the various NYPL divisions and

leasing space in the NYPL Annex on 43rd Street

in New York City.

Throughout the 20th century, PAIS recognized

and embraced new developments and

technologies, always with the best interest of the

librarian and library user in mind. In the 21st

century, the OCLC Public Affairs Information

Service will continue the custom of excellence.

We look forward to serving you.

— Debra Brown- Spruill is executive director,

OCLC PAIS.

• • •

OCLC Public Affairs Information Service staff members include, front row, left to right:

Maribel Palermo, assistant subscription manager; Jessica Padilla, editorial assistant; Daphne

Lincoff, assistant editor; Debra Brown- Spruill, executive director; Lyla TenEyck, senior editorial

assistant; Stewart Both, assistant editor; back row, Ira Najowitz, assistant editor; Judith

Kamilhor, assistant editor; Edward ( Tim) Friel, assistant editor; Marjorie Haddad, assistant

editor; Stacey Chambers, assistant editor; Catherine Korvin, editor; Anita Cannon,

administrative assistant; Mark Anthony, systems and production manager.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

8 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

The Fort Wayne ( Indiana) Reference and

Interlibrary Loan Center made the 98 millionth

request on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL)

service on behalf of LaGrange County Library in

LaGrange, Indiana, for an audio book, Weight

Loss, written by Belleruth Naparstek.

The request was produced March 10 by the

reference and interlibrary loan center, which

serves some 170 libraries in northern Indiana—

including LaGrange County Public Library— that

send requests to loan center staff, who then

process the requests.

The 98 millionth request was filled by Elkhart

( Indiana) Public Library ( OCLC symbol: IEB)

on March 13.

Pam Doell, Interlibrary Loan Services assistant

at the Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary

Loan Center, produced the request. She started

working at the center in January, and was

unaware of the significance of the request. “ I had

no idea that this was any kind of a milestone until

I received a call from OCLC,” she said. “ It was a

surprise to me.”

The center, located in the Allen County Public

Library, produced some 44,000 interlibrary loan

requests last year. “ We’re extremely busy,” said

Ms. Doell, who works with five other center

staff members.

Lisa Tjarks, Interlibrary Loan staff member at

the LaGrange County Library, said she is grateful

for the service provided by the interlibrary loan

center through INCOLSA, an OCLC- affiliated

regional network serving Indiana.

“ We’re not yet automated here,” said Ms. Tjarks.

“ We have outgrown our current library building,

and we’re in the process of examining potential

sites for a new building. We don’t want to spend

the money for automation now and then

construct another building. We plan to automate

our services in our new building. So we currently

type our interlibrary loan requests and fax them

on to Fort Wayne. The center has been a great

help to us. They can get a very high percentage

of the materials we need.”

The Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary

Loan Center ( OCLC symbol: XWV) is one of eight

information resource centers operated by

INCOLSA.

The University of Florida Libraries, in

Gainesville, made the 97 millionth request on the

OCLC ILL service Feb. 8.

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 OCLC ILL requests with

little or no staff intervention.

• • •

Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary Loan Center

makes 98 millionth OCLC ILL request for LaGrange

County Library

photo provided by LaGrange County Library

photo provided by INCOLSA

Lisa Tjarks, Interlibrary Loan staff member at the LaGrange

County Library, sent the 98 millionth OCLC ILL request to the

Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary Loan Center to be

processed.

Members of the Fort Wayne Reference and Interlibrary Loan Center staff include,

clockwise, starting from left: Jeanne Hickling, reference librarian/ member liaison; Tammy

Dahling, reference librarian; Ann Droegmyer, Interlibrary Loan Services clerk; Janet

Breitenwischer, Interlibrary Loan Services clerk; Pam Doell, Interlibrary Loan Services

assistant; Laura Eme, Interlibrary Loan Services assistant.

Montana State University– Bozeman made the 99

millionth request on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan

( ILL) service April 14 for the book, Fortress

California, 1910– 1961: From Warfare to

Welfare, written by Roger W. Lotchin.

The Penrose Memorial Library at Whitman

College, in Walla Walla, Washington, filled the

request.

Mary Guthmiller, Interlibrary Loan clerk at the

Montana State University– Bozeman Libraries,

entered the request but didn’t realize the

significance until she received a telephone call of

congratulations from OCLC staff.

“ When I produced the number, I noticed all

the zeros and thought it was pretty cool,” she

said. “ After we got the call from OCLC, and after I

spoke to our supervisor, Bette Mongold, I realized

that this was a significant milestone.”

Montana State University Libraries has been an

OCLC member library for a little over a year. The

library had previously used OCLC services

through the Montana State Library. The university

library makes efficient use of features such as

OCLC ILL Micro Enhancer for Windows software,

OCLC ILL Custom Holdings for Union List, and

Reasons for No.

The Interlibrary Loan staff comprises four ILL

clerks— Ms. Guthmiller, Sue Lessley, Nancy Briggs

and Gayle Hendricks— and Ms. Mongold, the

supervisor. Last year, the library handled some

14,000 borrowing requests and 10,000 lending

requests. However, those numbers are increasing

significantly this year, according to staff.

“ Since we’ve become part of OCLC, our

interlibrary loan numbers have steadily

increased,�� said Ms. Guthmiller. “ Our lending

early this year has nearly doubled from the

numbers last year. People are finding out that

we’re now part of the system, and they’re adding

us to their lists. Early on in our OCLC training,

the instructor described our situation as an

‘ Interlibrary Loan Field of Dreams.’ We were told,

‘ If they find out ( we’re part of the system), they

will come.’ And they have.”

Montana State University– Bozeman ( OCLC

symbol: MZF) is a member of the Bibliographic

Center for Research ( BCR), and Whitman College

( HTM) is a member of the OCLC/ WLN Pacific

Northwest Service Center.

• • •

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 9

Montana State University creates 99 millionth OCLC

Interlibrary Loan request

Montana State University— Bozeman made the 99 millionth request on the OCLC Interlibrary

Loan service. Members of the Interlibrary Loan staff include, left to right: Mary Guthmiller,

Bette Mongold, Gayle Hendricks, Nancy Briggs and Sue Lessley.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

10 OCLC Newsletter March/ April 2000

by Jenny Bushnell and Don Johnson

A new University of Wisconsin– Madison library

Web site called “ Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds

of a Continent” presents a multimedia collection

of pictures and audio files that lets people visit 45

African countries without ever leaving their

chairs.

“ The potential for teaching is tremendous,” said

Bob Newton, arts project coordinator for the

African Studies Program. “ Teachers can use it to

make something dramatic happen in the

classroom, and individual users can tailor how

they want to use the material.”

Through this project, the Africana collection,

which was largely unpublished and inaccessible,

is now published, electronically indexed and

available worldwide. If someone wanted to find,

for example, a recording of Bamana dance music

and songs during a national celebration in Mali, it

would take hours to sift through boxes of

recordings on site. With the sound file indexed

on the Web, it takes only seconds to find it, and

anyone can use it, anywhere in the world.

It is the first library project on campus to use

the OCLC SiteSearch suite software, which allows

importing and exporting data in a variety of

formats like MARC, XML and others. It includes

OCLC SiteSearch WebZ software, a toolkit that

allows staff to build flexible user interfaces, and

OCLC SiteSearch Database Builder software that

helps users build and maintain local databases.

The user- friendly multimedia Africa Focus

database is completely searchable. Users can

search by subject, keyword, region or country. Or

they can click on an atlas to view a map of Africa,

and then click on the country they would like to

visit. They can e- mail images or sound files to

themselves or mark them to revisit later.

“ It is very much like a National Geographic

exploration,” said Kenneth Frazier, director of

Libraries, University of Wisconsin– Madison. “ This

is a chance to experience another continent and

its cultures through several different media.”

The Web site, produced and hosted by campus

libraries, is a partnership project with the African

Studies Program at the University of

Wisconsin– Madison. Most of the site’s data was

collected by researchers from the program, which

is the oldest of its kind in the country. Creating

the unique digital collection brought a diverse

group of library staff together to digitize the

images and sound for the project. It included

staff from Collection Development and

Preservation, External Relations, the Music

Library and the Library Technology Group.

They also depended on consultation with the

campus Division of Information Technology. It

took 30 weeks of work to digitize the site’s 3,200

images. Many of the images were uncataloged

slides and photos, some more than three quarters

of a century old, stored in boxes. The images,

many of which are in color, show everything from

artisans to religious gatherings. In the process of

digitizing the images, the Web versions correct for

much of the deterioration in the originals.

The site also has 50 hours of sound files of

religious ceremonies, singing, greetings, drums

and music. Some of the original recordings were

on reel- to- reel tapes, some so old and brittle that

workers had to patch cracked reels with tape to

play them.

The site is an important step for the African

Studies Program because it provides access to its

resources— access that is independent of time,

place or number of users. At the same time, it

protects the original, irreplaceable materials from

being damaged in use.

University of Wisconsin– Madison uses OCLC SiteSearch

software to create ‘ Africa Focus’

These children in Mali are dressed in new clothes worn during the celebrations that

immediately follow Ramadan.

photos from the University of Wisconsin- Madison

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 11

“ The Web site gives almost complete access to

our rich African collection,” said Mr. Newton. “ It

opens up our original resources to the public.

One of the exciting things about the project is the

number of people who have come forward since

the project began with some very fine materials

that we have been able to add.”

The project was funded by a $ 172,611

National Leadership Grant from the Federal

Institute of Museum and Library Services and is a

model for making research material available

online. It also serves as a local pilot for ongoing

digitization projects in the libraries, especially for

large collections of materials.

To experience the sights and sounds of Africa,

visit the collection on the Web at

< http:// africafocus. library. wisc. edu/>.

— Jenny Bushnell is editing intern, and

Don Johnson is senior editor, University of

Wisconsin– Madison Libraries Newsletter.

• • •

The market in central Bamako before it burned in July 1993.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

12 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

by Joy Kim

The OCLC CJK Users Group met in San Diego on

March 11. Hideyuki Morimoto, chair, began the

meeting by introducing his fellow officers:

Phyllis T. Wang, vice chair/ chair elect; Hsi- chu

Bolick, Chinese officer; Sharon Heather Domier,

Japanese officer; Joy Kim, Korean officer; and

Fung- yin K. Simpson, member- at- large. He also

introduced Glenn Patton, new OCLC executive

liaison for the users group, and reported on the

past year’s activities.

