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C a t a l o g i n g
S e r v i c e s f o r
t h e N e x t
M i l l e n n i u m
Membership News
Users Council urges continued emphasis on CORC project
Users Council reaffirms shared commitments to WorldCat Principles of Cooperation
OCLC WorldCat Principles of Cooperation
OCLC ILL Interoperability Task Force issues recommendations
OCLC Statistics
Toccoa Falls College enters 94 millionth OCLC ILL request
Libraries use CORC to catalog useful sites
Cataloging records for netLibrary’s eBooks to be available through PromptCat
OCLC to launch WebExpress in 2000
Dewey is a famous library feline
RONDAC and Network Business Managers meet
OCLC and network staff discuss service
Preservation Resources to scan leading Israeli newspaper collection
Martin Dillon writes on knowledge management for Library & Information Science Annual
Martin Dillon to step down as executive director of OCLC Institute
New director of product management named
Giles Martin appointed Dewey editor
Worldwide
First Chinese textbook on OCLC cataloging services published
Account manager for OCLC Canada appointed
OCLC helps keep staffers warm
Heather Robson is awarded Brian Enright Memorial Prize
New library provides home for National Taiwan University collections
Research
Web Characterization Project
Research Advisory Committee meets at OCLC
Cataloging Services for the Next Millennium
Cataloging services evolve for 2000 and beyond
Authority Control Suite provides options to fit library needs
Diversity is part of WorldCat’s value
RONDAC, regional networks and OCLC launch joint Web- based training development
User input helps take CJK software beyond ASCII
ACAS adds functionality
Analysis services assess collection needs
AsiaLink to offer Russian materials in January 2000
Retrospective conversion is finite. Or is it?
RetroCon Batch provides new options
CIC libraries converting over 2.4 million titles
RetroCon, Yale and Princeton find new ways to speed conversion
Innovation in retrospective conversion at Yale
Adapting an innovative idea: Princeton’s view
TechPro expands to four sites
PromptCat service continues to grow
Quality control makes WorldCat ever better
Cooperative efforts enhance quality control
WorldCat Collection Sets to add electronic resources
Interview
Lee Leighton and John Schalow
Product News
Electronic Collections Online enhancement highlights new titles
Full- text and search- strategy tools enhance ERIC database on the new FirstSearch service
PDF now alternative to RealPage in Electronic Collections Online
Interlibrary loan offers Leap Day savings
Multidrop users nearly done with fast and smooth transition
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C O N T E N T S November/ December 1999 No. 242
Editor in chief:
Nita Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nita_ dean@ oclc. org
Editor:
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Assistant Editor:
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Editorial Assistant:
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Cover Design:
Linda Shepard
Art Production/ Desktop Publishing:
Rick Limes and Tammy Miller
All photos taken by Rich Skopin or Lorna Williamson unless
otherwise noted.
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OCLC, a nonprofit membership
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Correspondents:
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Brad Gauder
Meghan Hopkins
Gary Houk
Sharon Knowlton
Hisako Kotaka
Suzanne P. Lauer
Brian F. Lavoie
Sally Loken
Beth Marsh
Chris Mottayaw
Vicki Myron
Merryll Penson
Aaron Smith
Marcia Stout
Don Thornberry
Jay Weitz
Cynthia Whitacre
2000 AND BEYOND—
A GREAT TIME FOR
LIBRARIES!
F R O M J A Y J O R D A N
T wo recent initiatives at OCLC are
aimed at helping make the library Web
site the knowledge portal of choice
for people of all ages— CORC and
WebExpress. These innovations not only
advance OCLC’s chartered purposes of
furthering access to information and reducing
library costs, they also provide opportunities
for libraries to take a leadership role in the
digital age.
CORC is using automated tools to build a
shared database of Internet resources. There
are now over 150 institutions participating in
CORC in Australia, China, Germany, Singapore,
Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and
the United States. In December, the Library of
Congress and the U. S. Government Printing
Office announced their participation in this
global collaborative effort. The CORC database
presents users with an integrated view of
knowledge objects and their descriptions. It
can link distributed Web- based and brick- and-mortar
resources and provide access through a
unified, trusted Web presence. CORC enables
librarians to bring their skills in selecting and
cataloging to bear on Web resources so that
relevant digital knowledge can be accessed as
efficiently as traditional print objects have been
through WorldCat.
The OCLC WebExpress service provides yet
another way for librarians to apply their profes-sional
expertise to the World Wide Web. To be
introduced in 2000, WebExpress enables a
library to create and customize an integrated
gateway to its electronic services, from OPACs
to A& I databases to full text. The beauty of
WebExpress is that it provides your library with
a sophisticated Web presence without requiring
a team of programmers working behind the
scenes at your library. You will be hearing more
about WebExpress in the months ahead.
Both CORC and WebExpress are designed to
support the “ clicks- and- mortar” libraries of the
21st century that will provide library users
with seamless access to print and electronic
information anytime, anywhere in the
“ always- on” environment.
On top of a new year, a new century, and a
new millennium, it’s also a great time for
libraries! We at OCLC look forward to working
with you in the century ahead.
Happy New Year!
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 November/ December 1999
Users Council urges
continued emphasis on
CORC project
During its Oct. 3– 5 meeting in Dublin, Ohio, the
OCLC Users Council examined “ The User View of
the New World” as part of its 1999/ 2000 theme:
“ The New World, OCLC, Libraries and Users in
the 21st Century.”
Speakers examined the changing library
landscape, and delegates discussed
the changes they are seeing in their
own libraries.
“ In this meeting, we were most
concerned with looking at how
libraries can address the changing
needs of our users,” said Users
Council president Betsy Wilson,
associate director of libraries, Public
Services, University of Washington.
“ Of particular interest are ways
that we can apply OCLC initiatives,
like the CORC project, to meet
those needs.”
The keynote address on the “ New
World of Library Users” was deliv-ered
by Stephen Coffman, director,
Research Services, City of Los
Angeles Public Library. Proposing the building of
the “ Earth’s Largest Library based on WorldCat,”
Mr. Coffman said,“ We are at a revolutionary, piv-otal
point in library history. The decisions we
make now will affect what happens in libraries.
Nobody is sure how it will turn out.
“ Suppose we apply the Amazon [ Amazon. com]
model to the library,” he said. “ If we did, we
would have the single largest library that has ever
existed on the face of the earth. It would cement
the library position as the first place to go for
books, provide real access to resources, and serve
new worlds of library users.”
Terry Noreault, vice president, OCLC Office of
Research, reported on the progress and plans for
the future of the Cooperative Online Resource
Catalog ( CORC) project. The project uses new
automated tools to apply the cooperative cata-loging
model used to build WorldCat ( the OCLC
Online Union Catalog) to Internet resources. The
goal of the project is to create a sustainable ser-vice
that will help keep libraries at the center of
the information landscape. In the Web world, that
translates to libraries being the “ portal of choice”
for information seekers. OCLC’s aim is to help
libraries continue to achieve this vision as the
world continues to change in this new electronic
age. Project development is being guided by over
Stephen Coffman presents his “ Earth’s Largest Library” concept to the OCLC Users
Council at the October meeting.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 5
100 participant libraries worldwide who are
applying the CORC tools in their work.
A discussion by CORC participants followed,
moderated by Jennifer Morris, associate librarian,
Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Chuck
Broadbent, director, Information Technology, Free
Library of Philadelphia, and Kristin Senecal, head,
Technical Services, Dickinson College, shared
their experiences with the project.
Delegates requested that CORC be a part of
their February 2000 meeting, which will be the
third meeting in a row that CORC has been a
major part of a Users Council agenda.
Interlibrary Loan Interoperability Task Force
chair Shirley Baker, vice chancellor of Information
Technology and dean of University Libraries,
Washington University, briefed delegates on the
findings and recommendations of the task force,
which was convened to provide advice to OCLC
on extensions to the ISO ILL protocols.
The complete report of the task force and
additional information are mounted on the OCLC
Web site < http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ ill/
report19990916. htm>.
David Ferriero, vice provost for library affairs
and university librarian, Duke University Libraries,
spoke on changes taking place in library users
and usage. At Duke, circulation and interlibrary
loans are up, while the number of ready- reference
questions is down due in part to users being satis-fied
with Web information. It is also difficult for
faculty members to keep up with technology. Mr.
Ferriero said that libraries need help packaging
information in ways that make it easy for people
to use. “ Users want better filters, with access to
more quality and less garbage,” he said. “ The
more libraries deliver electronically, the busier
they are in physical space. I think these trends
point in directions where OCLC is well equipped
to assist libraries.”
Larry Alford, senior associate university librar-ian,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
moderated a panel discussion of changes libraries
need to make in response to user changes.
“ Lifelong learning is no longer just a phrase
that libraries spout but a way of life,” said Jane
Light, city librarian, San Jose Public Library. “‘ You
can’t get that from the university library because
you’re not a student’ and �� you can’t get that from
the public library because you don’t live here’ are
no longer seen [ by library users] as reasons, but
as excuses, and pretty feeble ones at that.”
“ We don’t really have a choice,” said Tom Kirk,
college librarian, Earlham College. “ We’ve got to
meet the needs as well as the wants. Because if
we don’t serve the wants, we’ll be closed.”
During the meeting, delegates met in small
groups to share information on the current state
of libraries and to provide feedback to OCLC.
They discussed how library users are changing in
their expectations and experiences, the impacts
of these changes, what will constitute a successful
and sustainable library in the 21st century, and
how libraries, networks and OCLC can better
serve library users.
Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO, reported on
OCLC’s progress since the last Users Council meet-ing
and on the organization’s current direction.
Rick Schwieterman, vice president, OCLC
Finance and Human Resources, updated delegates
on OCLC finances.
George Needham, vice president, OCLC
Member Services, discussed OCLC’s progress
toward addressing Users Council resolutions
passed at the May meeting. He reported that
the resolution on making journal- level ILL avail-able
through the OCLC ILL Direct Request ser-vice
was met Oct. 10 when the updated software
was installed.
Minutes from the October 1999 meeting are
available on the OCLC Users Council Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ uc/>. The next Users
Council meeting is scheduled for Feb. 6– 8, 2000.
The Users Council supports OCLC’s mission by
serving as a key discussion forum and communi-cations
link between member libraries, regional
networks and other partners, and OCLC manage-ment.
By providing a channel for recommenda-tions
and questions from Users Council delegates,
approving changes in the Code of Regulations,
and electing six members of the Board of
Trustees, Users Council helps shape the future
direction of OCLC.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
6 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Users Council reaffirms shared commitments to
WorldCat Principles of Cooperation
by Merryll Penson
The OCLC WorldCat
Principles of Cooperation,
unanimously adopted by
Users Council in 1996, rec-ognizes
and reaffirms the
commitment to library
cooperation and resource
sharing that member
libraries, the networks and
OCLC have made in building and maintaining
WorldCat. Brad Baker, 1998/ 99 Users Council
president ( delegate from ILLINET), appointed a
Task Force on Shared Commitments to the
Principles of Cooperation to study these mutual
responsibilities and the use of WorldCat records.
Concern was expressed to Users Council that
some member libraries may not upload all their
current Roman- alphabet holdings into WorldCat,
thereby diminishing its future value. Some
automation vendors encouraged the use of Z39.50
system interfaces to obtain OCLC records directly
from other libraries’ public access catalogs.
Council believed that these numbers potentially
could grow because of increased options for
obtaining cataloging records and the changing eth-ical
and technological environment.
The Task Force on Shared Commitments
researched the issues and gathered information
from Users Council delegates, the Regional OCLC
Network Directors Advisory Committee
( RONDAC) and other OCLC advisory committees,
which include international participants. The task
force reported its findings to the Users Council
Executive Committee in May.
The task force focused on three questions:
1. What is the nature and seriousness of the
threat to WorldCat from changes in technology,
alternatives for obtaining cataloging records,
and libraries not contributing holdings infor-mation?
Does this problem exist more in cer-tain
types or sizes of libraries than others?
2. What barriers— such as technology, interface,
pricing, perceptions or other factors— exist
that prevent libraries from fully complying
with the Principles of Cooperation and limit
wider use of the OCLC Cataloging service?
3. What actions, if any, are needed by Users
Council, OCLC, the networks and libraries in
their responses to the use of WorldCat records
and the failure of some member libraries to
load all current holdings?