Ms. Wang then introduced the meeting’s

speakers: Sun- yoon Lee on the University of

Southern California’s experience with the OCLC

CJK Z39.50 Client, Marty Withrow and Hisako

Kotaka on the new version of the CJK Z39.50

Client, and Hsi- chu Bolick on the activities of the

Pinyin Conversion Task Force.

Sun- yoon Lee began by giving a brief

description of Z39.50, a computer protocol that

defines a standard way for two computers to

communicate for the purpose of information

retrieval and specifies data formats and

communication procedures for the exchange of

messages between a client program and a

database server. Ms. Lee said it also enables one

interface to access multiple systems, and it can be

implemented on any platform.

To demonstrate how easy it is to set up, Ms.

Lee created an OCLC CJK Z39.50 Client

connection profile during her presentation.

Ms. Lee noted that additional information on

Z39.50 is available at several sites: OCLC CJK

Software < http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/

cjk. htm/>; National Information Standards

Organization- Z39.50 Resource Page

< http:// www. niso. org/ z3950. html>; Biblio Tech

Review- Z39.50: Part 1 and Part 2

< http:// www. biblio- tech. com/ html/ z39_ 50. html>;

and Library of Congress Z39.50 Maintenance

Agency < http:// lcweb. loc. gov/ z3950/ agency/>.

Marty Withrow, director, OCLC Technical

Services Development Division, demonstrated an

enhanced version of this client, which is currently

being beta- tested. His presentation is available at

< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ cjk/ report/ cjkz39/

index. htm>

Ms. Bolick, of the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill, and chair of the Task Force on

Pinyin Conversion, introduced her fellow task

force members— Sarah Elman of UCLA, Wen- ling

Liu of Indiana University, and Phyllis Wang of the

University of California, Davis— and provided a

summary of task force activities. On May 14,

1999, the task force released its first report,

Pinyin Conversion Status, by Wen- ling Liu and

Phyllis Wang < http:// sun3. lib. uci. edu/~ oclccjk/

task1. htm>. On June 21, 1999, the task force

released a second report, Wade- Giles to Pinyin

Conversion: Australian Experience and Local

Issues, by Sarah Elman < http:// sun3. lib. uci. edu/

~ oclccjk/ task2. htm>. Ms. Bolick reminded users

group members of the new timelines: conversion

of OCLC Authority Files will take place in July

2000 ( Name Authority File) and August 2000

( Subject Authority File). Split files will occur at

this point. The LC gap period is from August to

October 2000.

Ms. Bolick said stress levels of librarians may

rise in mid- 2000 because split files and missing

records caused by conversion errors are likely.

She emphasized the importance of having clean

databases before the conversion and urged that

local databases be examined and cleaned up as

soon as possible. S h e   a l s o   s u g g e s t e d   s e a r c h i n g   b o t h

r o m a n i z a t i o n   s c h e m e s   P i n y i n   a n d   W a d e - G i l e s  

a n d   c h e c k i n g   t h e   r e c o r d   s t a t u s   o f   P i n y i n   c o n v e r s i o n

m a r k e r s   o n   a   r e g u l a r   b a s i s   t o   e l i m i n a t e   s o m e

p r o b l e m s .

A complete report of the meeting is available at

< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ cjk/ report/ 2000cjk/

index. htm>.— Joy Kim is librarian, Korean

Heritage Library, University of Southern

California, and the Korean Officer of the OCLC

CJK User Group.

• • •

OCLC CJK Users Group meets in San Diego

OCLC CJK Users Group participants

photo provided by Abraham J. Yu of the University of California, Irvine

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 13

Library leaders from Asia Pacific region meet to discuss

issues, challenges facing libraries

by Eliza Sproat

The widely attended 18th

Annual International

Conference of Research

Library Directors in March

offered a rare opportunity

for library directors and

distributors to meet face- to-face

to discuss their work.

At the conclusion of the

meeting, academic librarians from Australia, China,

Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and

Taiwan met at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, on March 16

to share information about their libraries. Seven

out of eight library directors commented about

decreasing library budgets and increasing

information costs.

Taiwan

Ming- Der Wu, director, National Taiwan University

( NTU) Library, discussed the rising costs of

materials and services in Taiwan.

Though the Asian economic crisis did not

affect Taiwan as severely as it affected its

neighbors, the depreciation of Taiwan dollars still

makes acquisition of foreign publications

difficult. Due to monetary depreciation and

government budget cuts, book and periodical

collections recently decreased at national

universities in Taiwan.

Dr. Wu detailed another challenge faced by

publicly supported universities: growing

competition for scarce government funding. Of

the 95 universities currently in Taiwan, 85 percent

are national universities or publicly supported.

( In the United States, the percentage of public

universities is about 60 percent.) Because the

number of national universities in Taiwan is

growing, universities increasingly compete for

limited government resources.

There are many proposed solutions to meet

these challenges, including: development of

management guidelines for university libraries so

that they can more effectively communicate with

university decision makers, continued

government support for electronic resources,

reviews of collection management practices so

money is spent on the “ right” resources ( whether

print or electronic), and an effective interlibrary

loan cooperative model.

Consortia agreements play a major role in

Taiwan’s university libraries. Founded in 1998

and sponsored by the National Science Council’s

Science & Technology Information Center,

libraries in Taiwan formed the CONsortium on

Core Electronic Resources in Taiwan ( CONCERT),

which works together for promotion, training and

group negotiations with vendors. CONCERT also

helps provide an appropriate digital environment

for electronic services and tries to tackle the

problems of slow electronic transmission speeds

for some databases, expensive license fees and

unstable government support.

With 2.3 million books, National Taiwan

University ( NTU) Library < http:// tulips. ntu. edu. tw>

features the largest collection in Taiwan and is the

largest lending library in the region. Founded in

1928, NTU library is also an OCLC Cooperative

Online Resource Catalog ( CORC) participant.

China

Qian Du, director, Library and Information Center,

China Europe International Business School

( CEIBS), Shanghai, which Business Week rated as

“ China’s most advanced business school,”

delivered an inspirational report about the

success of his networked library.

As a Sino- European cooperative school

supported by various multinational corporations

and governments, CEIBS is unusually well

funded, so challenges at CEIBS are mostly

external. For example, China’s slow Internet

access and solutions to the East Asian Character

Code problem ( their staff use GB code for

Chinese materials) cannot be easily corrected

by CEIBS staff without cooperation beyond the

library’s walls.

The CEIBS library is officially named the CEIBS

Global Sources Information Centre thanks to a $ 1

million ( U. S. dollars) donation from Global

Sources, based in Hong Kong, which funded

construction of the library. The building was

designed by I. M. Pei, the famed architect who also

designed the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston,

Massachusetts, the Grand Louvre in Paris, France,

and the National Gallery of Art, East Building,

Washington, D. C., among others.

Established in 1994, the CEIBS library < http://

www. ceibs. edu/ library/ library_ index. html>

began using the OCLC FirstSearch Electronic

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

14 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

Collections Online service this year and was also

the first OCLC Cataloging service and OCLC CJK

software user in the Chinese People’s Republic.

New Zealand

On the islands of New Zealand, where it is three

hours flying time to its nearest neighbor and 80

percent of library materials are sourced offshore,

this librarian’s perspective is that “ the world is

the collection.”

Alan Smith, university librarian, Victoria

University of Wellington Library, described the

“ death” of the competitive market model in New

Zealand and wryly joked there would be lots of

twitching before rigor mortis sets in. Mr. Smith

explained that the move away from the market-driven

model is largely due to New Zealand’s

change in government in 1999. From 1984 to

1999, the seven universities and the 25

polytechnics and private providers in New

Zealand operated on a competitive model ( similar

to Australia’s current model) where institutions

competed for public funds. But the newly

elected government in November 1999 brought

the end of the competitive market- driven

education model and instituted a drive for a

knowledge- based society, which stressed the

importance of life- long learning, as opposed to

institutional competition.

Mr. Smith said librarians in New Zealand are

not without worry. However, fiscal challenges,

such as the decline in New Zealand dollar

purchasing power, are met with effective

strategic positions such as cooperation among

consortia, the use of the Web as a gateway

and adherence to the Keystone principles

< http:// www. arl. org/ training/ keystone. html>,

which are also popular in the United States.

The inclusive New Zealand perspective was

even evident in Mr. Smith’s explanation that the

word he repeatedly used in his presentation,

“ Aotearoa,” was Maori for New Zealand.

Established in 1899, Victoria University of

Wellington < http:// www. vuw. ac. nz/ library/>

closed the library’s in- house binding operation in

1998 and used the remaining funds for staff

training and development and procurement of

electronic resources.

Japan

Yoshiro Kato, vice executive, Library and

Information Services, Mita Media Center at Keio

University, Japan, stressed that librarians cannot

be static or complacent in offering user services.

His presentation introduced the re- engineering of

Keio’s well- planned digital library.

Yasuki Kaneko, assistant manager, also of Mita

Media Center at Keio University, discussed in

greater detail the development of the library���s

Z39.50 gateway system. Mr. Kaneko was hopeful

that their current problem of converting Chinese

and Korean characters will be solved when

Unicode compatibility is included in version 4.2

of the OCLC SiteSearch suite. ( CORC is presently

Unicode- compatible.)

The digital library strategy includes three

major functions: to host a social science data

archive, including information on a range of social

science topics, data from other institutes and

tools for data analysis; to host electronic

humanities text including the digitization of

Keio’s rare collections ( for example, the post card

collection of Kaoru Osanai); and to support

multimedia tools used in the creation of new

information, including authoring software and

audiovisual editing.

A picture of the founder of Keio University

< http:// www. lib. mita. keio. ac. jp/>, Yukichi

Fukuzawa, is featured on the 10,000 yen bill.

Keio University was founded in 1858.

Korea

Hye Young Han, service team manager, Korea

Education and Research Information ( KERIS),

talked about KERIS’ broadened mission and its

shrinking budget.

KERIS is a government- funded organization

that was formed from the merging of the Korea

Research Information Center ( KRIC) and the

Korea Multimedia Education Center ( KMEC).

KRIC was affiliated with the Korea Research

Foundation, and KMEC was affiliated with the

Korea Educational Broadcasting System. KERIS

now consists of EDUNET, which serves pre- school

and elementary school education through

“ edutainment,” and Research Information Services

Systems, which serves academics and researchers

in Korea.

According to Suh Sam Young, president and

CEO of KERIS, the need for proactive leadership

was brought about by rapidly changing

environments and technological developments.

Ms. Han detailed the external environment in

which KERIS was conceived, including: recent

dramatic increases in the number of research

publications, demands for specialized information

services and shortened delivery time, the Internet

hastening an increase in direct communication

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 15

among scholars, dramatic worldwide increase in

ease of online access to information, rapid shift

from physical to digital information, and emerging

legal issues in open network environments.

In the midst of these pressures, academic

libraries in Korea still experienced severe

economic pressures brought about by cuts to

their budgets and a lack of infrastructure to

support resource sharing among libraries. KERIS

staff work to raise the quality of education and

research in Korea by providing comprehensive

education and research information services.

KERIS < http:// www. keris. or. kr/> was formally

opened in April 1999.

Hong Kong

For the past 18 years, Shirley Leung, university

librarian, Hong Kong Baptist University ( HKBU)

Library, worked at the University of California,

Irvine. She is now working with her colleagues

in Hong Kong to improve library collaboration

despite funding cuts. Ms. Leung said that instead

of “ doing more with less,” she prefers to “ do more

with what we have.”

HKBU is one of eight government- funded

universities in Hong Kong. Being a publicly

funded institution, HKBU supported a

governmental strategic direction to promote and

develop Hong Kong’s strength in Chinese

medicine. In 1998, HKBU was the first institution

to receive approval for support of a five- year

Chinese medicine program. Efforts are now

under way to build a Chinese medicine library.

Ms. Leung also described collaborative projects

of the Joint University Library Advisory Council

( JULAC) and the unfortunate news of its first

budget cut in 10 years. Due to pressures from the

Hong Kong Reprographics Licensing Society,

JULAC formed a Task Force on Copyright Issues to

clarify and protect the librarians’ position. JULAC

also established a Collaborative Collection

Development Task Force to negotiate pricing

discounts for all eight JULAC libraries. The

Chinese Authority ( Name) Database Project was

developed at Lingnan University in Hong Kong in

response to the fact that Name Authority records

do not currently accommodate vernacular

characters. This project has already received

interest from libraries in Taiwan, Singapore,

Macau, China and the United States, and a

meeting will be held in Beijing in June to discuss

further work on this project.

Ms. Leung stressed the basic requirements for

successful collaborative projects: a drive to build

on the momentum of earlier projects, a

commitment of collective leadership and active

participation from members, broader involvement

of staff below the library- director level, and a

dynamic infrastructure that allows for change.

Founded in 1956, the Hong Kong Baptist

University < http:// www. hkbu. edu. hk/~ lib/> is

the second- oldest institution of higher learning in

Hong Kong.

Australia

In contrast to New Zealand, where the market-driven

model has been abandoned, the market-driven

model thrives in Australia where librarians

compete for funding. In fact, competition among

universities is encouraged. Ray Choate, university

librarian, University of Adelaide, South Australia,

described the dramatic loss in federal funding that

libraries in Australia experienced in recent years.

In 1981, 90 percent of Australian research

universities were federally funded; today 55

percent of research universities receive

government education dollars.

Universities in Australia respond to increased

pressure to generate income by “ rightsizing” and

offering the ubiquitous distance- learning courses.

And more often than not, income generation is

manifested in increased tuition fees. Therefore,

instead of receiving free higher education—

which was the case in recent years— today

Australian university students are paying more for

their education than ever before.

However, despite students’ increased financial

burdens, Mr. Choate ironically noted that students

are also taking on the added responsibility of

greater course loads to diversify their specialized

majors. Today about a third of engineers seek

double majors in the humanities and social

sciences which, according to Mr. Choate, was

virtually unheard of three years ago.

Similar to JULAC in Hong Kong, the Council of

Australian University Librarians ( CAUL) consortia

helps libraries in Australia deal more effectively

with intellectual property issues and helps

negotiate site licenses. In addition, the CAUL

Electronic Information Resources Committee

negotiates on behalf of libraries in Australia and

New Zealand.

Established in 1874, the University of Adelaide’s

< http:// www. library. adelaide. edu. au/> current

library budget is the same size it was in 1993.

Meanwhile, book and journal costs have increased

from five to 10 percent per year.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

16 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

Other Attendees

Other attendees present at the sharing session

were Patricia Scott, bibliographic services

librarian, University of Adelaide, South Australia,

and Sam Young Suh, president and CEO, Korea

Education and Research Information, as well as

the following OCLC distributors: John L. Dwight,

chief executive, DA Information Services Pty Ltd.,

Australia; Kimihiro Niimoto, manager, OCLC

Center, Kinokuniya Company Ltd., Japan; Shigeru

Hayashi, assistant manager, University Business

Dept., Kinokuniya Company Ltd., Japan; Steve

Fon- Shiao Chiu, president, Flysheet Information

Services, Taiwan; and Soeythip Sukul and Suriya

Sukul, director and managing director, Best Books

Company, Thailand.

The sharing session is an annual information

exchange hosted by Andrew H. Wang, executive

director, OCLC Asia Pacific.— Eliza Sproat is

OCLC Asia Pacific marketing communications

specialist.

• • •

Sixteen library leaders from Australia, China,

Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan

( Republic of China) and Thailand participated

in the 18th Annual International Conference of

Research Library Directors March 13– 14, held

at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio. They then met

separately with the staff of the OCLC Asia

Pacific Division to talk about trends and

events occurring in their region.

Seated, left to right: John L. Dwight, chief executive, DA

Information Services, Australia; Suriya Sukul, managing director,

Best Books Company, Thailand; Shigeru Hayashi, assistant

manager, University Business Department, Kinokuniya Company,

Japan; Yoshiro Kato, vice executive, library and information

services, Mita Media Center, Keio University, Japan; Soeythip

Sukul, director, Best Books Company, Thailand; Yasuki Kaneko,

assistant manager, Mita Media Center, Keio University, Japan.

Middle row, left to right: Andrew H. Wang, executive director,

OCLC Asia Pacific; Jo Oppenheimer, administrative coordinator,

OCLC Asia Pacific; Hye Young Han, service team manager,

Korea Education & Research Information ( KERIS); Shirley

Leung, university librarian, Hong Kong Baptist University Library;

Ming- Der Wu, director, National Taiwan University Library; Shu-

En Tsai, Asia Pacific library services executive, OCLC Asia

Pacific; Patricia Scott, bibliographic services librarian, University

of Adelaide, South Australia; Qian Du, director, Library and

Information Center, China Europe International Business School,

Shanghai, China; Wei Fu Bender, Asia Pacific user services

specialist, OCLC Asia Pacific.

Back row, left to right: Janie McGlone, Asia Pacific user support

coordinator, OCLC Asia Pacific; Kimihiro Niimoto, manager,

OCLC Center, Kinokuniya Company, Japan; Sam Young Suh,

president and CEO, Korea Education & Research Information

( KERIS); Eliza Sproat, Asia Pacific marketing communications

specialist, OCLC Asia Pacific; Alan Smith, university librarian,

Victoria University of Wellington Library, New Zealand; Ray

Choate, university librarian, University of Adelaide, South

Australia; George Ouyang, Asia Pacific library services

specialist, OCLC Asia Pacific; Steve Fon- Shiao Chiu, president,

Flysheet Information Services, Taiwan.

Asia Pacific library leaders participate in conference

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 17

Department of Defense uses SiteSearch to

support military education

by Sarah A. Mikel

The U. S. Department of

Defense ( DOD), through the

chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff, maintains schools,

colleges and other

educational institutions that

make up the military

education system of the

Armed Forces. In 1995,

nine of the military education libraries within the

system formed a consortium to enhance their

technological excellence in

support of military

education through the 21st

century. In April of 1997,

with this goal in mind, the

library group decided to

bring their online public

access catalogs up on the

Web and purchased OCLC

SiteSearch suite software.

The libraries involved in the purchase were

Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia;

Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Air

University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery,

Alabama; Naval War College, Newport, Rhode

Island; Command and General Staff College,

Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas; National Defense

University, Washington, D. C.; Naval Postgraduate

School, Monterey, California; Marine Corps

University, Quantico, Virginia; and Joint Special

Operations Forces Institute ( formerly at Ft. Bragg,

North Carolina). The result was the Military

Education and Research Library Network

( MERLN), a Web site that brings together unique

and extensive military book collections indexes,

bibliographies, local databases and links to military

journals. It is a Web site focused on military

research for students, faculty and scholars.

In 1998, MERLN grew to include the U. S.

service academies: U. S. Military Academy, West

Point, New York; U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis,

Maryland; U. S. Air Force Academy, Colorado

Springs, Colorado; and the U. S. Coast Guard

Academy, New London, Connecticut. This

addition complemented the original libraries that

represent graduate level military education by

including the undergraduate components of

military education. The academy libraries added a

depth and breadth to the resources accessible

through MERLN because of the richness and

diversity of the undergraduate collections.

MERLN resides on a server located at the

National Defense University, Washington, D. C.

The server, a Sun Sparc 20, was offered to the

project by the Department of Defense

Partnership for Peace Program ( PFP). The MERLN

Web site was seen as value- added to the PFP

mission, and the PFP connection came to play a

part in MERLN’s future direction. The PFP

mission is to use information

technology to strengthen

bilateral cooperation through

collaborative database

development activities

between the United States

and partner countries.

MERLN, as a Web- accessible

library tool, is excellent for

fostering information

exchange.

The next step for MERLN was to expand

globally, and in 1999 the concept of MERLN

( Europe) evolved. The DOD Marshall Center for

European Security Studies, Garmisch, Germany,

would serve as the coordinator for the European

node that would link the PFP member countries’

defense academy libraries. MERLN ( Europe) is

scheduled to become operational in mid- 2000

under the management of the Marshall Center

Library. The challenge for MERLN ( Europe) is that

many of the PFP countries do not have automated

library capabilities and Internet access. Some

libraries are fully automated; others wish to

participate as the first step in automating their

libraries. It will be the role of the Marshall Center

Library to serve as more than a node to link

libraries through OCLC SiteSearch. It will

function as consultant and developer to assist

fledgling libraries in their automation efforts.

Other MERLN expansions are planned based

on DOD regional centers in Latin America, Asia

Pacific, Africa and the Near East. The ultimate

goal is to link military education library

collections worldwide in multiple languages to

support distance learning, continuing education

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

18 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

and campus- based student and faculty

information needs.

MERLN was recognized by the Scout Report in

February 2000. A visitor to the site finds the

world’s most comprehensive military collections

covering historical and current topics, unique

digitized collections such as the Admiral Bates

Papers from the Naval War College, the invaluable

Air University Index to Military Periodicals, and

links to the full- text military journals of the

participating schools. A new and developing

feature is full- text linking through the

bibliographic record 856 field to the publications

of the libraries’ university/ college press. MERLN

ambitions include providing more access to

highly specialized military and historical digitized

collections. For example, the National Defense

University will bring up a Civil War Historical

Exhibit, and there are plans for providing Web-based

access to unclassified primary source

military materials.