The task force found that most member
libraries do contribute holdings to OCLC because
they appreciate the shared nature of the WorldCat
database for resource sharing and are philosophi-cally
committed to principles of cooperation and
collaboration. While most do contribute hold-ings,
many knew of a library that did not. Some
libraries of all types and sizes do not load all hold-ings
into WorldCat. Last year OCLC provided the
networks with a list of their libraries that had
uploaded holdings in the most recent fiscal year
so they could determine the few that had not.
Some librarians have heard automation vendors
talk about using Z39.50 capabilities to “ take” records
without having to pay OCLC charges. While many
librarians are loyal to OCLC as a cooperative mem-bership
organization and cannot imagine life with-out
it, others consider OCLC a vendor of cataloging
records and services. Some think that cheaper and
simpler options are increasingly available for obtain-ing
cataloging records.
Costs, technical/ workflow issues and misunder-standings
concerning the Principles of Cooperation
among library staff were communicated to the
task force as perceived barriers that cause difficul-ties
in sending all current, Roman- alphabet hold-ings
to OCLC. Some librarians believe that there
should be no cost for tapeloading or batchloading
records to OCLC, and that the primary beneficia-ries
of these contributions are libraries other than
their own. Others experience difficulties with
local systems that do not allow the extraction of
records for uploading or otherwise make it diffi-cult
to set holdings in WorldCat. For example,
some group and statewide processing operations
do not facilitate adding holdings to OCLC.
Some respondents to the task force suggested
that local cataloging practices and expectations
are not always well documented. When experi-enced
staff leave, staff may not understand the
expectations or how to contribute holdings to
OCLC, particularly in smaller institutions with no
cataloging specialists. Staff may not have the time
to upload holdings. They see this as something
“ extra” and may not think it is worth the effort.
Systems staff may not understand the value of
adding holdings to WorldCat, so the necessary
computer processing is not done sometimes or
does not get done promptly. Staff may feel their
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 7
cataloging expertise is inadequate for preparing
records for an international union catalog such as
WorldCat and are concerned about receiving criti-cism
for incorrect cataloging. Staff may be unaware
that K- level cataloging is appropriate at times and is
an acceptable alternative to full cataloging.
Other barriers to full contribution of library
holdings included some confusion about the
types of materials that should be included in
WorldCat. A number of librarians believe that
local and regional history materials are needed
only by local clientele and see no reason to
include these in WorldCat. Some are unsure
about adding items such as government docu-ments,
electronic databases and journals, realia,
proprietary materials, temporary/ leased books
and reserve collections. To reinforce and assist in
interpreting expectations of the OCLC WorldCat
Principles of Cooperation, Kristin Senecal ( Users
Council delegate from PALINET) and members of
the task force prepared the Guidelines to OCLC
WorldCat Principles of Cooperation.
As a result of the work of the Task Force on
Shared Commitments, the OCLC Users Council
adopted the following resolution at its May 18
business meeting:
Whereas, the Task Force on the Shared Commitments to
the Principles of Cooperation has reviewed concerns
regarding member libraries’ full cooperation and under-standing
of responsibilities for WorldCat,
Whereas, the changing technical, ethical and cost- con-scious
environment has the potential to threaten this invalu-able
resource,
Whereas, WorldCat was created through the cooperative
efforts of libraries and librarians for over a quarter of a century,
Whereas, the contributions of library holdings to WorldCat
contribute to resource sharing beyond ILL,
Therefore, OCLC Users Council resolves the following:
1. The OCLC Users Council reaffirms the Principles of
Cooperation and endorses the Guideline to the Principles
of Cooperation and requests that both documents be
widely distributed and provided to all member libraries.
2. That OCLC and the networks embark on an education
program which informs libraries about their responsibili-ties
and options, and assists them in meeting these
responsibilities.
3. That OCLC review pricing structures and procedures and
work to remove technical barriers for adding holdings to
help ensure that member libraries can comply by offer-ing
the most cost- effective way to encourage commit-ment
of member libraries to WorldCat.
4. That OCLC Users Council supports enforcement of the
WorldCat Principles of Cooperation by OCLC and the
networks by moving non- complying libraries to partial
OCLC user status.
To widely distribute this information,
1999/ 2000 Users Council president Betsy Wilson,
RONDAC chair Kate Nevins, and OCLC’s president
Jay Jordan sent to all OCLC member libraries a
poster including both the OCLC WorldCat
Principles of Cooperation and the Guidelines to
OCLC WorldCat Principles of Cooperation.
Networks have instituted educational programs,
including discussions at annual meetings and
board meetings, and created newsletters to assist
members in better understanding their shared
commitments and the responsibility to contribute
all current, Roman- alphabet cataloging records and
holdings to OCLC. OCLC is reviewing its means
and costs for contributing information to
WorldCat. The recent brochure “ Overview of
OCLC Services: Look What You’re Doing Now
With OCLC” includes both the Principles and the
Guidelines documents. Network directors also
have initiated contact with member libraries that
do not contribute their holdings to discuss the
member’s responsibilities and to review options
for complying with the shared commitments.
As stated in the letter sent to all member
libraries,“ These actions, fully supported by Users
Council, are intended to safeguard and strengthen
WorldCat as the pre- eminent, international union
catalog and the foundation for global library col-laboration.”
After 28 years of shared cataloging,
member libraries, the networks, and OCLC
together have built this marvelous bibliographic
database that now contains more than 42 million
records and over 700 million location listings.
These efforts will make WorldCat an even more
valuable asset of the worldwide library commu-nity
now and in the future.
Task force members included Larry Alford
( SOLINET) and Kristin Senecal ( PALINET) repre-senting
the Users Council Executive Committee.
Brent Crossland ( ILLINET), Meryl Cinnamon
( PALINET) and Kate Nevins ( SOLINET) repre-sented
RONDAC. Mary Konkel ( OHIONET), Anne
Parent ( NELINET) and Robert Seal ( Amigos) repre-sented
Users Council delegates. Phyllis Spies,
George Needham, Maureen Finn, and Richard Van
Orden represented OCLC.— Merryll Penson is
associate university librarian for Public Services,
University of Georgia, and served as chair of the
Task Force on Shared Commitments.
• • •
OCLC WorldCat Principles of Cooperation
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
From its inception, WorldCat ( the
OCLC Online Union Catalog)
has been used both as a
foundation for shared
cataloging and as a de
facto international
union catalog. The
development of the
OCLC Interlibrary
Loan system and OCLC
reference systems has
capitalized on and added
value to this core biblio-graphic
resource. WorldCat
and related files, and the OCLC
systems and services based upon them,
have become vitally important to the operations and services
of many libraries in the United States and an increasing
number of libraries worldwide.
The Usefulness of WorldCat Always Has Depended
Upon Four Factors:
• Its scope, that is, the extent to which it accurately reflects
the full holdings of libraries
• Its timeliness
• The accuracy and completeness of the records which
make up WorldCat and related files
• The functionality and flexibility of OCLC systems and
software which support access to and use of records
and services
Recognizing the importance of these factors, member
libraries, regional networks and other partners, and OCLC
work together to build and maintain WorldCat and to promote
the responsible use of OCLC records, systems and services.
Member Libraries Make a Commitment to:
• Contribute to OCLC all current bibliographic and
holdings information which represents cataloged items
in their collections
• Create bibliographic records and related data at the fullest
possible level, consistent with the standards and guide-lines
adopted by OCLC
• Support prompt contribution of bibliographic records
and related data to promote shared use of records and
library resources
• Cooperate with OCLC, regional networks and other part-ners,
and participating libraries to identify and correct
errors in contributed information and to avoid introducing
duplicate records
• Limit use of OCLC records, systems and services to OCLC
authorized users
To Assist Member Libraries in Meeting These
Commitments, Regional Networks and Other Partners
Make a Commitment to:
• Encourage participation in OCLC
• Strengthen WorldCat by promoting the full and timely
contribution of records by member libraries
• Facilitate communication between member libraries and
OCLC to promote effective planning and rapid resolution
of issues of mutual concern
• Provide high quality, cost- effective training, consultation,
and support to encourage the efficient use of OCLC
records, systems and services and the timely adoption of
OCLC system enhancements
To Enable Libraries to Meet These Expectations of
Membership, OCLC Makes a Commitment to:
• Facilitate the participation of libraries as authorized users
of OCLC records, systems and services
• Respond to changes in technology and in the goals,
organization, and cooperative agreements of participating
libraries, consistent with OCLC’s public purpose
• Provide cost- effective methods which enable libraries
promptly and efficiently to contribute information to
WorldCat and related databases and to report changes or
corrections to OCLC
• Facilitate ease- of- use and cost- effective access to OCLC
systems and services to benefit all participating libraries
and their users
• Disseminate clear and timely documentation of the stan-dards
and guidelines for contributing cataloging and other
data to WorldCat and related files
Member Libraries, the Regional Networks and Other
Partners, and OCLC Share a Commitment to:
• Ensure the continuing viability of WorldCat and related
services to the library and information community
• Promote effective education and training in uses of OCLC
systems and services
• Disseminate this statement and related information to
current and potential users of OCLC records, systems
and services
8 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Unanimously Adopted by the OCLC Users Council on May 21, 1996
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 9
Guidelines to OCLC WorldCat
Principles of Cooperation
1. Member libraries will “ contribute all current, Roman-alphabet
bibliographic and holdings information which
represents cataloged items in their collections.” Many
libraries question what this means to them. Most do not
hesitate to add holdings for their circulating book collec-tion,
but question whether other types of materials should
be added. Below are some examples to help in deciding
when to add or not to add holdings to WorldCat.
Materials That Should Be Added to WorldCat:
AV materials— If the materials are part of your perma-nent
collection, and appear in your catalog, these holdings
should appear in WorldCat. The item does not have to be
classified in order to qualify for inclusion in WorldCat;
many libraries only assign accession numbers to AV materials
but still catalog them and consider them part of their
permanent collection.
Materials that a library does not wish to lend—
Inclusion of holdings in WorldCat does not obligate any
library to lend these materials. It merely acknowledges that
it owns a copy of the material. Many patrons using WorldCat
will be interested in learning that materials are held by a
nearby library, to which they can travel in order to use the
material. Scholarship is advanced by the inclusion of rare
materials in WorldCat, even if the holding library has no
intention of lending it. Scholars are usually willing to travel
considerable distances for the privilege of examining rare
materials on site.
Local historical materials— Often local materials are
not included in WorldCat because it is felt that there is no
interest in them on an international level. However, local his-tory
is a fast- growing discipline, and materials that appear of
only local interest may in fact have broader appeal. The
inclusion of local materials can be one of the richest
contributions made to WorldCat.
Bookmobile collections— If these materials are
cataloged, and the library can lend from the collection to fill
requests, they should be included in WorldCat. However, if
materials are housed only in the bookmobile, and therefore
never available for interlibrary loan or walk- in use, it is rea-sonable
not to include these holdings, at least until that time
when the materials are recycled back into the library’s
regular holdings.
E- Journals— Holdings for electronic journals that can be
accessed on an issue- by- issue basis should be included in
WorldCat. Such inclusion does not necessarily indicate the
ability to loan articles from these journals, as many license
agreements for e- journals do not allow for interlibrary loan.
Materials That Need Not Be Added to WorldCat:
Rental collections— Member libraries may not invest in
the cataloging of rental or leased collections ( e. g.,
McNaughton) because of the temporary status of these col-lections
in their local catalog. Therefore, not contributing
holdings to WorldCat would be an acceptable exclusion.
Reserve materials— Academic libraries have the
common practice of temporarily cataloging items not part of
their collection in order to place them on reserve for a class.
Usually these are personal copies of books or videos owned
by the professor requesting that they be placed on reserve.
Such items, because they are temporary in nature, do not
have to be included in WorldCat.
Classified materials— Corporate libraries may not want
to show acquisition of or ownership of open source materi-als
because their presence would point to classified current
interests or development of new competitive products.
Government documents— After discussion by Users
Council in 1995, government documents, even if cataloged
and classified, were identified as a legitimate exception to
the requirement of adding to WorldCat the holdings of all
current, Roman- alphabet cataloging.
Web sites and other more ephemeral electronic
sources— These materials are useful to include in WorldCat,
but adding holdings for such resources is not necessary in
order to comply with OCLC guidelines.
2. Member libraries will “ create bibliographic records and
related data to the fullest possible level, consistent with
the standards and guidelines adopted by OCLC.”
This guideline allows librarians to contribute original cata-loging
to WorldCat according to the level of their exper-tise.