MERLN is susceptible to the concern about

computer security within DOD. This concern has

caused intermittent problems with access to

MERLN online public access catalogs. It is an

issue that does not offer an easy solution and

presents an obstacle to the successful functioning

of MERLN ( in the United States). For libraries

with the capability of a proxy server outside the

firewall the solution is easy, but for those that do

not have that capability their OPACs are

inaccessible. All sites have been inaccessible

during periods of time when their parent

institutions have been undergoing firewall

upgrades. This is an issue that we continue to

work out, and it is critical to MERLN’s future.

Aside from this, the future is positive. MERLN

members are currently working with OCLC to

customize our interface so that in the near future

MERLN will have a different look. We are also

developing a prototype for unmediated

interlibrary loan. The test phase includes the

Naval Postgraduate School and the National

Defense University. This will be implemented in

mid- 2000. Users of the MERLN Web site can look

forward to more international resources, more

unique military information products and a fresh

new look.

MERLN can be accessed at

< http:// www. ifn. pims. org: 8000>.

— Sarah A. Mikel is library director,

National Defense University.

Partnership for Peace Information Management

System designed to strengthen bilateral cooperation

The Partnership for Peace Information

Management System ( PIMS) is a Department of

Defense program that uses information

technology to strengthen bilateral cooperation

through collaborative database development

activities between the United States and partner

countries. Although PIMS is not a North

Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) system, it

supports U. S. and NATO goals to enhance the

Partnership for Peace Program. As the program

evolves, the United States and partners will

continue to develop databases on topics of

mutual and regional concern to foster both

Partnership for Peace and bilateral goals.

PFP member countries include: Albania,

Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria,

Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan,

Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia,

Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia,

Sweden, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, Ukraine

and Uzbekistan.

NATO countries involved in PIMS include:

Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

• • •

Collections and Technical Services Committee meets in Dublin

The Collections and Technical Services Advisory Committee met April 4- 5 at OCLC in

Dublin, Ohio. The committee spent two days providing feedback and advice to OCLC

on strategic cataloging issues. Pictured, left to right, are: Jenefer Wright and Brian

Flaherty, of the University of Aukland, who joined the committee during the

discussion on the OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Catalog; Nancy Stancel, Leon

E. Bloch Law Library, University of Missouri- Kansas City; John Edens, State

University of New York at Buffalo; Louise Sevold, Cuyahoga Public Library; Robert

Neville, Robert Scott Small Library, College of Charleston; Katherine Hughes, National

Library of Wales; Victor Liu, Washtenaw Community College Learning Resource

Center; Lois Fenker, Seattle Public Library; John Schalow, McKeldin Library,

University of Maryland; Martha O'Hara Conway, Yale University Library; Janet

Padway, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee; and Judy Dyki,

Cranbrook Academy of Art Library.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 19

CIP Upgrade staff celebrates milestone

In March, OCLC's CIP Upgrade staff upgraded the

100,000th record since the OCLC service began in

November 1995. The record was OCLC # 40,990,076 for

the book India Style by Monisha Bharadwaj. The staff

celebrated this milestone by sharing a cake with Academic

Book Center staff. OCLC's CIP Upgrade unit

is located in Portland, Oregon, in

the warehouse of Academic

Book Center, a division of

Blackwell North America. CIP

Upgrade unit staff currently

upgrade almost 25,000 titles per

year in WorldCat in support of the

OCLC PromptCat service and general

cataloging activities by OCLC member libraries. The symbol C# P in the 040 field of a bibliographic record signals

that it has been upgraded by this unit. The OCLC CIP Upgrade staff includes, seated, left to right: Christoph Saxe,

associate cataloger; and Morgan McCune, supervisor; standing, Peter Walters, scanner technician; Donita Flohr,

cataloger; Kari Smith, cataloger; and Kathryn Alexander, associate cataloger.

photo provided by OCLC CIP Upgrade staff

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

20 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

OCLC’s X. 25 backbone is decommissioned

OCLC users began accessing the OCLC Cataloging

Service system via the Sprint X. 25 backbone in

November 1990. The X. 25 backbone was migrated

to Frame Relay technology in August of 1997. The

network was decommissioned on March 31, 2000.

OCLC Telecommunications & User Support Division

staff involved in decommissioning the backbone

include: front row, left to right, Linda Frank, senior

network analyst; Mary Jo Smith, consulting product

support specialist; Julie Gay, department manager,

Network Engineering & Support; middle row, Jerry

Wemer, senior network analyst; Wendall Mumaw,

section manager, Network Support; Timothy Sutton, senior network analyst; Ron Spessard, senior consulting network engineer;

back row, Brian Wingerter, consulting network engineer; Michael Kao, consulting network engineer; George Carpenter, director,

User Support; Jonathan Myers, senior network analyst; and Dan Layshock, technical services support supervisor.

Gary Marchionini is named Kilgour Award winner

Gary Marchionini is the recipient of the 2000

Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in

Library and Information Technology. Dr.

Marchionini is Cary C. Boshamer professor in the

School of Information and Library Science at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The

award is sponsored by OCLC and the Library and

Information Technology Association ( LITA).

The award was established to honor the

achievements of Frederick G. Kilgour, the founder

of OCLC and a seminal figure in library

automation. The aim of the award is to bring

attention to ‘ real- world�� research relevant to the

development of information technologies. The

recognized work should show promise of having

a positive and substantial impact on any aspect

of the publication, storage, retrieval and

dissemination of information, or the processes

by which information and data is manipulated

and managed.

The award consists of $ 2,000 cash, an expense-paid

trip to the American Library Association

Annual Conference and a citation of merit.

“ The Kilgour Award Committee was delighted

to acknowledge so distinguished a researcher as

Dr. Marchionini, one who has become a leader in

the areas of digital libraries, human- computer

interaction, information seeking in electronic

environments and information policy,” said Judith

Wild, chair of the Kilgour Award Committee. His

work, in the tradition of Frederick Kilgour,

incorporates cutting- edge technology but never

loses sight of the centrality of the user in any

meaningful information system.

Dr. Marchionini received his doctor’s degree in

curriculum development and mathematics

education from Wayne State University. He was

the director for the Center for Automation

Research, Digital Library Research Group at the

University of Maryland before assuming his

current position at Chapel Hill.

The award will be presented at the LITA

President’s Program on Monday, July 10,

during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

LITA is a division of the American

Library Association.

• • •

Gary Marchionini

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 21

Robert Wedgeworth is John Ames Humphry/

OCLC Forest Press Award winner

Robert Wedgeworth is this year’s recipient of the

American Library Association International

Relations Committee’s John Ames

Humphry/ OCLC Forest Press Award.

The cash award of $ 1,000, donated by

OCLC Forest Press, is given to an individual

for significant contribution to international

librarianship.

Mr. Wedgeworth received the award for his 30

years of dedicated involvement in promoting

international librarianship. He served as the

second American President of the International

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

( IFLA) from 1991– 1997. As president, he worked

to promote the interests of developing countries

through such activities as the establishment of

IFLA’s Core Program for Advancing Librarianship

in the Third World.

During his tenure on the IFLA Executive Board

( 1985– 1997), he championed causes such as

copyright and freedom of expression to the

international library community.

He has also made significant contributions in

the United States by expanding internationalism

through his work and support of the Mortenson

Center at the University of Illinois at

Urbana– Champaign, and through his mentoring

of dozens of U. S. librarians interested in getting

involved in international work.

Pat Harris, chair of the Humphry Award Jury,

notes that “ Robert Wedgeworth’s interest and

involvement in the global aspects of

librarianship has spanned his career. We can

now clearly see how Wedgeworth’s leadership

and vision have strengthened the organizations

that are a focal point for international

librarianship and resulted in the U. S. becoming a

powerful contributor of talent and resources to

the international arena. Of most importance, he

has broadened the circle, extending the

boundaries to include developing countries and

shaping the international agenda to embrace the

issues that are central to the global library

community.”

Mr. Wedgeworth is the former university

librarian of the University of Illinois at

Urbana– Champaign. He also served as executive

director of the American Library Association and

dean of School of Library Service at Columbia

University, New York.

• • •

OCLC services to be unavailable Aug. 6– 7 during

power upgrade

All OCLC online services will be unavailable from

2 a. m. ( U. S. Eastern Daylight Time), Sunday, Aug.

6, until approximately 6 a. m., Monday, Aug. 7,

during a planned power shutdown.

The 28- hour shutdown is necessary for the

installation of a new power system in the Kilgour

building, which houses OCLC’s data center and

telecommunications facility.

The ultimate goal of this upgrade is to reduce

the need for such shutdowns in the future.

Following the installation, OCLC will be able to

perform preventative and corrective maintenance

on the high voltage ( 13,200 volt) switches and

transformers without shutting down power to the

building.

OCLC’s four diesel generators will be arranged

in two banks of two, rather than the current bank

of four. Originally, three of the four generators

were needed to power the computer room. Today,

any two of the generators can supply enough

power. The change will give OCLC increased

redundancy and flexibility in its power system.

More information on the shutdown will be

posted to the OCLC Web site

< http:// www. oclc. org/> in the coming weeks.

• • •

Robert Wedgeworth

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

22 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

Erik Jul named executive director of OCLC Institute

Erik Jul, associate director of the OCLC Institute,

has been named its new executive director,

effective June 1. Previous executive director,

Martin Dillon, announced his retirement.

According to Phyllis B. Spies, vice president,

OCLC Worldwide Library Services, Mr. Jul was

selected because of his knowledge, leadership

skills, professional activities and achievements,

and his vision of what the OCLC Institute can

become.

�� During his three- year tenure as associate

director of the OCLC Institute, Erik has received

high praise from adjunct faculty and seminar

participants, who describe him as engaging and

genuinely inclusive,” Ms. Spies said. “ Erik brings

to the job academic credentials, extensive

industry experience with libraries, and a strong

desire to lead the OCLC Institute to new heights.”

“ This is an exciting and a challenging time for

libraries and for the many partners, players and

users in the knowledge management industry,”

said Mr. Jul. “ In this time of rapid change, the

OCLC Institute will work to help libraries

worldwide to envision and create their

preferred futures.”

Mr. Jul graduated summa cum laude with a

bachelor of arts degree from Hope College. He

holds a master’s degree from Ohio State

University and a master’s in business

administration from Franklin University. He has

published extensively, and he is a founding

editorial board member and contributing

columnist to the Journal of Internet Cataloging,

the first international print journal dedicated to

this topic. He is also the founding associate

editor of LIBRES, the first electronic journal

dedicated to library research, and currently serves

as guest editor of the Library Trends issue on

library cataloging and the Internet.

Mr. Jul also serves on numerous committees

and task forces including the American Library

Association ALCTS Networked Resources and

Metadata Committee, the Internet Engineering

Task Force, Universal Resource Identifier Group

and the ALCTS Metadata Task Force.

During his 14- year tenure at OCLC, he has held

a variety of positions in the Computer Systems

Engineering Division, the Documentation

Department, the Office of Research and the

Library Resources Management Division. He

spearheaded the U. S. Department of Education-funded

OCLC Intercat Project, which was

instrumental in encouraging libraries worldwide

to identify, select and catalog Internet resources

according to library standards and practices.

• • •

OCLC Statistics

( as of May 1, 2000)

Current statistics are at

< http:// www. oclc. org/

oclc/ new/ stats. htm>.

Par ticipating

libraries

37,001

New member libraries

( March 1– April 30, 2000)

147

Total interlibrary loan

requests

99,338,379

Erik Jul

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 23

Robert Van Volkenburg named director,

Product Marketing, OCLC Library Resources

Robert Van Volkenburg has been promoted to

director, Product Marketing, OCLC Library

Resources.

In his new position, Mr. Van Volkenburg is

responsible for providing market and product

analysis to support the continued growth and

evolution of OCLC’s cataloging services.

Product Marketing works closely with OCLC

Product Management on new product

positioning, marketing and pricing by

performing market and business analysis

functions for cataloging products.

“ Bob’s background in accounting and

business has proven invaluable as we move to

simplify pricing, investigate new markets and

research new product lines,” said Maureen D.

Finn, director of Library Resources.

Mr. Van Volkenburg joined OCLC in 1988 as

senior cost accountant and was responsible for

a wide range of cost analyses and regular,

internal financial reporting for OCLC product

and senior management. In 1995, he was

named cost manager and oversaw the

development and implementation of costing

policies, along with the expansion of product-related

financial reporting. He became

manager, Market Analysis and Pricing, in 1997

and conducted analysis of new and existing

product performance and generated pricing

recommendations.

Prior to joining OCLC, Mr. Van Volkenburg

was cost accountant at Medex in Hilliard, Ohio.

A graduate of the College of Wooster in

Wooster, Ohio, Mr. Van Volkenburg holds a

master’s degree in business administration

from Capital University.

• • •

Highest OCLC

record number

43,952,722

Location listings

( holdings)

754,100,749

OCLC FirstSearch service searches

( since October 1991)

271,749,936

Robert Van Volkenburg

R E S E A R C H

24 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative:

Frankfurt and beyond

by Stuart Weibel

The Dublin Core Metadata

Initiative ( DCMI) is nearing

the fifth anniversary of

what has become the

broadest international,

interdisciplinary effort in

resource description on the

Internet. Die Deutsche

Bibliothek in Frankfurt,

Germany, hosted DC- 7, the seventh of the series

of international metadata workshops of this

initiative. DC- 7 attracted 125 participants from 27

countries, the largest of the workshops to date.

The workshop agenda embraced three broad

categories: element qualifiers, discipline- specific

working groups and a variety of problem- oriented

working groups.

Since the fourth Dublin Core workshop,

qualifiers have been recognized as important for

extensibility and refinement of the Dublin Core

Metadata Element Set. Working groups had been

gathering input on current use of qualifiers

among Dublin Core applications, and the results

of these discussions provided a basis for working

group meetings at DC- 7.

Qualifiers will enable creators of Dublin Core

metadata to refine aspects of the 15 core

elements in an interoperable way as well as to

invoke other existing vocabularies to improve the

semantic precision of the core elements. Thus,

communities having existing qualification

vocabularies and schemes ( such as Library of

Congress Subject Headings and the Dewey

Decimal Classification system) will be able to

tailor their metadata to the needs of their

constituents while remaining within the Dublin

Core metadata architecture.

The international diversity of the Dublin Core

community has always been an important part of

the vitality of the initiative. The translation of

Dublin Core standards into more than 25

languages testifies to the global importance of

these issues, but also highlights the difficulty of

maintaining semantic consistency in a

multilingual, multicultural environment. This

problem is one of the primary motivators for

developing registry capabilities. The DC- Registry

working group has been chartered to address

these issues. ( More on this topic on page 26.)

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set is

intended to support cross- discipline resource

discovery. As a core set of descriptors, it is not

intended to satisfy every possible description

need in every discipline. The notion of adding

metadata element modules to accommodate local

or discipline- specific needs has always been part

of the Dublin Core concept of modular,

extensible metadata.

As work on the Dublin Core set has matured, it

has become clear that many communities would

like to develop such extensions. The Frankfurt

workshop marks a transition in the scope of the

activities of the DCMI in this direction. DCMI will

support the development of such additional

metadata elements by providing a forum for the

discussion of such requirements and guidance on

developing them. In this way, communities may

promote additional elements to serve their own

needs while preserving interoperability across the

widest possible spectrum.

The educational community is an example of a

constituency that has particular requirements for

metadata to promote instructional and

curriculum management goals. The Dublin Core

community has had educational projects in a

number of countries from its inception, but there

are other initiatives that focus on these needs as

well, including the IMS Project in the United

States and the Ariadne project in Europe.

The DC– Education Working Group has been

established to address the functional

requirements of the educational materials sector

within the DCMI framework. As a result of the

establishment of this group, closer discussions

have been initiated between the DCMI

community on the one hand and other groups

working on related metadata problems. A

meeting of the DC– Education working group in

February resulted in progress toward enhancing

the basic elements with additional elements and

qualifiers and in promoting cooperation with

other interested parties.

The governments of Australia, Denmark and

Finland have incorporated the Dublin Core

Metadata Element Set as part of a standard

approach for description of electronic

information. Similar explorations are under way

in several other countries, including Japan,

Portugal and the United Kingdom. The

DC– Government working group has been

R E S E A R C H

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 25

chartered to promote discussions among

interested parties who would like to develop this

important facet of DC metadata.

Libraries have a special place in the

development of the Dublin Core Metadata

Element Set, since they have contributed

substantial expertise to its development and

because they manage the largest, most successful

resource discovery system in the world:

MARC/ AACR2. As libraries have deployed the

Dublin Core, they must grapple with the

challenges of integrating traditional cataloging

and DC cataloging. The DC– Libraries working

group has been chartered to identify best

practices for libraries and to address the

particular problems of mixed metadata

management in the library environment.

In addition to the newly chartered discipline-specific

groups described earlier, several topical

working groups were constituted at DC- 7.

There are many emerging approaches to

managing intellectual property rights on the

Internet, and it is unlikely that any single means

will serve all purposes. Such systems can be

designed for a variety of purposes— the most

common being to manage revenue flow

associated with intellectual property rights.

There are other perspectives, however, including

the simple need for applications, users and

intermediaries to identify whether they can

access and use a resource. The DC- Rights

working group will explore practical means for

the declaration of terms and conditions metadata.

Many resource description communities

benefit from the ability to provide authoritative

versions of personal names, corporate names and

geographic place names as part of their metadata.

This is well known in libraries, which maintain

substantial record collections of these types, but

it is also important for many other communities.

DC– Authorities has been chartered to explore the

implications and requirements for authority

management in the Dublin Core metadata

environment.

A working group has been chartered to address

the problem of the maintenance of a registry of

metadata entities ( elements and their qualifiers):

DC– Registry. This work has both policy and

technical components.

Registry policies are necessary to define how a

metadata entity becomes registered and how the

status of such an entity changes over time.

The technical challenges of a metadata registry

are still very much in the realm of research, and

the development of the Dublin Core registry will

be a working example of such research. The goals

of such a system include: management support

for the evolution of metadata entities, discovery

of metadata entities and their characteristics by

designers of metadata applications, discovery of

metadata entities and their characteristics by end

users; access by software applications for the

discovery of schemas and metadata entities to

support automated processing of metadata, and

identification of multiple language

representations of metadata entities.

— Stuart Weibel is consulting research scientist,

OCLC Office of Research, and director, Dublin

Core Metadata Initiative.

• • •

Subscribe to ‘ DC– General’ for upcoming announcements

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative workplan for the Year 2000 is progressing in anticipation of the

eighth workshop, to be hosted by the National Library of Canada in Ottawa in October 2000. Those

interested in this event should subscribe to DC– General < http:// www. mailbase. ac. uk/ lists/ dc-general/>

for upcoming announcements.

• • •

R E S E A R C H

26 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

At its October 1999

Workshop on Metadata,

the CEN ( European

Committee for

Standardization) Information

Society Standardization

System ( CEN/ ISSS) created a

new agreement that endorses the

reference description, Version 1.1 of

the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set.

This agreement defines 15 metadata elements that

represent a stable set to form a fixed point in an

ongoing development process.

The CEN Workshop Agreement ( CWA) is

designed for simple resource description

and to provide minimum interoperability

between metadata systems. The October

meeting and future workshops aim to contribute

to European agreements for widely applicable

metadata standards.

“ The announcement of a CEN workshop

agreement for the Dublin Core signals the

importance of the effort in the European

community and represents a landmark in the

standardization process that will speed broader

acceptance of this international effort,” said Stuart

Weibel, consulting research scientist, OCLC

Office of Research.

The drive to exploit the World Wide Web has

created an urgent need for people and

applications to collaborate— and this needs

standard methods and vocabularies for describing

content in a consistent and orderly manner.

Metadata are needed wherever a large amount of

information is stored.

Recognizing the importance of metadata

agreement, OCLC has hosted the Dublin Core

Metadata Initiative since its beginning as a single

workshop in 1995. Seven workshops have

convened resource description experts from

libraries, museums, archives, commerce,

government and many subject disciplines to

build a global consensus for resource discovery

on the Web.

“ Part of the importance of the Dublin Core

standard is as a bridge between libraries and other

communities,” Dr. Weibel said. “ It represents an

important contribution on the part of the library

community to the emerging digital infrastructure

that defines the information landscape. Dublin

Core workshops have enjoyed the support of five

national libraries.”

According to CEN, while the recent agreement

for cross- sector interchange of metadata is

significant, the definition does not attempt to

meet all requirements. Domain- specific metadata

schemes are required for richer description ( for

example, geographic information). The intention

of this agreement is to help information location

by establishing a common core of metadata.