OCLC recognizes that not all libraries will be able to
contribute original cataloging to the highest level for every
item in their collections. K- level cataloging is an accepted
standard and option for briefer level cataloging, requiring
only the ISBN, main entry, title, bound with or reproduc-tion
notes, and any applicable added entries. Cataloging
training to help member libraries develop and retain cata-loging
skill is always available via the regional networks.
Note: These Guidelines to OCLC WorldCat Principles of
Cooperation were prepared by the Task Force on Shared
Commitments and endorsed by Users Council at its May
1999 meeting. They are designed to assist OCLC member
libraries in interpreting the Users Council document titled,
“ OCLC WorldCat Principles of Cooperation.” However, as
libraries and information continue to develop, these guide-lines
also may need to evolve.
• • •
Unanimously Adopted by the OCLC Users Council on May 18, 1999.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
10 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
OCLC ILL Interoperability Task Force
issues recommendations
The OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) Interoperability
Task Force has issued its report and recommenda-tions
regarding OCLC’s implementation of the ISO
ILL Protocol.
OCLC formed the task force on July 28 as a
result of a controversy over OCLC���s plan to
require ILL management system vendors to
implement extensions to the ISO ILL Protocol to
synchronize ILL requests between the OCLC
system and other ILL management systems.
OCLC believed that most libraries would be using
multiple ILL systems and that they would want
these systems to be synchronized. The task force
was asked to investigate the needs of OCLC
member libraries for interlibrary loan system
interoperability and to advise OCLC on which
methods should be implemented.
The task force concluded that while some
users might want to use multiple systems, it is not
in the best interest of OCLC and its membership
to support that functionality. The task force
stated that requiring interlibrary loan manage-ment
system vendors to implement the OCLC
extensions to the ILL protocols “ was not the best
choice for OCLC and its member libraries” and
recommended the following actions:
• Do not implement the proposed ILL protocol
extensions that provide for the synchroniza-tion
of requests between systems
• Immediately begin development of a protocol-based
link that would channel FirstSearch
requests to local ILL management systems,
thus avoiding the problem of dual systems
and the need to “ backflow” messages to
guarantee synchronicity
Shirley Baker, chair of the task force and vice
chancellor for Information Technology and Dean
of University Libraries, Washington University,
stated: “ The task force recognizes that implement-ing
changes is a difficult and shared responsibility.
Member libraries, regional networks and OCLC
should work together in effecting such changes,
encouraging libraries to incorporate new services.”
OCLC has accepted these recommendations
and is moving forward on their implementation.
Ms. Baker presented the findings of the task
force to the OCLC Board of Trustees on Sept. 27
and again to the OCLC Users Council on Oct. 4.
OCLC has mounted the complete report from
the task force on the OCLC Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ ill/
report19990916. htm> and will work to educate
member libraries about how these recommenda-tions
will impact their ILL operations.
The following persons served on the task
force: Ms. Baker; Tammy Nickelson Dearie, direc-tor,
Access and Delivery Services, University of
California; Bettina Meyer, assistant dean,
Resources, Western Michigan University; Harry E.
Samuels, assistant university librarian, Information
Technology, Northwestern University Library;
Sarah Simpson, interlibrary loan supervisor, Tulsa
City- County Library System; Carol Smale, director,
Resource- Sharing Services, National Library of
Canada; and Chris Wright, chief, Loan Division,
Library of Congress.
• • •
OCLC Statistics
( as of Nov. 1, 1999)
Current statistics are at
< http:// www. oclc. org/
oclc/ new/ stats. htm>.
Par ticipating
libraries
35,962
New member libraries
( Sept. 1– Oct. 31)
64
Total interlibrary loan
requests
94,817,488
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 11
Toccoa Falls College enters 94 millionth
OCLC ILL request
On Oct. 4, the Toccoa Falls College Library in
Toccoa, Georgia, entered the 94 millionth request
on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) service. The
request was for a book by Patrick Jones, Connecting
Young Adults and Libraries: A How- to- do- it
Manual. The Georgia Department of Technical
and Adult Education filled the request on Oct. 5.
Jamey Wilkes, technical services assistant/ music
librarian, entered the request. He has worked in
the Interlibrary Loan Department at Toccoa Falls
College since January 1996 and is enrolled within
the MLIS program at the University of South
Carolina College of Library and Information
Science < http:// www. libsci. sc. edu/>.
Mr. Wilkes works with one other staff member
within interlibrary loan. Together, they process
approximately 2,000 transactions a year, including
borrowing and lending. There are five full- time
staff members in the library.
The library benefits from its consortial
relationships. “ We’re happy to belong to several
consortia,” said Mr. Wilkes. “ We are part of the
Christian Library Consortium ( CL@ N), Georgia
Online Database ( GOLD), Libraries Very
Interested in Sharing ( LVIS), and Georgia Private
Academic Libraries ( GPALS).”
The Toccoa Falls College Library ( OCLC
symbol: ZID) and the Georgia Department of
Technical and Adult Education ( OCLC symbol:
GSL) are both members of the Southeastern
Library Network ( SOLINET).
Western Illinois University Library ( OCLC
symbol: IAZ) in Macomb, Illinois, entered
the 93 millionth OCLC ILL request on Aug. 23.
Toccoa Falls College is a Christian liberal arts
college of about 1,000 students. Toccoa Falls
College Library < http:// www. toccoafalls. edu/
library/> has used the OCLC ILL system
since 1989.
• • •
Toccoa Falls College entered the 94 millionth
OCLC ILL request on Oct. 4. Staff at the Seby
Jones Library include: ( seated/ kneeling, left to
right) Tabitha Oldham, Nelly Hurtado and Amanda
Tanis, Circulation/ Acquisitions employees;
( standing, left to right) Erika Baldwin,
Circulation/ Acquisitions employee; Melissa
Smartnick, Circulation/ Acquisitions employee;
Steve Robbins, cataloger; Beth Martz,
Circulation/ Acquisitions employee; Jamey Wilkes,
Technical Services assistant/ Music librarian; Sara
Dodge, Reference librarian; and Katie Lynch,
Circulation/ Acquisitions employee.
photo provided by Toccoa Falls College Library
Highest OCLC
record number
42,735,421
Location listings
( holdings)
736,666,308
FirstSearch searches
( since October 1991)
240,141,111
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
12 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Libraries use CORC to catalog useful sites
by Bill Carney
The Cooperative Online
Resource Catalog ( CORC)
has been in its founding
phase since Jan. 15. The
program continues to gen-erate
an increasing level of
excitement. Every week,
OCLC trains new partici-pating
libraries and welcomes applications from
all types of libraries from around the world. With
some 145 libraries participating in the effort to
create a system for well- guided access to digital
and Web- based resources, some very interesting
and useful sites are being entered in the database.
Here are brief reports from several of the
participating libraries.
Texas State Library and Archives
Commission
“ The Texas State Library and Archives
Commission has been using the CORC system
since April to catalog Texas state agency publica-tions
in the Dublin Core metadata format,” said
Allen Mullen, Texas State Library. “ Use of CORC
has helped the library to produce more than
4,000 high- quality metadata records for export to
our local system, the Texas Records and
Information Locator ( TRAIL). CORC staff have
continually refined and upgraded a cutting- edge
service, and I look forward to its further develop-ment,
particularly in the areas of URL mainte-nance
and import of Dublin Core records from
local systems.”
The Texas State Library has entered many valu-able
records into CORC. Of special interest to
libraries all over the United States is a site provid-ing
access to the speeches of Governor George W.
Bush ( CORC record number 203044). For Texas
music buffs, there is record number 203428,
which, quoting directly from the 520 field in the
MARC display of this record,“ lists more than 2,453
Texas- born or - based recording artists; includes
contact information and homepage links.”
State University of New York at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo has
created CORC record 156211, describing and pro-viding
access to the Love Canal Collection site.
The library is assigning metadata to multiple
levels of this site using CORC. Those interested in
Shakespeare should see CORC record number
189464, Surfing with the Bard— Your
Shakespeare Classroom on the Internet. CORC
record number 162635, Last Days of a
President— Films of McKinley and the Pan-
American Exposition, 1901, has a wonderful and
authoritative combination of still photographs,
films and information regarding an important
American historical event.
“ We are enjoying our participation in the CORC
project and in the development of the CORC data-base,”
said John A. Edens, State University of New
York at Buffalo. “ The CORC project is at the fore-front
of efforts to map Dublin Core with MARC,
and we are pleased to be part of it.”
Smithsonian Institution Library
Since Feb. 22, the Smithsonian Institution Library
( SIL) has been entering records into CORC. SIL
has added many records for interesting sites like
number 132221, From Smithson to
Smithsonian— the Birth of an Institution, and
number 199948, Library and Archival
Exhibitions on the Web. This last site features
links to online exhibitions created by libraries,
archives and historical societies, as well as to
museum online exhibitions with a significant
focus on library and archival materials.
“ The Smithsonian Institution Libraries have
been part of the CORC project since early 1999,”
said Sherry Kelley, SIL Cataloging Services. “ From
the beginning, we saw it as an opportunity to
record all substantive Smithsonian Institution
World Wide Web sites.”
Among the sites SIL has entered records for are:
• Photographing History: Fred J. Maroon and
the Nixon years, 1970– 1974
• Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
• Verzeichniss meiner Insecten- Sammlung
“ In addition, we quickly saw the potential of
the CORC project as a platform for recording our
ever- increasing digital projects,” she said. “ One
such project already begun, The Stitch In Time
inventory and digital scanning of sewing machine
trade literature, seemed an ideal test for CORC.
The ability to quickly an efficiently create
item- level resource description records,
“ From the
beginning, we saw it
as an opportunity to
record all
substantive
Smithsonian
Institution World
Wide Web sites.”
Sherry Kelley
Smithsonian Institution
Library
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 13
comprehensive finding aids through the
Pathfinder functionality, and links to available
scanned images exactly matched our goal to
provide timely, effective control and access for
this valuable and unique collection.”
To this end, CORC development staff have
been working to convert a Microsoft Access
database of approximately 2,500 Stitch In Time
records. These describe resources such as trade
catalogs, trade cards, advertising fliers and decals,
and use data elements based on AACR2 and
Dublin Core. SIL staff created a MARC/ Dublin
Core map and sent this to the CORC develop-ment
group for use in conversion of the
Access database.
“ We are now just a few steps away from having
over 2,500 records live on CORC,” said Ms. Kelley.
“ Once there, we will have the ability to greatly
enhance access through the online public catalog,
CORC and the SIL homepage.”
Et al.
CORC contains too many records of note to list
them all here. From the National Wetlands
Research Center library’s cataloging of digital
resources pertaining to the ecology of wetlands in
the United State to Michigan State University’s
National Gallery of the Spoken Word ( record
207867, a treasure trove of recordings from histor-ical
figures such as Florence Nightingale, Theodore
Roosevelt and many others), libraries are adding
many valuable resources to the CORC database.
A demonstration of CORC is available at
< http:// purl. oclc. org/ corc/ practice/>. A demon-stration
authorization and password is provided
that will allow browsing of the practice database.
Libraries interested in joining the CORC project
should contact Bill Carney at OCLC: + 1- 800- 848-
5878 or via e- mail at bill_ carney@ oclc. org.— Bill
Carney is consulting product support specialist,
OCLC Services.
• • •
“ The CORC project is
at the forefront of
efforts to map
Dublin Core with
MARC.”
John A. Edens
State University of
New York at Buffalo
Cataloging records for netLibrary’s eBooks to be
available through PromptCat
netLibrary, a leading provider of
electronic books and information over
the Internet, is now an active vendor
in the OCLC PromptCat service.
The OCLC PromptCat service
delivers cataloging records for any title supplied by partici-pating
vendors that has a monographic record in WorldCat.
Records arrive at libraries at the same time as library materi-als
sent by the vendor, and the libraries’ holding symbols are
set in WorldCat. netLibrary MARC records include a unique
URL for each eBook, allowing a direct link from the catalog
to the book.
Under a separate agreement with netLibrary, OCLC will
maintain archive copies of the eBooks.
“ Our agreement with OCLC provides libraries with the
ability to seamlessly integrate eBooks into existing collec-tions
without any interruptions in service or changes to their
infrastructure,” said Tim Schiewe, CEO of netLibrary. “ This
solidifies our commitment to offer libraries the best eBook
solution. We look forward to working with OCLC to provide
libraries with more productive services.”