“ Recognizing that some sector- specific

agreements are already being put into place,

sectors are invited to consider the CWA for

integration into their domain- specific solutions,”

said John Ketchell, director of CEN/ ISSS. “ Cross-industry

acceptance will be encouraged by the

more formal status within Europe and also from

the availability of guidance information, which will

lead to a rapid application within Europe. After

this endorsement, immediate efforts will be

directed toward provision of guidance to European

industry making use of the Dublin Core.”

This agreement has been formally recorded by

the contributing partners in the CEN/ ISSS

Workshop. A list of companies that support the

document may be obtained from the CEN/ ISSS

Secretariat, Leif Andresen, at < lea@ bs. dk > .

The focus of the workshop will next move to

provide guidance material for the adoption of the

CWA within Europe. This will involve the

collection of information on state of the art in

national implementations and deriving

recommendations on coordination and other

guidance information for European industry.

The workshop is open and is seeking

involvement from all interested parties.

Participation may be by physical attendance at

meetings and/ or by inclusion for participation in

the electronic communications between

the participants.

Experts wishing to participate on behalf of an

organization ( or as a liaison representative) in the

activities of the workshop should register as a

participant via the online registration form:

< http:// www. cenorm. be/ isss/ workshop/

mmi- dc/ applic_ form. htm>.

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set endorsed

by European standard organization

R E S E A R C H

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 27

CEN’s mission is to promote voluntary

technical harmonization in Europe in conjunction

with worldwide bodies and its partners in

Europe. Harmonization diminishes trade barriers;

promotes safety; allows interoperability of

products, systems and services; and promotes

common technical understanding. In Europe,

CEN works in partnership with CENELEC—

the European Committee for Electrotechnical

Standardization < http:// www. cenelec. be/> and

ETSI— the European Telecommunications

Standards Institute < http:// www. etsi. fr/>.

The CEN/ ISSS Web site is at:

< http:// www. cenorm. be/ isss/>.

• • •

Research Advisory Committee meets in Dublin

by Beth Marsh

The Research Advisory

Committee ( RAC) met in

Dublin, Ohio, on March 6– 7.

Attending were Toni Carbo,

dean of the University of

Pittsburgh School of

Information Science; Bruce

Morton, dean of libraries at

Montana State University—

Bozeman and Lorcan Dempsey, director of the

United Kingdom Office for Library and

Information Networking.

The meeting began with an update of OCLC

activities by Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO.

Mr. Jordan spoke about changes that OCLC is

undergoing since mergers with WLN, PAIS and

Pica. In addition, he spoke about internal studies

OCLC is conducting with the assistance of

consultants, which include a review of OCLC’s

governance structure, a business process

improvement study, and an employee opinion

survey. Mr. Jordan said he believes information

gained from these studies will better position

OCLC to provide more timely and focused

services to its member libraries.

Terry Noreault, vice president, OCLC Office

of Research, presented an overview of research.

He noted that a number of research staff are

working with OCLC Product Development

Department staff on the OCLC Cooperative

Online Resource Catalog ( CORC). Dr. Noreault

requested that the RAC members help the Office

of Research select the most appropriate research

directions that will provide the best benefit and

value to OCLC members.

Thom Hickey, OCLC chief scientist, gave a

presentation on the status of CORC since the last

RAC meeting. One of the biggest changes is the

integration of WorldCat into the CORC system.

Challenges in this integration include how to

share control numbers and data. In addition to

personnel resources, the Office of Research has

brought WebDewey ( automatic classification);

Faceted Application of Subject Terminology

( FAST) ( authority control); Pears ( a Unicode

compliant database system) and user interface

expertise to the project. Dr. Hickey said he

expects the Office of Research to continue to

support CORC by researching issues and possible

solutions in the following areas: automatic

Library of Congress classification; multi- schema

authorities prototype; PDF cataloging; better

and easier pathfinders; and an exploration into

the use of other metadata formats, such as EAD,

TEI, and other MARC formats. Long- range

research topics include a study of how people are

actually using CORC, how genre types can be

applied to Web pages, and whether there are

differences in how CORC is used in different

communities, such as in museums, among

catalogers and reference librarians.

Bob Bolander, OCLC research assistant, spoke

about some of the work he and Chandra Prabha,

OCLC senior research scientist, have been

conducting over the past six months. They are

exploring non- technical questions related to the

CORC project. They are also researching whether

there is a set of Internet resources that can be

identified as central to the provision of library

services, and they are estimating the cost of

identifying these Web- based resources. Among

some of their current considerations is whether

CORC participants should develop and agree on

guidelines for selecting Internet content and what

constitutes a qualifying Web resource. In the

coming months, they plan to analyze CORC

records to characterize their content and to

analyze public library home pages to provide an

insight into the Internet resources these libraries

are making available to their users. They also

hope to describe workflows and tools libraries

are using and how this has changed with the

additional management of networked resources.

Faceted Application of Subject Terminology

( FAST) is a project led by Ed O’Neill, OCLC

R E S E A R C H

28 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

consulting research scientist.

The purpose of FAST is to

develop a new subject

heading schema for metadata

based on Library of Congress

Subject Headings ( LCSH) in

which the syntax is simplified

while the richness of the

vocabulary is retained, making the schema easier

to use, understand

and maintain. FAST is derived from the LCSH,

post- coordinated, designed for the online

environment to be used by people with minimal

training and experience.

Dr. O’Neill spoke about the complexity of

creating an automated authority control system.

An initial pass at validating form main headings

found 41 percent presented spelling errors, 26

percent were actual established headings, 5

percent were cross- references, 4 percent followed

accepted heading patterns but were incorrect for

other reasons, another 4 percent were not tagged

correctly, and the final 20 percent ( approximately

100,000 records) were of unknown status. The

project staff is making no attempt to correct the

headings, even those with the simplest of errors.

Their current work is focused on identifying

types of problems involved in automating

authority control.

In looking toward the future, Dr. O’Neill will

be investigating issues surrounding possible

extensions to FAST. These extensions might

include establishing new forms for describing

Web objects and other digital information sources

and providing consistent authorities for brand-named

products and trademark information. Dr.

O’Neill points out that it is currently very difficult

to search for a class of products.

Karen Drabenstott, associate professor,

University of Michigan, and a visiting scholar in

the Office of Research this year, presented her

work on creating a Web- based teaching tool for

the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The

tools she is using to create her presentation

include Macromedia’s Flash. Dr. Drabenstott

explained that Flash streams content to the Web,

which allows for a smooth display of information.

Flash is also resolution independent, meaning that

it resizes itself to the user’s browser window size,

thus eliminating the need to scroll from side to

side or up and down to see the entire display.

Keith Shafer, OCLC consulting research

scientist, has been re- examining past work on

Names and Name Services. A “ name” is a unique

identifier that distinguishes a work and its

manifestations. In the library environment, an

ISSN or an ISBN can be considered a name. In the

Web environment, a URL designates a location

and cannot be considered a “ name.” So why are

names so important? Good names lead to good

services in linking to resources as well as to

citations in articles. Good names also allow for

third parties to create services for linking to

resources. Names will also assist in providing

users with access to their “ appropriate” copy.

Users and institutions may have permission to

access different copies of a work. With good

naming conventions, access to the appropriate

copy can be made through local caches or

through a number of different filtering

mechanisms. Much of this research into naming

has been spurred by activity with DOI- X and the

publisher community. Acceptance of the DOI- X

may limit OCLC member options and will not

allow any third- party solutions. Dr. Shafer said

there is much work to be done and that this is an

area that will have a great impact on OCLC

members and OCLC services.

There has been considerable progress since

the last RAC meeting in the area of Knowledge

Organization. Diane Vizine- Goetz, OCLC

consulting research scientist, began her

presentation by reviewing the role of OCLC

research in the development of knowledge

organization tools based on the Dewey Decimal

Classification ( DDC) system including Dewey for

Windows and Subject headings for Children.

During the last nine months, the Knowledge

Organization team has provided access to the

DDC in CORC, created a database of popular

Library of Congress Subject Headings mapped to

DDC numbers and participated in a project with

NetLab in Sweden to apply Dewey to engineering

and technical resources on the Web.

Currently, Dr. Vizine- Goetz is exploring ways of

enriching the DDC by mapping subject

vocabularies and thesauri such as MeSH,

Engineering Index, GEM and ERIC to the DDC.

She is also exploring new uses of the Dewey

schema, for example, as a knowledge organization

system for intranets, registries and repositories.

Dr. Vizine- Goetz is also investigating the potential

benefits of providing a Dewey- based browser for

CORC resources.

Brian Lavoie, OCLC research scientist,

presented his initial work on the issues

surrounding digital archiving. The definition of a

digital archive is an organization or system

R E S E A R C H

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 29

responsible for preserving information in digital

form and making it available long term. However,

at the moment, although there is much interest

from a number of different communities, there is

still a need to establish a common ground for

discussion and collaboration across these

communities. Once a common vocabulary is

developed, then work on creating recommended

practices and standards for digital archiving may

proceed. An important aspect of Mr. Lavoie’s

work is to better understand the economics of

digital archiving and how that will impact OCLC

services and member libraries.

Lorraine Normore, OCLC consulting research

scientist, presented some of the results of her

research into Resource Description. She is

exploring how people deal with materials in

special collections and archives. Dr. Normore is

focusing on what types of materials librarians and

archivists are working with, what are the origins

of the materials, what type of description is used

and what type of access is provided. So far, Dr.

Normore has learned that there is a wide range of

materials in the collections. They generally are

not just the average printed book. The methods

used to describe the collections are quite varied.

MARC is sometimes employed, as is EAD and TEI,

as well as home- grown idiosyncratic systems. In

her future work, Dr. Normore will be exploring

the relationship between preservation and

digitization and how these collections relate to

other collections and other materials.

In Dr. Normore’s second presentation, she

described her continuing work on Information

Visualization. A prototype system, created by

Mark Bendig, OCLC consulting systems analyst,

visually displays search results. While the work is

still in its infancy, she hopes that later this year

the user will be able to maneuver within the

result set, exploring the results from different

points of view. Future applications of this

research may include collection analysis and

collection management.

Rick Bennett, senior systems analyst, has been

involved in a project to convert Wade- Giles forms

of romanized Chinese language names to the now

more- accepted Pinyin style of romanized Chinese.

To do such a conversion requires identification of

the language and then a determination of whether

the text requires a conversion or not. Research

issues for this project include the identification of

which authority records require conversion,

identification of names that should not be

converted, the creation and validation of an

accurate process to accomplish the bibliographic

record conversion and, finally, a method for

identifying Chinese language text to be converted

that are in primarily non- Chinese language

bibliographic records. To date, more than

151,000 authority records have been identified

with high accuracy. It is estimated that 8 percent

of the nearly 800,000 bibliographic records will

require manual review.

The current status of the Dublin Core Metadata

Initiative was the focus of a presentation by Stuart

Weibel, OCLC consulting research scientist. The

Dublin Core Directorate has been working with

consultants to move the Dublin Core Metadata

Initiative to a more self- sufficient and independent

organization. A strategic planning retreat to

address these issues is in the planning stages.

Eric Miller, OCLC senior research scientist,

presented a recap of his work in Resource

Description Framework ( RDF) working groups.

Now that RDF specifications have been

announced, Mr. Miller says the working groups

have evolved into more of an interest group with

early RDF implementers generating the

discussions on the strengths and weaknesses of

the recommendations. Mr. Miller expects the

RDF specification to reach formal

recommendation status later this year. He is now

looking toward further work with the different

kinds of RDF

applications that are

appearing, such as

RDF parsers, schema

editors and data

fusion. Mr. Miller is

also creating a

metadata registry.

Following the

presentations, RAC

members, the

research scientists

and senior OCLC

management

discussed projects

and possible future

directions for the

OCLC Office of

Research. The next

RAC meeting is

scheduled for August

2000.— Beth Marsh

is research associate,

OCLC Office of

Research.

• • •

Current members of the OCLC Research Advisory Committee

are, standing, left to right: Toni Carbo, dean and professor,

School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh;

Edward E. David, president, EED, Inc.; seated, Bruce Morton,

dean of libraries, Montana State University- Bozeman; and

Lorcan Dempsey, director, United Kingdom Office for Library

and Information Networking, Bath, England.

CONSORTIA

30 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

Consortia: Leading change through cooperation

by Phyllis B. Spies

We have moved from a world

where everyone wants to go

it alone to a world where

you cannot survive unless

you have lots of friends.

Cooperation and inter-dependence

are prerequisites

for survival in this fast- paced,

high- tech world.

Around the world libraries are pooling

resources and making commitments to new

cooperative, inter- institutional mechanisms for

sharing infrastructure costs— such as

telecommunication networks, print collections,

digital collections and database creation and

access. The library of the future will be less a

place where information is physically housed

than a portal through which users will access the

vast information resources of the world. The

library of the future will be about access and the

management of knowledge itself, not about

ownership of the formats.

In this issue of the OCLC Newsletter we

highlight consortia from around the world that

are leveraging their resources and creating a

framework for change. And change we must.

Libraries must change because their users need

them to change now. They need the new services

that the library is best qualified to provide. They

need the increased access to knowledge and

information that will result from the library’s

ability to function more effectively. Libraries

must be active players in inventing the future,

and the consortia highlighted in this section are

demonstrating such leadership.

— Phyllis B. Spies is vice president,

OCLC Worldwide Library Services.

• • •

CONSORT I A

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 31

by Barbara B. Alexander

Beginning with the

establishment of the Illinois

State Library in 1839, the

Illinois library community

has been all about partnering

and resource sharing. When

the State Library was first

legislated, the only available

space was in the secretary of

state’s office, and the two— the library and

secretary’s office— came together in a partnership

that lasts today.

From those humble beginnings, Illinois libraries

moved through the 1930s and the first interest in

multi- type activities to the development of the

regional library systems in 1965. They wrote the

first “ Interlibrary Loan Code for Illinois” in 1971

and developed a statewide delivery system in

1980. The 1970s and 1980s saw the migration to

multi- type ( academic, public, school and special)

memberships in the regional library systems and

ILLINET ( Illinois Libraries Information Network).

Today the focus is on the development of VIC, the

Virtual Illinois Catalog, which uses OCLC

SiteSearch WebZ software as the platform for a

statewide catalog.

Throughout the history of the Illinois library

community, two seemingly conflicting

philosophies have provided inspiration and

balance. The community lives by the golden rule

of “ resource sharing.” At the same time, the

members of the community, whether individuals

or multi- type, district or system libraries, respect

each other’s right to autonomy and

entrepreneurial activity. Support, balanced by

creativity, results in better service for library users

and in expanded use of the state’s resources.

OCLC has worked closely with ILLINET to

implement a number of ambitious initiatives in

Illinois. Illinois libraries are heavy users of OCLC

Cataloging, the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL)

service, the OCLC FirstSearch service, the OCLC

FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online service,

and OCLC SiteSearch suite software.

One of the strongest links in ILLINET

continues to be interlibrary loan, which relies on

a statewide commitment to sharing, including

sharing OCLC resources. With ILLINET/ OCLC

Services, an OCLC- affiliated regional network

headquartered and staffed in the Illinois State

Library since 1977, training for all OCLC

services— including interlibrary loan, the Union

List and cataloging— is available across the state.

Trainers include Illinois State Library staff and

volunteers who are members of the Illinois OCLC

Users Group ( IOUG). More than 700 Illinois

libraries belong to the OCLC network.

The Illinois State Library has worked with

OCLC to invite all 4,000 libraries in Illinois to

make use of OCLC records directly on OCLC or

through the OPACs of 12 regional library systems.

These regional library systems operate shared,

integrated local systems. All holdings of Illinois

libraries not using OCLC directly can be

tapeloaded into WorldCat ( the OCLC Online

Union Catalog). This is done to facilitate

interlibrary loan and further resource sharing

among all Illinois libraries using the OCLC ILL

service. Participating Illinois libraries are

considered full OCLC members and are able to

use the OCLC ILL service to borrow and lend

among the more than 4,000 libraries within

Illinois promotes equal access to libraries

through partnerships

Illinois State Library

photos provided by the Illinois State Library

Illinois and more than 5,700 OCLC members

outside of Illinois.

Interlibrary loan within the state has thrived

due to the support provided by the Illinois State

Library, the 12 regional library systems, and the

ILLINET Interlibrary Loan Code, which was

revised in 1988 and 1993 and is currently under

revision. In the 1999 fiscal year, Illinois libraries

loaned 175,091 items to other Illinois libraries

using the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service. This

number does not include items loaned through

the regional library systems or through numerous

smaller, informal consortia throughout the state.

Extending the practice of sharing resources, in

1999, Illinois libraries provided 182,882 loans to

other states.

Supporting the interlibrary loan system, the

Illinois Library Delivery System ( ILDS) dates from

1980 when it was funded through Library

Services and Construction Act money. The goal

was to provide “ timely and effective delivery of

library materials between the major academic

libraries, the Illinois State Library, and the … 18

Regional Library Systems” that existed at that

time. ILDS is a dedicated surface delivery system

that currently provides service to all types of

libraries in all 12 regional library systems. Its

seven routes cross the state and total 12,220 stops

annually ( based on an average 47 stops per day)

with an expected two- to six- day delivery. ILDS is

complemented by the intrasystem deliveries

managed by the regional library systems.

As a state committed to resource sharing,

Illinois hosts a number of online initiatives.

ILLINET Online, one of the first online catalogs in

the country, began circulation of materials in the

early 1980s. Today, ILLINET Online members

include 45 academic institutions and the Illinois

State Library. ILLINET Online is accessible from

the Virtual Illinois Catalog, a module of Find- It!

Illinois. VIC holdings include 55 million records

aggregated from 1,152 academic, public, school

and special library catalogs in Illinois.

Staff from the Illinois State Library and the

regional library systems lead the VIC development

team. Also heavily involved in VIC support, P| PE

is a cooperative group of 30 to 50 Illinois State

Library and regional library system staff who have

gathered four times a year over the last four years

to address all types of technology issues.

In the near future, the Find- It! Illinois program

will be instrumental in forming Illinois library

community and Illinois state agency partnerships

through the development of the Illinois

Government Information ( IGI) site.

The Illinois State Library is charged with

collecting and maintaining access to Illinois

documents, and as those materials move to an

electronic format, IGI will provide support as well

as access. A broader partnership will connect IGI

to a number of Find- It! Illinois projects across the

country, which are similar to the portal under

development in Illinois. Both VIC and IGI, and

other resources currently under development, are

part of the Find- It! Illinois project.

Find- It! Illinois plans for the immediate future

include development of ELI ( Every Library’s

Information), which will allow each ILLINET

library to be responsible for the online updating of

pertinent data such as contact and community

information, staffing, holdings, special collections,

trustees and legislators. A bonus of the ELI module

will be the ability to build specialized reports as

needed by individual libraries. Also in progress is a

thesaurus that will work across Find- It! Illinois and

will eventually cross state lines to allow for even

broader searches. Other projections are for a

32 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

CONSORT I A

For more information, visit these Web sites:

Virtual Illinois Catalog < http:// vic. sos. state. il. us/>

ILLINET < http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ illinet. html>

ILLINET/ OCLC Services

< http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ isl/ oclc/ oclc. html>

ILLINET Interlibrary Loan Code

< http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ ill_ code. html>

ILLINET Online

< http:// ilcso. aiss. uiuc. edu/ Web/ Services/ ILLINET_ Online/>

Find- It! Illinois < http:// findit. sos. state. il. us/ >

Illinois Government Information < http:// findit. sos. state. il. us/>

Illinois Digital- Imaging Projects

< http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ digital/ digital. html>

SILO < http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ isl/ oclc/ silo_ des. html>

LVIS < http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ isl/ oclc/ lvis_ des. html>

ILLINET Network Advisory Council

< http:// www. library. sos. state. il. us/ isl/ inac. html>

Missouri Library Network Corporation < http:// www. mlnc. org/>

CONSORT I A

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 33

search engine for all Illinois digital- imaging

projects, whether grant- based or not.

As for reference databases, the Illinois State

Library provides unlimited free access to 16

OCLC FirstSearch databases for all 4,000

academic, public, school and special libraries in

ILLINET. Last year, Illinois library users performed

more than 5 million searches in these databases.

The statewide union list of serials— Serials of

Illinois Libraries Online ( SILO), developed in

cooperation with OCLC and supported by the

ILLINET/ OCLC office— is one of those

FirstSearch databases.

The 4,000 ILLINET libraries perform close to 5

million FirstSearch searches each year. Of those,

the 188 academic ILLINET libraries account for

more than 75 percent of the searches.

LVIS, or Libraries Very Interested in Sharing,

began in 1993 as a cooperative effort between the

Illinois State Library and the Missouri Library

Network Corporation to offer no- charge Group

Access Capability to libraries in the Midwest. It

has now expanded across the United States and

into Canada.