“ OCLC and netLibrary share mutual users who are moving
into the digital age and can benefit from the relationship of
our two organizations,” said Donald J. Muccino, OCLC
executive vice president and chief operating officer. “ This
arrangement will help libraries better manage their growing
electronic collections.”
netLibrary joins 12 participating book vendors, including
Academic Book Center, Ambassador Book Service, Baker &
Taylor, Blackwell’s Book Services, Book Clearing House, the
Book House, Casalini Libri, DA Information Services, Majors
Scientific Books, Matthews Medical & Scientific Books,
Rittenhouse Book Distributors and Yankee Book Peddler.
Other vendors who have agreed to join the OCLC PromptCat
service are Coutts Library Services, Eastern Book Company,
Franklin Book Company, Iberbook International, Puvill Libros
and Jean Touzot Libraire Editeur.
The complete collection of eBook bibliographic records is
also available to libraries through the OCLC WorldCat
Collection Sets service.
Formed in March 1999, netLibrary is the world’s leading
provider of reference, scholarly and professional electronic
books and information on the Internet. With over 4,000
unique titles online, netLibrary has forged relationships with
more than 60 publishers, including McGraw- Hill Companies,
Houghton Mifflin, MIT University Press and ABC- CLIO.
Nearly 1,000 libraries already have access to netLibrary
digital library services < http:// www. netLibrary. com/>.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
14 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
OCLC to launch WebExpress in 2000
The OCLC WebExpress service, which will pro-vide
an easy- to- use integrated gateway to library
resources, is expected to be introduced in the
second quarter of 2000. With OCLC WebExpress,
libraries will bring the OCLC and non- OCLC
resources they have selected for their users into a
single locally customized interface.
Nine public and academic libraries have agreed
to test the product during its development. The
libraries have been asked to respond to product
requirements and designs, and to participate in
usability testing.
Using OCLC WebExpress, library users will be
able to simultaneously search their library’s
resources with one Web- based search interface.
“ OCLC WebExpress will allow librarians to
focus on delivering superior information access to
users,” said Frank Hermes, vice president, OCLC
Marketing and Planning. “ Because this service
allows the integration of a complement of OCLC
and non- OCLC services under the library’s name
and logo, it increases the visibility of the library as
the source of information for its community.”
OCLC WebExpress will bring the library’s full
range of resources together by providing access
via a single interface to both remote and local
information resources. Resources can include the
OCLC FirstSearch service, non- OCLC Z39.50 data-bases,
and local information such as the library
catalog. Abstract and index, full- text and print
resources can be included, from within the region
or from around the world. These resources can
be linked to resource sharing options.
�� The librarian using OCLC WebExpress will be
able to create a system that is uniquely designed
to meet the needs of that library’s users,” said
Victoria Miller, OCLC WebExpress product man-ager.
“ Through a Web interface, a librarian will be
able to easily select resources to be accessed via
one interface, choose the interface look and feel,
build the paths or links between remote and local
resources, and add messages designed to assist
local users.”
OCLC WebExpress provides an administrator’s
interface that is composed of wizards that make it
easy to create access to information resources,
group them in a logical way for users, and link
them to other resources when appropriate.
The OCLC WebExpress administrator’s inter-face
will connect to the OCLC WebExpress
Service Center, a Web site to provide users with
up- to- date information. The service center will
make OCLC WebExpress an evolving, ongoing ser-vice
instead of a fixed software product, linking
the library and OCLC via the Web and distributed
technology. This central resource will be active
from initial inquiry to ongoing use. The OCLC
WebExpress Service Center will disseminate new
and updated OCLC resources, as well as other
Z39.50 resources from organizations around the
world, allowing libraries to remain current and
state- of- the- art.
���� • •
“ Because this
service allows the
integration of a
complement of
OCLC and non- OCLC
services under the
library’s name and
logo, it increases the
visibility of the
library as the source
of information for
its community.”
Frank Hermes
vice president
OCLC Marketing
WebExpress at ALA
More information about WebExpress will be presented at an open seminar at ALA Midwinter in San
Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, Jan. 16, from 2– 3 p. m. The seminar,“ OCLC WebExpress Makes Electronic
Integration Easy,” will take place in the Gonzalez Convention Center, room 214C. The meeting will
examine how the upcoming OCLC WebExpress service will provide an easy- to- use gateway to
library resources and how it can help bring the full range of a library’s resources together by
providing access via a single interface to both remote and local information resources. To RSVP,
send e- mail to becky_ hawk@ oclc. org.
Other OCLC events at ALA Midwinter are posted on OCLC’s Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ ala/ index. htm>.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 15
Dewey is a famous library feline
by Vicki Myron
Dewey the cat arrived at Spencer Public Library
on a very cold Iowa morning on Jan. 18, 1988.
The staff found him in the book drop, buried
under piles of books, starved and half- frozen.
Whether or not the person who “ dropped” him
did it to hurt him or to save him, it was a lucky
day for Dewey and the Spencer Public Library.
Since arriving nearly 12 years ago, Dewey
Readmore Books has not only won the hearts of
Spencer residents, but people all over the U. S.,
Canada and England. ( His name was chosen in a
public contest from 394 entries.) People write
him, e- mail him and even detour during summer
vacations just to drive through Spencer and meet
the star himself.
From the day he arrived at the library, Dewey
had personality- plus. He loves people and hates
being alone. He loves to climb ladders, ride on
book carts every chance he gets, and sleep in the
smallest boxes he can find. He climbs into brief-cases
as well as into school backpacks. He insists
on attending every meeting held at the library and
cries pitifully if an organization closes the door to
the meeting room.
Since his arrival, Dewey’s fame has spread far
and wide. A few years ago, one of the library’s
board members was in New York at a cocktail
party talking with a couple from Rhode Island.
When asked where he was from, he replied “ a
very small town in Iowa you wouldn’t know.”
Then they asked if he had ever heard of Spencer.
When he said that’s where he was from, they
asked if he went to the library. When he told
them he was on the board, they exclaimed,“ Oh
my gosh, you’re Dewey’s daddy!”
Dewey is certainly the top cat of public rela-tions
at Spencer. He has now appeared in 10
national magazines, one British magazine and
countless newspaper articles. Appropriately
enough, Dewey was recently featured in an adver-tisement
for OCLC Forest Press’ Dewey Decimal
Classification. He has appeared on TV four times
and was featured on Iowa Public Television in
“ Living In Iowa.” He has his own subject heading
on Spencer’s public access catalog since he has
his own chapters in two library books. He starred
in the national video documentary “ Puss In
Books” by Gary Roma of Boston. The strange
thing is, the staff does not go out and generate
this publicity, people find out about him, and
soon he is featured in the media.
Spencer’s Friends of the Library group has sold
more than 3,000 postcards featuring Dewey in
four different poses. Requests for postcards come
from all over the world since Dewey was featured
in the April 1999 issue of Postcard Collector’s
Magazine. Sales went from $ 15 a month to $ 100
a month after that appearance. In June, someone
wrote an article on Dewey in Cappers Magazine
and on June 7, he was the subject of Paul Harvey’s
“ The Rest of The Story”— all without Spencer
Public Library’s knowledge.
Although the library is home to Dewey, he
truly belongs to everyone in the community.
Senior citizens, many of whom cannot have pets,
visit often. Even nonlibrary users come just to
give him a hug, especially the destitute and lonely.
He truly represents the friendly,“ home- like”
atmosphere the library has tried to achieve
through furnishings and services.
Spencer Public Library ( OCLC symbol— LQZ)
uses the OCLC FirstSearch service.— Vicki Myron
is director, Spencer Public Library
< http:// www. surfiowa. com/ splibrary/>.
• • •
photo provided by Spencer Public Library
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
16 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
RONDAC and Network Business Managers meet
by Suzanne P. Lauer
Pamela King, president of
TechSense Solutions, was
the featured speaker at the
Sept. 16 meeting of the
Regional OCLC Network
Directors Advisory
Committee ( RONDAC) and
the Network Business
Managers at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio. Ms. King pre-sented
an overview of “ Electronic Commerce” and
facilitated a discussion on the e- business chal-lenges
and opportunities for OCLC and networks.
Other meeting activities included an update by
Rick Schwieterman, OCLC vice president of
Finance and Human Resources, on OCLC budget-ing
and financial planning, including financial and
activity trends, key indicators and critical goals,
followed by discussion of these topics and trends
in the network regions.
Senior staff from OCLC Dublin, OCLC/ WLN,
and OCLC Pacific attended the meeting as well as
many staff from the OCLC- affiliated U. S. regional
networks including: Bonnie Juergens and Robert
Watkins, Amigos Library Services; David Brunell,
Bibliographic Center for Research ( BCR); Robert
Drescher and Susan Eason, CAPCON; Joseph
Banks and Milton MeGee, Federal Library and
Information Center Committee ( FEDLINK);
Millard Johnson and Bill Rosier, Indiana
Cooperative Library Services Authority
( INCOLSA); Carla Dewey, Diana Shonyo and
JoAnn Smithknecht, MINITEX Library Information
Network; Randy Dykhuis and Janet LaCross,
Michigan Library Consortium ( MLC); Keith
Gaertner and Susan Singleton, Missouri Library
Network Corporation ( MLNC); Jo Budler and
Doreen Kuhlmann, Nebraska Library Commission
( NEBASE); Arnold Hirshon and Susan Kasuba,
NELINET; Erick Berry, Walter Bikowitz and Mary-
Alice Lynch, Nylink; Michael Butler, Shirley
Davenport and James Rubottom, OHIONET; Meryl
Cinnamon and Donna Wright, PALINET; Diane
Brown, Kate Nevins and Susan Parrish,
Southeastern Library Network ( SOLINET);
Kathryn Schneider, Wisconsin Interlibrary
Services ( WILS); Suzanne Lauer, RONDAC pro-gram
assistant; Susan Olson, director, OCLC
Network Relations; and Jim Schwabauer, manager,
OCLC Accounting Services.— Suzanne Lauer is
RONDAC program assistant.
OCLC and network staff discuss service
At the Sept. 21– 24 OCLC and Network Service Meeting, in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC staff and representatives
from OCLC- affiliated U. S. regional networks discussed key issues in providing service to OCLC users.
The keynote address was presented by Thomas K. Wentz, author of Transformational change: How to
Transform Mass Production Thinking to Meet the Challenge of Mass Customization.
OCLC and Network Service Meetings focus on providing excellent service to users of OCLC
products and services.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 17
Preservation Resources to scan leading Israeli
newspaper collection
Yedioth Information Technologies has awarded
a major contract to Preservation Resources for
the digitization of the Israeli newspaper
Yedioth Aharonoth.
The National and University Library in Israel
has preserved 60 years of the newspaper’s history
( 1939– 1998) on microfilm, and Preservation
Resources will scan all of those pages. The digital
files will then be processed to produce searchable
text. Both the digitized image of the page as well
as its text contents
will be available for
browsing, searching
and displaying.
“ Since it began
publication in
December 1939,
Yedioth Aharonoth
( for many years now
the newspaper with
the widest circulation in Israel) has been record-ing
the political, cultural and social life of this
country with all its eventful and dramatic history,”
said Yossi Bardosh, project coordinator for the
Yedioth project. “ By making the entire Yedioth
backfile accessible electronically, this ambitious
and innovative project— when completed— will
enable interested users to browse, search and
retrieve relevant information with great accuracy
and comprehensiveness.”
“ Digitizing from microfilm is the obvious
choice for this project, given the production effi-ciencies
that can be achieved by scanning pages
on a roll of film,” said Meg Bellinger, president of
Preservation Resources. “ Moreover, this proce-dure
assures the availability of both page- images
and page- contents. The high- quality digital files
that we provide will form the foundation for the
electronic access to the newspaper.”
The project is designed to provide electronic
access to the complete run of Yedioth
Aharonoth, currently the largest circulation daily
newspaper in Israel. Microfilm reels will be
shipped in batches from Israel to Preservation
Resources facilities in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Sampling on reels before production scanning
will optimize results. For the project,
Preservation Resources will scan over 800 reels
of microfilm to produce some 850,000 bitonal
digital images.
Preservation Resources has digitized other
large research collections, including the Library
of Congress National
Digital Library
Program— the
papers of George
Washington,
Thomas Jefferson,
and late 19th cen-tury
sheet music;
the Early Canadiana
Online Project; and
Cornell University’s SagaNet Icelandic collection;
as well as material in Chinese, Macedonian,
Spanish and French.
Yedioth Information Technologies Ltd. is 100
percent owned by Yedioth Group, in charge of its
special computerization and networking projects
and needs.