To promote resource sharing and to meet the

challenges presented by technology, the ILLINET

Network Advisory Council ( INAC) held its first

meeting in late 1998. Representative of all kinds

of libraries, INAC members address current issues

and provide direction for the next step. That will

bring all Illinois consortia together with equal

access to information and resources, cognizant of

the role of the OCLC organization in Illinois and

the statewide commitment to partnerships.—

Barbara B. Alexander is network consultant,

Illinois State Library.

�� • •

Jesse White, Illinois secretary of state and state librarian, Jean Wilkins, director, Illinois

State Library, and Nancy London, executive director, OCLC Library Services for the

Americas, during introduction of the Virtual Illinois Catalog.

Circulation desk at the Illinois State Library

Library consortia come in all sizes, types

Library consortia arrangements are, in many ways,

extensions of the OCLC collaborative model. Just

as OCLC works with individual libraries to help

them get the most out of their memberships,

OCLC works with consortia to help groups of

libraries meet the needs of their users.

According to Nancy London, executive

director, OCLC Library Services for the Americas,

there are almost as many types of library

consortia as there are library consortia.

“ OCLC, regional networks and member

libraries work together to extend the reach of

academic, public, school and special libraries—

and we often work with combinations of these

library types,” said Ms. London. “ We are

increasingly seeing multi- type and multi- state

consortia that are seeking new ways to facilitate

affordable access to information for libraries. So

we try to address the needs of these unique

organizations with unique solutions.”

Reasons for banding together are expanding, too.

“ Many library consortia have been formed to

share database content,” said Ms. London. “ Today,

consortia are forming not only to share access to

online reference materials, but also to provide

cataloging opportunities and resource sharing

for groups.”

CONSORT I A

34 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

“ Consortia can help libraries leverage their

investment in cataloging or setting holdings in

WorldCat,” she said. “ By building on services they

already use, they can get the most out of their

investment. And with additional cataloging and

holdings contributors, the entire OCLC

membership benefits. OCLC certainly recognizes

the power in numbers.”

The following list provides a sample of some of

the library consortia OCLC works with in the

United States:

• American Theological Association

• Arkansas State Libraries

• Associated Colleges of the South

• AZNET

• Boston Theological Institute

• California State University System

• Central Iowa Regional Library System ( SILO)

• Colorado/ Kansas Statewide

• Council of Higher Education ( VIVA)

• Council of Prairie & Pacific Univ. ( COPPUL)

• Florida Distance Library Learning Initiative

• GALILEO

�� Indiana University System

• INSPIRE

• Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual Library

( KCVL)

• LEIAN/ NMCAL

• Library of Michigan ( AccessMichigan)

• Long Island Library Resources Council

• MAGNOLIA

• MINITEX Library Information Network

• NC LIVE

• Nebraska Library Commission

• NEWMEXUS/ NEW Mexico GAC

• North Country Ref & Res Resources Council

• OHIOLINK

• Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education

• PA Academics

• Pacific Northwest

• PALNI

• PHOENIX GROUP

• SCELC

• South Central Regional Library Council

• Southeastern New York Library Resources

Council

• State Library of Florida

• State of Nebraska

• Texas State Library

• The Library of Virginia

• University of California System

• University of Texas System

• US Air Force

• West Virginia Library Commission

• Western New York Library Resources Council

• Wisconsin Library Services

• Wyoming State Library

• • •

The Council of Prairie and Pacific University

Libraries ( COPPUL) headquarters is located in

Calgary, Alberta. Members from Manitoba,

Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia use

the OCLC FirstSearch service through COPPUL.

The Council of Federal Libraries ( CFL),

headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, is a consortium

for government libraries at the federal level.

These libraries use the OCLC FirstSearch service.

The Council of Atlantic University Libraries

( CAUL) is being managed by librarians from the

University of New Brunswick, Memorial

University and Dalhousie University. This group

uses the OCLC FirstSearch service.

Bibliocentre, headquartered in Scarborough,

Ontario, is a consortium of 25 colleges in Ontario

managed by Bibliocentre staff. These libraries use

OCLC Cataloging services.

The Alberta Library, in Edmonton, Alberta, uses

the OCLC SiteSearch suite of

software to help bring together

academic and public

libraries with some

schools and special

libraries.

Novanet,

headquartered at

Dalhousie

University in

Halifax, Nova

Scotia, uses the

OCLC Cataloging

service.

• • •

OCLC Canada

CONSORT I A

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 35

OCLC Asia Pacific

OCLC works with consortia worldwide

The following is a sample of some of the groups working with OCLC to improve services to libraries

around the world.

In Australia, all 38 universities have used the

OCLC FirstSearch service since 1994. The

FirstSearch usage was initially arranged

through the Council of Australian University

Librarians ( CAUL).

In China, through an arrangement with Tsinghua

University on behalf of the China Academic

Library Information System ( CALIS), the OCLC

FirstSearch service is offered to universities in

China through the China Education and Research

Network ( CERNET).

In Hong Kong, a consortium composed of

member libraries of the Joint University Library

Advisory Council ( JULAC) has purchased the

OCLC FirstSearch service.

In Korea, the Korea Education and Research

Information Service ( KERIS), a government

agency of the Ministry of Education, provides the

OCLC FirstSearch service ( including electronic

journals from the OCLC FirstSearch Electronic

Collections Online service) to educators and

researchers in the Republic of Korea. In addition,

KERIS also coordinates online cataloging

and interlibrary loan through

OCLC for universities in

Korea.

In New Zealand, all

eight universities have

used the OCLC FirstSearch

service since 1994. The

FirstSearch usage was initially

arranged through the Council of

New Zealand University Librarians

( CONZUL).

In Singapore, the Singapore Integrated

Library Automation Service ( SILAS) coordinates

online cataloging through OCLC for SILAS users.

In Taiwan, Consortium on Core Electronic

Resources in Taiwan ( CONCERT) purchases

the OCLC FirstSearch service for 100 universities

in Taiwan.

• • •

CONSORT I A

36 OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000

OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa

MALMAD, the Israel Centre for Bibliographic

Information Services, was set up in 1988 by the

Israel Association of University Heads

( Va’ad rashe ha- universitata’ot). Its

purpose is to serve as a joint framework

for the acquisition, licensing and

operation of information services that

can be provided more efficiently and

at a lower cost per user by inter-university

cooperation and packaging

of resources. MALMAD comprises 15

of the major academic libraries in

Israel. They subscribe to the OCLC

FirstSearch service, and the OCLC

FirstSearch Electronic Collections

Online service.

The Hellenic Academic Libraries ( HEAL)

Link brings together 28 higher education

libraries in Greece using the FirstSearch base

package as well as Electronic Collections Online.

HEAL Link has many purposes including the

creation and operation of a union catalog, data

sharing, developing group standards, staff training

and licensing of electronic reference services.

The Institute of Information Science ( IZUM)

is a public, nonprofit organization founded by the

Government of the Republic of Slovenia in the

early 1980s. It is an administrative body

functioning primarily as the bibliographic utility

for the country’s libraries through its COBISS

system ( Cooperative Online Bibliographic System

and Services). IZUM comprises more than 80

libraries using the FirstSearch Base Package,

Electronic Collections Online and the OCLC

Z39.50 Cataloging service.

SABINET Online libraries have migrated on a

national level to the OCLC Cataloging service.

Currently 98 libraries including multi- sites are

participating, and this number continues to grow.

Under the plan: a telecommunications link has

been established between SABINET Online’s

system in Centurion, South Africa, and OCLC’s

corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ohio; SACat

( the South African Union Catalog) holdings will

be added to WorldCat ( the OCLC Online Union

Catalog); and SABINET Online libraries have

access both to the SACat mounted locally in

Centurion and to the OCLC Cataloging service.

The agreement provides for the 400- plus client

libraries of SABINET Online to become users of

OCLC Cataloging services and to participate in

OCLC programs.

CHEST comprises 150 university libraries and

500 further education institutions in the United

Kingdom and Ireland. The OCLC FirstSearch

service and Electronic Collections Online are the

main services used by CHEST libraries. CHEST

negotiates for the supply of software, data,

information, training materials and other

information technology related products to the

higher and further education community in the

U. K. and Republic of Ireland.

Riksbibliotektjenesten, a government agency

that is part of the Ministry of Church, Education

and Research, provides more than 40 academic

libraries with unlimited access to the OCLC Base

Package. The agreement is now in its fourth year.

Some libraries in the consortium have purchased

access to additional FirstSearch databases and

some are now using the OCLC FirstSearch

Electronic Collections Online service to gain

access to electronic full text. This agreement

allows the ministry to further its objective to

make Norway among the best in the world in

providing access to— and the use of—

international and national resources for the

development of knowledge and research.

Réseau de bibliothèques de Suisse

occidentale ( RERO) is a network of French-speaking

libraries in western Switzerland. It

includes some 180 research and reference

libraries arranged in five groups, reflecting the

political structure of the five French- speaking

cantons of Switzerland under the auspices of the

Conference of the Universities of Western

Switzerland. The network serves five

universities. RERO has an automated union

catalog that currently includes 2.7 million

bibliographic records. A strong motivating force

behind the founding of the network was the

desire for a shared cataloging system, to reduce

duplication of effort in cataloging activities. The

group has a cooperative agreement with the

Swiss National Library for the exchange of

bibliographic records and also has an agreement

with OCLC for cataloging. The first RERO library

began using the OCLC Cataloging service in

1998, and there are currently six libraries using

the service. Several libraries will shortly begin to

participate in the OCLC Cooperative Online

Resource Catalog service.

• • •

P R O D U C T N E W S

OCLC Newsletter May/ June 2000 37

OCLC Reference Services moves to next stage of

content management and collection development

by Tam Dalrymple

Rollout of the new OCLC

FirstSearch service will

complete the integration of

FirstSearch and the OCLC

FirstSearch Electronic

Collections Online service.

The new FirstSearch

provides an integrated

service with more than 80

databases and nearly 2,500 electronic journals.

From the outset, OCLC has sought to provide

high- quality content for member libraries through

these services.

At FirstSearch’s founding in 1991, OCLC’s goal

was to provide a breadth of subject coverage. In

particular, OCLC succeeded in making available a

wide range of bibliographic information in the

social sciences and humanities. After the

introduction of the Web interface to FirstSearch,

OCLC’s next collection goal was to provide access

to full text, which was done in several ways:

· Linking to the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL)

service

· Providin