Preservation Resources, a division of OCLC, is
a nonprofit organization devoted to the refor-matting
of library and archival materials for
preservation and access. Originally called MAPS
( Mid- Atlantic Preservation Service), the
organization was established in 1985 to serve
the preservation microfilming needs of five
Mid- Atlantic research libraries— Columbia
University Libraries, Cornell University Library,
Princeton University Library, New York State
Library and the New York Public Library. It has
been a division of OCLC since 1994 and is based
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
• • •
Martin Dillon, executive
director of the OCLC
Institute, has written a
chapter on knowledge
management for the new
edition of Library &
Information Science
Annual, volume 7, which
was published Nov. 12
( ISBN: 1- 56308- 785- 5) and
is edited by Bohdan S. Wynar.
Dr. Dillon’s chapter, titled “ Knowledge Manage-ment
Opportunities for Libraries and Univer-sities,”
deals with the potential applications of the
emerging discipline of knowledge management.
Dr. Dillon is a graduate of Canisius College and
holds a doctoral degree in English from the State
University of New York at Buffalo. From 1969 to
1985, he served on the faculty of the School of
Information and Library Science at the University
of North Carolina, where he attained the rank of
full professor. From 1985 to 1986, he was visiting
distinguished scholar in the OCLC Office of
Research and became director of the office in
1986. He was named director of OCLC’s Library
Resources Management Division in 1993, and
director of the OCLC Institute in 1997. Dr. Dillon
has published numerous articles in library and
information science literature.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
18 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Martin Dillon writes on knowledge management for
Library & Information Science Annual
Martin Dillon to step down
as executive director of
OCLC Institute
Martin Dillon, executive director of the OCLC
Institute, has announced that he will step down
from his duties by June 30, 2000.
Dr. Dillon, 61, has been executive director of
the OCLC Institute since its founding in 1997.
After a replacement is found, Dr. Dillon will
continue to serve the institute as a faculty
member and consultant but will no longer be
involved in day- to- day management.
“ Launching the OCLC Institute has been a
great adventure for me, both personally and pro-fessionally,”
said Dr. Dillon. “ We have accom-plished
a lot in just two years. Over 2,000 people
have participated in 80 seminars and programs at
OCLC in Dublin and in 14 OCLC- affiliated net-work
regions as well as in Russia, Latvia, Iceland,
England, and Trinidad and Tobago, among others.
We have helped to advance library and informa-tion
science with our offerings in knowledge
access management and are enlisting an impres-sive
group of adjunct faculty. We have a growing
and dynamic list of course offerings. In short, we
have gotten off to a very good start. My successor
will have a wonderful opportunity to move the
institute to the next level. I look forward to
returning to my first love— teaching— and to
maintaining my ties with the institute and the
OCLC community.”
According to Jay Jordan, OCLC president and
CEO, there will be an international search for Dr.
Dillon’s replacement. “ Under Martin Dillon’s
leadership, the OCLC Institute has become a
leading force for advanced studies in librarian-ship,”
Mr. Jordan said. “ Fortunately, we will be
able to continue to call on his talent and expertise
as a member of the institute’s faculty.”
The OCLC Institute is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to promoting the evolution of
libraries through advanced education and
knowledge exchange.
Nominations for the position of executive
director, OCLC Institute, should be sent to:
Search Committee, c/ o Human Resources, OCLC,
6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017. Phyllis B.
Spies, vice president, OCLC Worldwide Sales,
is chair of the Search Committee.
• �� ���
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 19
New director of product management named
Chuck Costakos has been promoted to director,
Product Management, OCLC Marketing—
Reference and Resource Sharing Division.
Mr. Costakos joined OCLC in June 1999 as
manager, OCLC FirstSearch product management.
In his new position, his duties will include
developing programs and services that further
the integration of information discovery and
delivery processes.
Before joining OCLC, he was with America
Online’s CompuServe online information service
from 1996– 1999 and introduced CompuServe’s
new Web channel for research and education.
Prior to 1996, Mr. Costakos was product man-ager
for scientific, technical and business data-bases
at SilverPlatter Information and conducted
contract negotiations and
worldwide marketing of
those product lines.
From 1969 to 1995, he
held posts at Chemical
Abstracts Service as pro-grammer
and systems ana-lyst
and as international
marketing manager for
its online information ser-vice,
STN International.
Mr. Costakos earned a bachelor’s degree in eco-nomics,
a master’s in computer and information
science and a master’s in business administration,
all from Ohio State University.
• • •
Giles Martin appointed Dewey editor
OCLC Forest Press has
announced the appoint-ment
of Giles Martin,
former cataloger at the
University of Sydney,
Australia, as assistant editor
of the Dewey Decimal
Classification ( DDC).
“ Giles Martin joins the
Dewey editorial staff with
a strong international perspective and 23 years
experience working with the DDC,” said Joan S.
Mitchell, editor in chief of the Dewey Decimal
Classification and executive director, OCLC Forest
Press. “ He is the first member of the Dewey edi-torial
staff from outside the United States.”
Mr. Martin enjoys a national and international
reputation for his knowledge of cataloging,
according to Ms. Mitchell, and has interacted with
a diverse DDC user community worldwide.
He has been a member of the Decimal
Classification Editorial Policy Committee since
1993, and has served on the Australian
Bibliographic Network ( ABN) Standards
Committee, the ABN Subject Headings
Review Panel and the Australian Committee
on Cataloguing.
Mr. Martin has a comprehensive background in
nine subject areas, with a focus on English, mathe-matics
and legal studies. He has published arti-cles
in several library journals, and his work on
the ABN Standards Committee includes several
papers on form/ genre headings. Two papers pre-sented
by Mr. Martin at the 1996 IFLA Conference
in Beijing appear in the OCLC Forest Press publi-cation
Dewey Decimal Classification: Edition 21
and International Perspectives.
Mr. Martin has served as cataloger, University of
Sydney; DDC trainer, University of New South
Wales; librarian, systems section, University of
New South Wales Library; and in successive posts
at the University of Newcastle Libraries as librar-ian,
senior librarian ( cataloging), head cataloger,
deputy technical services librarian ( monographs),
and librarian in charge of quality control.
Mr. Martin holds a bachelor of arts degree in
English from the University of New South Wales, a
master’s qualifying course in mathematics from
the University of Newcastle, a Diploma of
Librarianship from the University of New South
Wales, and a bachelor of commerce degree in
legal studies from the University of Newcastle.
Mr. Martin’s office is at OCLC Forest Press in
Dublin, Ohio.
OCLC Forest Press, a division of OCLC since
1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal
Classification, the world’s most widely used
library classification system, and a variety of
related materials. More information about OCLC
Forest Press is available on the Web
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ fp/>.
• • •
W O R L D W I D E
20 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
First Chinese textbook on OCLC cataloging
services published
In September, East China Normal University
Press, Shanghai, published the first
Chinese language textbook on OCLC
cataloging services.
An Introduction to OCLC Online and
CD- ROM Cataloging is co- authored by
Diao Weihan, professor, East China
Normal University; Andrew H. Wang,
executive director, OCLC Asia Pacific
Sales, Service and Market Development;
and Hwa- Wei Lee, dean emeritus, Ohio
University Libraries.
The book was conceived by Ms.
Diao, a cataloging professor, while a visiting
scholar at Ohio University from July 1997 through
February 1998. Her idea of writing a textbook in
Chinese on OCLC cataloging services was enthu-siastically
supported by both Mr. Wang and Dr.
Lee, and the three agreed to co- author this text-book
as a mission to better train the next genera-tion
of Chinese librarians as well as to persuade
libraries in China to participate in global resource
sharing through OCLC.
There are 16 chapters in the book, divided into
four sections— an introduction to OCLC online
and CD- ROM cataloging; principles of OCLC
online and CD- ROM cataloging; searching the
WorldCat database; and searching OCLC CatCD
for Windows. The book ( ISBN 7- 5617- 2101- 3) can
be purchased online from Xin Hua Bookstore
< http:// www. xinhuabookstore. com/>.
• • •
Account manager for OCLC Canada appointed
Diane E. Nelles has been appointed account
manager, OCLC Canada, by Daniel Boivin, director
of the division. Ms. Nelles is responsible for
sales in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and
British Columbia.
“ Diane’s addition is extremely welcome,” said
Mr. Boivin. “ OCLC activities in Canada have been
growing significantly during the past two years,
and her assistance is necessary to keep serving
our users as efficiently as possible. The addition
of new products like the OCLC CatExpress ser-vice
( a Web- based cataloging tool for small
libraries) and improved products like the new
FirstSearch will generate greater interest in OCLC
services, and Diane’s expertise is required to
introduce these products to the Canadian library
community. Her past experiences in conjunction
with her library background are a perfect match
for OCLC and its user community. Diane’s knowl-edge
of the Western Canada library market makes
her an ideal candidate for the position.”
Before joining OCLC, Ms. Nelles was Western
Canadian sales representative for Coutts Library
Services of Niagara Falls, Ontario. From
1997– 1998, she was the Canadian and European
distributor of library education software and
cataloging training materials for Doc Matrix,
Aylmer, Quebec.
Ms. Nelles has served as assistant librarian at
the Department of Trade, Industry & Technology,
Nova Scotia, and as reference librarian for the
City of York Public Library, Ontario, and the
Education library of the University of Western
Ontario. She worked as a cataloger at the
National Library of Canada and the University
of Calgary MacKimmie Library.
Ms. Nelles holds a bachelor’s degree from the
University of Calgary and a master’s degree in
library and information science from the
University of Western Ontario.
A native of Alberta, Ms. Nelles will be relocat-ing
to North Vancouver, British Columbia, and can
be reached at 1- 877- 858- 2058.
In Canada, contact the OCLC Canada office in
Montreal, Quebec ( phone: + 1- 450- 658- 6583 or
1- 888- 658- 6583; fax: + 1- 450- 658- 6231; or
e- mail: canada@ oclc. org).
• • •
W O R L D W I D E
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 21
OCLC Europe, the
Middle East & Africa has
awarded the Brian
Enright Memorial Prize
to Heather Robson,
from the University
of Northumbria.
The award is
presented annually to a
library school student in
memory of Mr. Enright, who was a librarian at
the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Ms. Robson has studied art history and
information studies at the university.
• • •
OCLC helps keep staffers warm
During the colder months at Oxford University, Bodleian Library bookstack staff
wear sweatshirts sponsored by OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa. During
the summer months, staff don similar polo shirts.
• • •
Heather Robson
awarded Brian Enright
Memorial Prize
New library provides home for National
Taiwan University collections
In November 1998, National Taiwan University ( NTU) opened a new, five- story
library building, encompassing 380,000 square feet. The new General Library
integrates the collections of 32 individual libraries on the main campus and
features a comfortable study environment as well as modern facilities to meet
the research needs of the faculty and students.
Established in 1928, the library collection at NTU is the largest in the
country, including more than 2 million books and other items, over 22,000
periodical titles and 98 newspaper titles. The library also contains over 50,000
rare books in Chinese and
other languages, which
makes it the largest univer-sity
collection of rare books
in Taiwan.
• • ���
photos provided by National Taiwan University
photo provided by OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa
R E S E A R C H
22 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Web Characterization Project analyzes Net content
by Brian F. Lavoie
The Office of Research’s
Web Characterization
Project is dedicated to ana-lyzing
the Web from the
perspective most impor-tant
to libraries: as an
information collection.
The project uses auto-mated
means to compile a
snapshot of the World Wide Web, revealing its size
and composition.
Is Growth in the Web Slowing Down?
Data from OCLC’s June Web sample suggest that
the size of the Web is approximately 3.6 million
Web sites. About 2.2 million of these sites may be
classified as public, in that they offer unrestricted
access to content that, from a general perspec-tive,
could be considered nontrivial. Public sites
contained nearly 300 million Web pages.
Between 1998 and 1999, the Web added 1.6
million sites, an increase of about 80 percent. In
comparison, the number of sites increased by
800,000 between 1997 and 1998, an increase of
65 percent. These results suggest that the Web is
growing at a quickening pace, but closer inspec-tion
of the data reveals a more complex story.
If the analysis is confined to the public Web—
i. e., the collection of public Web sites— an
increase in the absolute number of sites is
observed from 1998– 1999 compared to
1997– 1998. However, the rate of expansion
diminished significantly. Between 1997 and
1998, the public Web grew by about 82 percent;
while in 1998 and 1999, it expanded by only
about 53 percent.
Although the rate of growth of public Web sites
may be slowing, other aspects of the public Web
are not. The number of Web pages contained
within public Web sites increased by nearly three
quarters between 1998 and 1999, which suggests
public Web sites are getting larger. Indeed, the
average size of a public Web site in 1998 was
114 pages compared to 129 in 1999, an increase
of 13 percent.
The observed growth in the average size of
public sites is mainly attributable to new sites,
rather than existing ones. In 1998, the number of
Web pages on public sites was approximately 166
million. In 1999, this total was increased by
about 120 million. Nearly all of this growth can
be traced to new sites: i. e., sites that came into
existence in 1999. Web sites identified in the
1998 sample that were also identified in 1999
exhibited a net page growth of almost zero:
growth attributed to existing sites showing a net
increase in size was almost exactly balanced out
by the loss ( or negative growth) attributed to
existing sites that diminished in size over the
period between samples. The fact that the bulk of
the growth in the size of public Web sites seems
to be confined to new public sites may indicate
that creators of new sites are migrating more con-tent
to the Web than previously.
Apart from public sites, the remainder of the
Web can be categorized as either private or provi-sional
sites. Private Web sites are sites that offer
content accessible only through fee payment or
prior authorization. Provisional sites, on the
other hand, are in a transitory or unfinished state
( e. g., the ubiquitous “ Under Construction” site) or
have only content that, from a general perspec-tive,
is meaningless or trivial.
The share of the Web devoted to private sites
has steadily increased between 1997 and 1999. In
1997, public sites constituted about 65 percent of
the Web, compared to 2 percent for private sites
and 33 percent for provisional. In 1998, these
proportions were 71 percent, 5 percent, and 24
percent, and in 1999, 61 percent, 11 percent, and
28 percent. Clearly, the number of private sites
has substantially increased every year since 1997.
Given the results from the June sample, two
important trends seem to have emerged: first, the
rate of growth in public sites seems to be slowing
( although in absolute terms, the number of public
sites added over the last year was greater than
ever before); and second, the share of the Web
devoted to private sites seems to be increasing
relative to that of public sites. What explanations
can be offered for these trends? The fact that
public sites are being added at a slower pace may
indicate that companies, organizations and indi-viduals
have shifted their emphasis from establish-ing
an initial Web presence ( i. e., creating a new
site) to maintaining existing, relatively mature
sites. The apparent diminishment of the public
share of the Web may be overstated, since many
of the provisional sites may be “ public sites in the
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 23
making.” However, it is indisputable that the
share of the private Web has grown substantially
since 1997. This may reflect a trend away from
the provision of freely accessible information on
the Web and toward the establishment of “ toll-booths”
that require payment to view the site’s
content. It may also reflect a trend toward
mounting private information— such as personal
correspondence, private company information,
etc.— on the Web to facilitate access by geograph-ically
dispersed users, with safeguards installed
( such as password verification) to thwart access
by unauthorized users.
In summary, the Web continues to grow at a
rapid pace, but more complex dynamic processes
are evident within the overall growth rate. The
apparent diminishment of the public Web relative
to the private Web may be the most important
of these processes, since it strikes at the heart
of the issue of whether the widespread dissemina-tion
of freely accessible information on the Web
will continue.
Establishing a Common Web Language
Providing a systematic description of the Web is
difficult without establishing well- defined seman-tics
for important Web concepts. For example,
the term “ Web site�� has been attached to a
number of distinct concepts, such as a Web server
or a significant subsection of a larger Web site.
The use of the same terminology to describe mul-tiple
concepts or, conversely, the use of multiple
terms to describe the same concept, presents
difficulties in performing cross- study comparisons
and interpretations of Web statistics.
The Web Characterization Activity of the World
Wide Web Consortium ( W3C) has initiated an
effort to rectify this problem by developing a
resource for standardized terminology and defini-tions
for Web concepts. Project staff served as
co- editors of the W3C working draft “ Web
Terminology and Definitions Sheet,” released in
May. The working draft proposes concrete defini-tions
for a number of important Web concepts,
such as Web site, Web page, Web resource, and
even the Web itself. Project staff made a presenta-tion
on the working draft at the last World Wide
Web Conference, held in Toronto.
Currently, the working draft is available for
public comment on the Web
< http:// www. w3. org/ 1999/ 05/ WCA- terms/>.
Bibliographic Control for the Web
As the Web matures, librarians may wish to
include Web- accessible information resources in
their general collection. If so, some type of
formal bibliographic control of these resources
will be warranted. What would a system of
bibliographic control for the Web be like? In a
forthcoming article in The Serials Librarian
( volume 37, number 3), project staff offer some
observations on how Web bibliographic control
might proceed.
The main theme of the article is that given the
most readily identifiable “ bibliographic units” on
the Web— Web sites and Web pages— and their
structural relationship to one another, biblio-graphic
control for the Web may benefit from
adopting a model similar to that applied to the
journal literature. The article draws a parallel
between Web sites and journals, on the one hand,
and Web pages and journal articles on the other.
Given the similarities between bibliographic units
on the Web and in the journal literature, a two-tiered
bibliographic control scheme of cataloging
and indexing such as that used to control the
journal literature may be a useful model for the
Web as well. In particular, Web sites may benefit
from full cataloging description, while Web pages
may require only a lower level of description and
may share many of the descriptive attributes asso-ciated
with the site as a whole.
The Web as an Information Collection
Fundamentally, the Web is an information
collection. As such, the information and analysis
that one would find useful in describing
“ physical” collections has a parallel in the digital
world of the Web. Thus, the identification of
bibliographic units, the development of systems
for bibliographic control of these units, general
descriptive statistics, etc., are issues of impor-tance
for the Web as well as for more traditional
information collections.
OCLC has maintained a long- standing commit-ment
to assist libraries in maintaining and evolv-ing
their collections. The research conducted by
the Web Characterization Project is intended to
contribute toward extending this commitment to
the new forms of information accessible through
the Web.— Brian F. Lavoie is associate research
scientist, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
R E S E A R C H
24 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Research Advisory Committee meets at OCLC
by Beth Marsh
The Research Advisory
Committee ( RAC) met, in
Dublin, Ohio, on Aug.
16– 17 for its second meet-ing
of 1999, with six mem-bers
in attendance. The
meeting was the last for
Bernard Hurley, chief
library scientist, University of California at
Berkeley Library, and Edward Fox, professor,
Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University, as they have completed their
three- year appointments. It was the first meeting
for Bruce Morton, dean of libraries, Montana State
University, Bozeman. Also in attendance were
Toni Carbo, dean and professor, School of
Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh;
Lorcan Dempsey, director, U. K. Office for Library
and Information Networking ( UKOLN); and
Edward David, President, EED.
RAC members were welcomed back to OCLC
by Donald J. Muccino, OCLC executive vice presi-dent
and chief operating officer, who gave a gen-eral
overview of the current state of OCLC. Mr.
Muccino also presented the video of the winner
of the “ What the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service
means to me” essay contest, which was first
shown at the OCLC President’s Luncheon at the
1999 ALA Annual Conference. Terry Noreault,
vice- president, OCLC Office of Research, contin-ued
with an update on the state of the Office of
Research. The Cooperative Online Resource
Catalog ( CORC) project had been handed off to a
product development group, but what was
unique about this transfer was that a number of
the developers from the Office of Research
followed the project to provide continuity for
its development. These developers are “ on loan”
to the product development group and will
return to the Office of Research once their
work is completed.
Stuart Weibel, senior research scientist, began
the Office of Research presentations with an
overview of the work that has been done to date
on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and the
plans for the future. Three major tasks are the
current focus for the initiative: formalize the
Dublin Core Initiative process, refine DC 1.1, and
begin to discuss the qualification semantics for
Dublin Core elements. The creation of a more
stable structure for the governance of the initia-tive
is part of the process of formalizing the
Dublin Core process. An executive committee
has been established for managing week- to- week
activities, and the Policy Advisory Committee and
Technical Advisory Committee have been consoli-dated
into a single DC Advisory Committee
( DCAC). Both the executive committee and the
DCAC are creating documents that detail the over-all
process of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
and the specifics of working group management.
Work has been completed on refining and clarify-ing
the definitions of the Dublin Core Element Set
( version 1.1), and it became a recommendation
on Sept. 9. Work on DC- Qualifiers will be the
next big project for the Dublin Core Metadata
Initiative. Working groups have been identifying
and gathering qualifiers that are currently in use
in projects. Discussions on these lists began in
September and a draft recommendation was
presented at the DC 7 workshop in Frankfurt,
Germany, on Oct. 25– 27.
Eric Miller, research scientist, continued the
presentations with an update on his work with
Resource Description Framework ( RDF). He
stated that there is increasing interest in RDF as
well as criticism and support. There has been
some deployment, but more would always be
better. One major RDF application is the Open
Directory Project. It is using RDF and Dublin
Core semantics with a goal of producing a com-prehensive
collaborative directory of the Web. In
addition to the Open Directory project, IBM is
using a Java implementation of RDF for creating
technologies that search for, describe, categorize,
rate and manipulate data. Future work on RDF
includes an RDF Scheme/ XML Schema reconcilia-tion
meeting, an RDF Implementor meeting and
the beginning of Query Language and Digital
Signatures Working Groups. Mr. Miller is also
working on an RDF Toolkit, which would support
the rapid testing of simple RDF applications.
Jean Godby, research scientist, brought the
RAC members up to date on her progress with
the WordSmith project. WordSmith’s goals are to
identify words and phrases in electronic text that
are associated with new cultural trends and
emerging subjects so they can be added to
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 25
OCLC’s indexes, thesauri and classification sys-tems
to facilitate information retrieval.
WordSmith is being used in CORC to generate
possible subject terms. In the future, Ms. Godby
plans to work toward WordSmith providing more
responsive topic identification, being able to map
to standard library classification schemes and cre-ating
browsing structures that increase subject
access to CORC resources.
Lorraine Normore, senior research scientist,
gave two presentations. The first covered her
work on the OverView project, which is applying
information visualization techniques to quantita-tive
data about text. Using WordSmith phrases
from the Wilson full- text files, OverView attempts
to summarize the data based on the characteris-tics
of the phrases. Work on this project began
recently.
Dr. Normore has also been instrumental in the
creation and design of the Pathfinders in CORC.
Pathfinders were created to help libraries with
the creation, updating and maintenance of links
to collections of Web- based resources. There was
extensive duplication of effort between and
within libraries for the identification of these
resources. Pathfinders are an attempt to leverage
librarian- selected Web resources and reduce the
maintenance effort. Pathfinders can be created
through a number of different methods, such as
cloning existing pathfinders, harvesting existing
groups of pages and by adding specific pages indi-vidually.
She said pathfinders began as a bibliogra-phy
of Web- based materials, but that CORC
participants have suggested an evolution beyond
�� webliographies.” Further research will identify
user needs and barriers to use, and seek to better
understand how to extend the concept. Dr.
Normore is also working on evolving the inter-face,
adding more powerful tools, such as a
Z39.50 search, and on how to provide a tighter
integration with the library Web site
generation/ maintenance process. She would also
like to develop new tools for metadata
manipulation and for Web site mapping.
Rick Bennett, senior systems analyst, reported
on his work with ways of automatically determin-ing
the language of a Web page. The tool devel-oped
by this research is now a part of the CORC
system. In addition, he is working on an auto-mated
method of converting current Romanized
Chinese into the now- accepted Pinyin standard.
Approximately 170,000 such records at the
Library of Congress need to be converted, and
OCLC has an additional 750,000 records in
WorldCat, so an automated method is desirable.
Mr. Bennett noted that some of the difficulties he
has encountered include having to identify the
Chinese parts of a multilingual record. He hopes
that as he progresses, he will develop new fea-tures
and uses for his work.
Thomas Hickey, chief scientist, provided an
update on the CORC project. Currently over 100
institutions are participating, and plans are to
double that number in the next several months.
There is a good representation of institutions
from outside the United States, including institu-tions
in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong,
Mexico, Scotland, Singapore and Taiwan. The
CORC database has approximately 200,000
records, and there is a steady activity of about 50
active users per day. In transitioning the project,
the team has changed and expanded. The CORC
staff have now moved into new offices, and they
are working on helping new staff quickly learn
the system. Currently, they are working on busi-ness
and marketing plans, a high- level require-
Research Advisory Committee members at the August meeting included:
( sitting, left to right) Edward Fox, Toni Carbo, Lorcan Dempsey,
( standing, left to right) Bernard Hurley, Bruce Morton and Edward David.
R E S E A R C H
26 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
ments list and continuing to provide enhance-ments
to the system.
Keith Shafer, consulting research scientist, and
his team have been working on Mantis, a toolkit
for building Web- based cataloging applications
and an integral part of the CORC system. In addi-tion
to Mantis, his team has been working on the
new Pears database system. Pears is expected to
replace the current Newton system. It is already
in use for the authority databases as well as in
Dewey and Scorpion. One of the important fea-tures
of Pears is that it will be Unicode compliant.
Since the CORC transition, his team has been
working on a variety of different applications
including OpenCat, RecordBuilder, a DDC taxon-omy
service and improvements to the PURL
system, in addition to continued enhancements to
the CORC system.
Diane Vizine- Goetz, consulting research scien-tist,
discussed her work with Dewey and how it
has been incorporated into CORC. This system
provides access to a database of DDC schedule
records enhanced with Library of Congress
Subject Heading terminology. It includes terms
from Subject Headings for Children and the
NetFirst database as well as terms that have been
intellectually and statistically mapped. Dr. Vizine-
Goetz also discussed the work that is being done
to map the DDC to other thesauri and subject
heading lists, such as the Gateway to Educational
Materials ( GEM) subject terms and Medical
Subject Headings ( MeSH). The vocabulary from
these schemes is being used to enhance the data-bases
used to perform automated classification
and to provide custom views of DDC- classified
collections based on the mapped schemes.
For example, using the CORC pathfinder function
and the GEM/ Dewey associations, OCLC
researchers have created a prototype GEM portal
to the CORC database.
Ed O’Neill, consulting research scientist, dis-cussed
his work with Dr. Vizine- Goetz on Faceted
Application of Subject Terminology ( FAST). This
project is now the authority control component
of CORC. FAST is derived from Library of
Congress Subject Headings ( LCSH). Currently,
FAST provides authority control for the facets of
topical headings, geographical names, form and
period. Facets for personal and corporate names,
conference and meetings and uniform titles are
still under development. Research continues on
how to make the system more effective. It is not
intended to replace LCSH, rather it is designed to
work with LCSH but work more effectively in an
online environment.
The final presenter of this RAC meeting was
Chandra Prabha, senior research scientist. Dr.
Prabha has been researching the impact of full
text on interlibrary loan. Since the February 1999
meeting, she has been analyzing the type of arti-cles
that are requested via ILL, how often full text
is an ILL option for those articles, and the issues
involved in managing full- text sources. She has
found that the number of articles available in full
text is increasing annually, but that still only 30
percent of the requests could be met this way.
One of the issues she believes must be addressed
by the information and library communities is the
need for a Publisher Name Authority List. In addi-tion,
these communities must still define and
refine the definition for “ full text,”“ article” and
“ periodical.” Her future work will be to better
understand library operational issues such as deal-ing
with the complexities of full- text access from
multiple sources and integrating full text better
with ILL.
Following the presentations, RAC members
met with the scientists in a group to discuss the
various projects and possible future directions.
— Beth Marsh is research associate, OCLC Office
of Research.
• • •
C A TA L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 27
Cataloging services evolve for 2000 and beyond
by Gary Houk
As the next millennium
draws near, OCLC is
looking at new services and
ways to improve existing
ones to help libraries
remain at the center of the
information landscape.
Currently, OCLC provides
a variety of cataloging services that help libraries
to thrive, cooperate and share resources. OCLC’s
integrated, customizable suite of online, batch and
contract services and software helps libraries
build and manage their collections. Libraries and
their users benefit from increased availability of
resources and reduced rate of rise of library costs.
At the heart of these services is WorldCat—
more than 42 million records of the world’s
library materials. As the next millennium
begins, OCLC is looking at ways to extend
WorldCat to include metadata for additional
resource descriptions such as biographies,
book reviews, table of contents and
other information.
OCLC is working toward the
creation of a new global knowledge
commons that will help make the
library Web site the portal of choice
for finding information. OCLC’s
pioneering work with metadata
( structured data about data) and the
Cooperative Online Resource Catalog
( CORC) project are paving the way
for enhanced service. OCLC has
added CatExpress, a Web- based
copy cataloging interface, to help
smaller libraries join this
information commons.
Global standards are the key to coop-eration.
Standards enable the communi-cation
of resource descriptions among
libraries and library service providers.
OCLC maintains an active role in the
development and support of metadata
standards, such as MARC 21, Dublin
Core, Text Encoding Initiative,
Government Information Locator Service
and Encoded Archival Descriptions.
OCLC’s services are built on key established stan-dards,
and OCLC supports emerging standards
and recommendations. OCLC’s work with these
standards— such as Unicode, Java, Z39.50, RDF,
HTML and XML— helps ensure that libraries can
cooperatively create and provide easy access to
diverse information for their users. In addition,
OCLC is using the Dewey Decimal Classification
as a knowledge organization tool in the electronic
environment and is working to integrate other
controlled vocabularies into the system.
In this issue, the OCLC Newsletter takes a
look at current OCLC cataloging services, as
well as some directions these services may move
in the future.— Gary Houk is vice president,
OCLC Services.
• • •
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
28 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Authority Control Suite provides options to fit library needs
by Meghan Hopkins
The OCLC Authority Control Suite, a combina-tion
of OCLC’s Authority Control services and
the OCLC/ WLN MARC Record Service ( MARS),
allows libraries to select the authority control
service that best fits their needs. Authority con-trol
can help to better maintain local catalogs for
staff and library users. Although both options
provide libraries with corrected bibliographic
and authority records, each is maintained for specific strengths.
OCLC’s Authority Control services offer sophisticated matching
software that relies on WorldCat headings in addition to the Library of
Congress and National Library of Medicine. Specifically designed for
Harvard University, the service continues to provide an automated
method for increasing access in local catalogs.
OCLC/ WLN’s MARS offers customized, experienced assistance in
more than authority control processing. Database preparation, smart
barcode generation, item record creation and bibliographic and
authority record de- duplication are just a few of the services
currently available.
Many other OCLC services may be used in conjunction with the
OCLC Authority Control Suite. For more information, contact any
OCLC affiliated U. S. regional network, international division or distrib-utor,
or Chris Mottayaw, manager, OCLC Conversion and Authority
Control Marketing (+ 1- 800- 848- 5878 ext. 6476 or
chris_ mottayaw@ oclc. org).
Additional information on the OCLC Authority Control Suite can
also be found at < http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/ auth. htm>.
— Meghan Hopkins is OCLC Authority Control representative.
• • •
by George Promenschenkel
WorldCat is one diverse place. With more than 42
million bibliographic records, there are bound to
be some unique, even bizarre, items represented.
The records for these items can sometimes enter-tain
and sometimes frustrate catalogers. Just how
does one catalog a pair of shoes? Recently, OCLC
users nominated some of their favorite records.
Some of the most unique, and interesting,
items in WorldCat are the realia items:
Janet Berry from the Arkansas State Library
nominated one of ASL’s own items— record
# 20303691, described as a reusable waterproof
litter bag for use by canoeists.
Record # 25475884, sent in by Angela Murphy-
Walters from East Tennessee State University, is
for a mini golf course consisting of five holes, five
flag staffs, one putter, four colored balls, five
strips of artificial grass, one score pad and one
instruction sheet. You can find the Pla- golf set at
Western Carolina University.
Diversity is part of WorldCat’s value
Libraries using the
OCLC Authority Control Suite include:
A l b u q u e r q u e A c a d e m y
A u g s b u r g C o l l e g e
C i t y C o l l e g e s o f C h i c a g o
C o r n e l l U n i v e r s i t y
H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y
H e r i t a g e C o l l e g e
M e t r o p o l i t a n C o m m u n i t y C o l l e g e
M O B I U S C o n s o r t i u m
N e w Y o r k P u b l i c L i b r a r y
R o a n o k e A r e a L i b r a r i e s
R o b e r t N o b l e F o u n d a t i o n
S h a n n o n & W i l s o n
T e x a s W o m a n s U n i v e r s i t y
U n i v e r s i t y o f O r e g o n
U S D A E a s t e r n R e g i o n a l R e s e a r c h C e n t e r
W a s h i n g t o n S t a t e L a w L i b r a r y
Y a l e U n i v e r s i t y
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 29
Michele Behr at SOLINET sent in a record that
she uses in workshops: # 35746224— F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s mother’s silk and leather wedding
shoes, housed at the University of South Carolina.
And then there is # 20330004, held by the
University of South Dakota. Pamela Sue Cook at
Indiana University suggested the record, which
describes a speech therapy instrument designed
“ to detect the nasal emission of air during speech
and to provide instant visual feedback to both
the client and the clinician.” Which sounds just
fine, but the title might throw someone who
stumbles across it—“ See- scape Visual Feedback
of Nasal Emission.”
Some of the admissions were not for unusual
items, but for unusual and humorous titles. Some
catalogers, it seems, collect funny titles or records
that they come across. One, Nancy Johnson
from the Western Reserve Historical Society in
Cleveland, Ohio, sent in a list of nearly 50 titles,
including: The New Twentieth Century Trouser
System Devoted especially to Cutting Trousers
for Bow- legged and Knock- kneed Persons by the
Claus Hachmann & Company (# 42676793);
Paris, Tightwad and Peculiar: Missouri Place
Names by Margot Ford McMillen (# 30624764);
Permanent Residents of the Garrison Cemetery
from the Garrison Corner Cemetery Associa-tion
(# 27643296); and Brain Weight and
Legislative Ability in Congress by Arthur
MacDonald (# 5278763).
Mark Blanchard at OCLC contributed a sound
recording: Canary Training Record: Self-instruction
Method of Developing the Full Song
Potential of Canaries from Hartz Mountain
Products (# 8721208). Now if Tweety will just
practice his lessons …
Sometimes the humor comes from other than
the title field. Kathie Gully of the Denver
Museum of Natural History sent in # 9042501—
an experimental film called Dead Bunnies, which
she found accidentally while searching for “ some
innocuous geology book whose title is long for-gotten.”
The abstract describes the film as—
“ an experimental film, which uses black humor,
satire and animation and tells about a young army
recruit, who believes he is being pursued by rab-bits,
following his accidental killing of a hare on
the military base. He seeks psychiatric help from
a sadistic army psychiatrist, and the bunnies get
the last bite.”
Sean Ferguson of the OCLC TechPro service
suggested # 5025840, which describes
The Pushbutton Telephone Song
Book by Michael Scheff, featuring
songs arranged for performance
on pushbutton telephones.
Laura Coleman of California
State University- San Marcos said,
“ My favorite WorldCat record
involves the valid LC subject head-ing:
Edible dormouse ( among other
curious things).” The title of the
record is Not a Moment Too Soon
(# 13482029) by authors Justin Thyme, Elmo
Slate and Alma Slate, and “ special research by
Rhoda Reuter.”
Another couple of records from OCLC TechPro
catalogers posed a challenge because of their
unusual nature. Tim Savage remembered working
on # 42303953, a sound recording on a compact
disc shaped like a school bus, and Leping He sug-gested
# 42261146, a disc in the shape of a flower.
Both records carry a warning against use in dash-board
car stereos.
OCLC users also shared records that held spe-cial
meaning for them.
Several people nominated a record known as
“ Mudlumps”— or, more formally, Mudlumps at
the Mouth of South Pass, Mississippi River;
Sedimentology, Paleontology, Structure, Origin,
and Relation to Deltaic Processes. As Sue Ann
Lewandowski, University of Nebraska- Lincoln,
explained,“ We used to use OCLC # 2 when train-ing
people. We called it simply Mudlumps for
short, as in ‘ Did you remember to delete
Mudlumps after training?’ When I began working
here five years ago, I was utterly intrigued about
Mudlumps because the word was being tossed
around so casually, and no one seemed to notice
what a funny word it is. But then I learned of its
significance, and I’m sure that by now I’ve tossed
it around with a straight face more than once.”
Record # 1 was also popular. Appropriately
enough, it lists the Rand McNally Book of
Favorite Pastimes. As it turns out, browsing
through some of the more unusual records in
WorldCat can be an interesting way to pass
the time.— George Promenschenkel is
senior marketing/ public relations writer,
OCLC Communications.
• • •
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
30 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
RONDAC, regional networks and OCLC launch
joint Web- based training development
by Aaron Smith
Realizing the growing importance of Web- based
instruction in the Information Age, OCLC,
together with the Regional OCLC Network
Directors Advisory Committee ( RONDAC) and
the OCLC- affiliated U. S. regional networks,
recently undertook a joint initiative to develop
Web- based instruction.
This important joint effort builds on common
goals and training needs for OCLC and the U. S.
regional networks and furthers a common com-mitment
to Web- based instruction.
The Michigan Library Consortium ( MLC)
agreed to develop content for the first course,
and four other regional networks— INCOLSA,
MLNC, OHIONET and NEBASE— agreed to review
and provide feedback. OCLC staff also provided
feedback and were instrumen-tal
in moving course content to
the Web. OCLC CatExpress, a
new cataloging tool that pro-vides
a Web- based interface for
inexpensive and easy copy cat-aloging,
was chosen as the subject of the first
joint Web- based training course.
The course is designed to simulate the
CatExpress interface, allowing the learner to work
through exercises in searching, adding local infor-mation,
setting holdings and downloading
records. The course takes the learner through the
basic steps of CatExpress from start to finish and
mirrors the simplicity and ease- of- use of the
product itself.
OCLC and the regional networks are proud to
expand their spirit of cooperation to the develop-ment
of Web- based instruction, pulling the best
ideas, design techniques, content and software
from network and OCLC staff. OCLC and the
regional networks are committed to the develop-ment
of Web- based training and will continue its
development to reduce costs, encourage coopera-tion
and, when appropriate, provide the end user
with a flexible, cost- effective alternative to other
methods of education delivery.
The tutorial can be accessed at
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ cataloging/
catexpress/ tutorial/>.— Aaron Smith is OCLC
services manager, network librarian, Michigan
Library Consortium.
• • •
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 31
User input helps take OCLC CJK software beyond ASCII
by Hisako Kotaka
OCLC CJK software has come a long
way since its introduction in 1986.
The new 32- bit Windows NT- based
OCLC CJK software version 3.01
offers a dynamic platform and tools to
help libraries manage their Chinese,
Japanese and Korean ( CJK) material
cataloging workflows.
Indiana University Library, the first
library to enter a CJK record into WorldCat, was one of 10
libraries that participated in the field testing of the first
generation CJK software. Those initial 10 field test libraries
and other early adopters provided feedback for the devel-opment
of OCLC CJK software in its first few years. Then
in 1991, the OCLC CJK Users Group became the formal
mechanism for feedback, suggestions and recommenda-tions
about the software. The group serves to improve the
software, expand the user base and promote CJK- related
programs among OCLC CJK libraries.
Today, WorldCat contains nearly 2 million CJK records
contributed by CJK users, batch loads from the Library of
Congress CJK Books tapes, the Waseda University
Information Network ( WINE) Project, and CJK exchange
tapes from the Research Libraries Group. Some 120
libraries around the world are now using OCLC’s CJK soft-ware,
including many public libraries where user requests
for CJK materials are increasing.
The OCLC CJK Users Group continues to play a vital
role as an advisory body for the next generation of OCLC
CJK software development. This input has helped OCLC
CJK software evolve over the years to better serve libraries.
1986— The first OCLC CJK software is introduced—
CJK350, designed to catalog and copy- catalog books and
periodicals for East Asian teaching and studies. The soft-ware
runs on the DOS platform.
May 12, 1986— the first OCLC CJK vernacular MARC record
was entered by Indiana University Library into WorldCat.
It was a watershed event for the OCLC Cataloging
system as this first vernacular record, which digitized
non- Roman alphabet characters using East Asian
Character Code ( EACC), was the beginning of OCLC’s
vernacular support program.
1993— OCLC adopts the just- released Microsoft Windows
environment for the second generation software, and
updates the software user interface completely to
process graphic character elements effectively in the
OCLC CJK windows.
1998— OCLC makes its CJK software part of the new OCLC
Access Suite, available at no additional cost to OCLC
member libraries.
1998— OCLC CJK software adopts Unicode version 2.0 to
handle character display in the new Microsoft NT plat-form
while maintaining ASCII for Roman and EACC for
vernacular character coding to process data in the
system. This experimental use of two- character sets to
represent vernacular characters in the OCLC host system
and the workstation program is considered a precursor
for OCLC to explore and plan for other vernacular- script
support products based on Unicode.
1999— OCLC releases OCLC CJK version 3.0, followed by
the October release of version 3.01 maintenance update
version. The 32- bit Windows NT- based OCLC CJK soft-ware
offers a dynamic platform and tools for users to
manage their cataloging workflow using versatile batch
as well as interactive actions from searching to final cata-loging
transactions, and printing offline products for the
library and its users.
While the CJK 3.01 main application is implemented in
the library’s technical services group, reference and public
services librarians, scholars, researchers and the general
public are finding that the OCLC CJK Z39.50 Client module
is a user- friendly CJK information access tool for reaching
Z39.50 server resources via Internet. The OCLC CJK
Z39.50 Client is a standalone module in the OCLC CJK soft-ware.
Library end users can search local databases using
phrases or keywords in author, title and subject indexes,
ISBN and ISSN. Chinese records can be viewed
in either Wade- Giles or Pinyin in the optional display
format, MARC or Labeled view, providing users with a
friendly, easy- to- read record. The OCLC CJK Z39.50 Client
is, for the first time, making local CJK records truly useful
for library users.
The demand for CJK collections is growing in all types
of libraries. Some libraries have recently begun to develop
CJK collections in response to increasing demands from
library users.
OCLC’s CJK software is not the end of the story. OCLC’s
CJK- related services such as AsiaLink, TechPro and
RetroCon are providing predetermined or customized col-lection
development services with cataloging and technical
processing, and retrospective conversion work using OCLC
CJK software.
Critical ingredients for future OCLC CJK services for
libraries and end users include evolving standards such as
Z39.50, Unicode and metadata framework such as the
Dublin Core. By adopting further advanced technological
enhancements in its CJK software, OCLC will continue to
look beyond the ASCII world to contribute to the global
East Asian information flow and access.
— Hisako Kotaka is consulting product support specialist,
OCLC Product Management and Implementation.
• • •
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
32 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Analysis services assess collection needs
by Sally Loken
Based at the OCLC/ WLN Pacific Northwest
Service Center in Lacey, Washington,
OCLC/ WLN’s Automated Collection Assessment
and Analysis Services ( ACAS) are used by hundreds
of libraries throughout the world for a variety of
collection assessment and management needs.
ACAS are designed to accommodate the needs of
all types of libraries, from large research institu-tions
to smaller public and special libraries. ACAS
is especially helpful in assessing the collection
needs of consortiums and regional library groups.
Organized around and including the ALA-approved
OCLC/ WLN Conspectus subject divi-sions,
categories and descriptors, OCLC/ WLN
Conspectus software supports the analysis of
Library of Congress ( LC), Dewey Decimal
Classification ( DDC) and National Library of
Medicine ( NLM) classified collections.
In 1990, WLN became the holder of copyright
to the Pacific Northwest Conspectus ( now the
OCLC/ WLN Conspectus), a tool for libraries to
describe collection strengths by assigning simpli-fied
LC class codes. This structure is a modifica-tion
of the Research Libraries Group Conspectus.
It has three levels instead of two ( in the RLG
Conspectus) and includes a parallel DDC con-spectus
as well as an LC conspectus. OCLC/ WLN
maintains these structures, keeping them up to
date with changes in classification.
The new WLN/ NLM Conspectus Divisions for
Medical Libraries, added in 1997, offer brevity at
the category level and collection detail at the
subject- descriptor level. This conspectus
contains six divisions.
OCLC/ WLN collection analysis products follow
these conspectus structures, using libraries’ call
numbers to match titles with conspectus lines.
Most of the products use libraries’ local system
records or records from WorldCat to automatically
perform analyses and comparisons.
The most popular analysis offered is a report of
a collection’s age and content. The library selects
the publication dates and date ranges and the
level of the conspectus for its analysis: divisions
Three recent developments in the Automated
Collection Assessment Service ( ACAS) based at
the OCLC/ WLN Pacific Northwest Service Center
in Lacey, Washington, make ACAS even more
attractive for both individual libraries and
library consortia.
• Libraries, either public or academic, can now
compare and measure their collections against
Booklist or Outstanding Academic Books from
Choice magazine in addition to BCL 3 ( Books
for College Libraries).
• OCLC/ WLN now delivers a library or
consortia’s Collection Analysis reports via
iCAS, the Interactive Collection Analysis
System, a CD- ROM created by the results of the
library analyses organized in table and graph
presentations. Libraries may also launch their
own queries against the extensive reports
generated in the assessment process.
• OCLC and OCLC/ WLN are developing the
ability to use WorldCat data in the collection
assessment process. This new process will
allow a library to compare its collection
against two or more peers and generate title
lists in WLN Conspectus subject order. The
gap reports for the results may include as
many or as few Conspectus divisions as the
library chooses.
More information on ACAS is available from the
OCLC/ WLN Web site < http:// www. wln. org/
wlnprods/ aca/>.
• • •
ACAS adds functionality
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999 33
and categories or the full division/ category/
subject level. The library can also choose analysis
of the languages in which the works are written.
The result is a topology of a collection with a
clear indication of its depth and breadth. These
analyses can be performed for groups as well as
individual libraries.
OCLC/ WLN is now delivering analyses on a
searchable CD- ROM called iCAS ( Interactive
Collection Analysis System.) With iCAS the library
can print all or portions of the analysis, create and
print graphs of it, and export data to Excel and
Access for further manipulation. Further, iCAS
can provide a list of the titles that are represented
by a statistic in a cell on the analysis grid. The
group application offers even more flexibility,
allowing the library to set up subgroups among
the participating libraries, with totals recalculated
for each grouping the user selects. iCAS is also
the means of distribution for title overlap
analyses, which provide the number and
percent of uniquely held titles for each library
and its overlap ( number and percent) with every
other library, by conspectus divisions, categories
and subjects.
OCLC/ WLN also does title comparisons for one
or more libraries with a group of two or more
libraries and comparisons of a library’s collection
with up to three recommended lists. Libraries
can license OCLC/ WLN Conspectus Database
software to create assessment databases and
reports ( including collection- level indicators,
which are assigned by the library). Many
licensees use the analyses as a starting point in
their collection assessment work. And many
other libraries find the analyses contain all the
information they need for collection planning
and growth, acquisition budget development and
support, grant applications, cooperative collec-tion
development, accreditation and fund- raising.
— Sally Loken is manager, ACAS, OCLC/ WLN
Pacific Northwest Service Center.
• • •
AsiaLink to offer Russian materials
by Marcia Stout
The OCLC AsiaLink service provides preselected
collections of current fiction and nonfiction books
that have been carefully selected to appeal to a
wide range of user interests. Beginning in January
2000, the service will offer Russian language mate-rials.
The Russian materials will complement the
Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese materi-als
already available through AsiaLink. A 25-
title set at the adult and the juvenile levels will
be available in Russian.
AsiaLink specialist Sumie Ota, who is
fluent in Japanese as well as Russian, will be
providing selection, acquisition, cataloging
and physical processing of materials in both
languages. Ms. Ota said,“ I am excited to be
developing collections in Russian since there
is a real need to provide popular reading
materials for this audience. I know that
libraries have been asking AsiaLink to
introduce Russian sets, and I am pleased
that I can help in this effort.”
More information on the AsiaLink service is
available on the AsiaLink Website
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ menu/ asialink. htm>
or by contacting Marcia Stout (+ 1- 800- 848- 5878,
ext. 4386, or marcia_ stout@ oclc. org).
— Marcia Stout is Conversion Services
representative, OCLC.
��� • •
C A T A L O G I N G S E R V I C E S F O R T H E N E X T M I L L E N N I U M
34 OCLC Newsletter November/ December 1999
Retrospective conversion is finite. Or is it?
by Chris Mottayaw
How many people in the
library world work to put
themselves out of business?
For over 23 years, OCLC’s
RetroCon service has been
converting catalog cards to
OCLC MARC records always
under the assumption that
at some point, all libraries will be converted.
Currently, the customized service consistently
works with 40– 50 libraries each month, and with
new worldwide relationships pinpointing existing
conversion opportunities, the end may be well
into the new millennium. To assist the library
community’s conversions on an expanded basis,
OCLC is now offering conversion services at
three sites.
The majority of RetroCon staff is based in
OCLC’s Dublin, Ohio, offices where over 150 full-time
employees are devoted solely to conversion
services. For 19 years, this was the only conver-sion
office and would likely have remained so had
it not been for a major push in the library commu-nity
