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C O N T E N T S July/ August 2000 No. 246
Editor in chief:
Nita Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nita_ dean@ oclc. org
Editor:
George Promenschenkel . . . . . . . promensg@ oclc. org
Assistant Editor:
Bob Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bob_ murphy@ oclc. org
Editorial Assistant:
Marifay Makssour . . . . . marifay_ makssour@ oclc. org
Cover Design: Linda Shepard
Art Production/ Desktop Publishing: Tammy Miller
All photos taken by Rich Skopin or Lorna Williamson
unless otherwise noted.
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OCLC Newsletter ( ISSN: 0163- 898X) is published by
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Contents of this newsletter may be reproduced in whole
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OCLC Newsletter is also available via OCLC’s home
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All products and services named are trademarks or
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OCLC, Dewey Decimal Classification, DDC, Dewey,
FirstSearch, Forest Press, PAIS, PAIS International, PAIS
International In Print, Public Affairs Information Service,
RetroCon, SiteSearch, TechPro, WLN and WorldCat are
registered trademarks of OCLC Online Computer Library
Center, Incorporated.
CORC, Dublin Core, OCLC ILL Direct Request, OCLC
WebExpress, WebDewey and WebZ are trademarks of
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated.
Contact Information:
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OCLC, a nonprofit membership
organization, is engaged in computer
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Correspondents:
Brenda Bailey
Suzanne Butte
Gary Houk
Catherine Korvin
Brian F. Lavoie
Bruce Newell
Edward T. O’Neill
Mike Prasse
Julie Schwartz
Keith Shafer
Stephen Slovasky
Taylor Surface
Alane Wilson
Membership News
Users Council elects two to OCLC Board of Trustees, holds videoconference
seen by 7,500 librarians worldwide
University of Oregon enters 100 millionth OCLC Interlibrary Loan request
Words on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service …
OCLC Statistics
Wellcome Library in London adds
44 millionth bibliographic record to WorldCat
WebExpress provides access to local and remote information resources
through a library’s own customized interface
OCLC at ALA
OCLC President’s Luncheon celebrates launch of CORC
Virginia Boucher- OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award recipient named
ALCTS announces Margaret Mann Citation recipient
Paul K. Sybrowsky receives 2000 Melvil Dewey Medal
OCLC Usability Lab celebrates 10- year anniversary
Anne Robertson appointed to Dewey Editorial Committee
Network Directors meet in Dublin, Ohio
Dewey Editorial Policy Committee meets at the Library of Congress
SiteSearch users meet to share successes, concerns
University of Washington and OCLC work together to
improve access to digital collections
The Colorado Virtual Library— providing access to virtually anything
Research
Dublin Core releases recommended qualifiers to
improve access to information
How “ World Wide” is the Web?
Trends in the internationalization of Web sites
Web- based name services can improve access to resources
Karen Drabenstott is visiting scholar
Clicks and mortar
Libraries increase Net Value with CORC
CORC: Build locally, share globally
CORC awareness grows on Web
Organizing state government Web resources: A CORC pilot project
WebDewey in CORC available
Libraries and OCLC team to build CORC
Panelists discuss CORC at ALA Annual
OCLC Institute helps introduce CORC in China
OCLC Cataloging libraries can use CORC now
Product News
Migration to new FirstSearch now complete
Suite101. com to use DDC in new directory
46 Selection, indexing and abstracting at PAIS
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CORC:
A NEW SERVICE,
A NEW SPIRIT
F R O M J A Y J O R D A N
CORC is here! The OCLC Cooperative Online
Resource Catalog service began operation on July 1,
bringing to a close an intensive 18- month
development effort and setting the stage for a new
era in library cooperation.
The development and implementation of the
OCLC CORC service exemplifies what I call a new
spirit at OCLC— one which recognizes that if the
world is now running at Web speed, then we at
OCLC must move with all deliberate speed to help
our member libraries adjust to the new challenges of
the Internet.
To bring CORC out on schedule we formed a
cross- organizational team that used a rapid-application
development ( RAD) approach in which
we re- engineered our development processes for
quicker turnaround without compromising quality.
Most important, we worked closely with the libraries
and users who volunteered to participate in the
development of CORC. These users were true
development partners who made useful suggestions
for enhancements. In some cases, we were able to
install an enhancement suggested by a user within
24 hours.
I would like to thank publicly the founding
members of CORC— 489 libraries in 24 countries—
who participated in its research and development
phases over the past 18 months. These pioneering
libraries are helping to define the future of
librarianship and information access at a time when
the World Wide Web is transforming not only
commerce, but education and communications,
indeed, society itself. They are making important
contributions to research, scholarship and
education. It was an honor and a privilege to work
with them.
As this issue of the OCLC Newsletter shows,
CORC can indeed increase your library’s Net value.
CORC is not only providing new tools for cataloging
and organizing electronic resources, it is also
helping to rekindle the spirit of cooperation through
which OCLC and member libraries have done so
much in the past and through which we are now
poised to do even more in the future.
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 July/ August 2000
On May 23, over 7,500 librarians at 350 downlink
sites in North America and Europe tuned in for a
videoconference of the final two hours of the
May 21– 23 OCLC Users Council Meeting. Users
Council president Betsy Wilson welcomed the
audience to what she called the “ first virtual
meeting” of the 60 delegates who represent the
worldwide OCLC membership.
During the three- day meeting in Dublin, Ohio,
Users Council delegates elected two members
to the OCLC Board of Trustees, selected a new
Users Council vice president/ president- elect and
executive committee, and discussed library trends
and OCLC governance. The meeting focused on
“ Library Success in the New World” and was the
last under the 1999/ 2000 annual theme—
“ A New World: OCLC, Libraries and Users
in the 21st Century.”
Delegates elected Betsy Wilson, associate
director of libraries for Research and Instructional
Services, University of Washington, and Bradley
Baker, university librarian, Northeastern Illinois
University, to six- year terms on the OCLC Board of
Trustees. Delegates also elected Jerry Stephens,
librarian and director, University of Alabama,
Birmingham, vice president/ president- elect.
Sherrie Bergman, librarian, Bowdoin College;
Willie Hardin, dean, University of Central
Arkansas; and Robert Seal, university librarian,
Texas Christian University, were elected to
delegate- at- large positions on the executive
committee of Users Council.
The OCLC Users Council Virtual Meeting, a
videoconference, was a first for the organization
and came at the conclusion of the three- day
meeting. Delegates met in a television studio to
hear presentations on OCLC, libraries and their
users in the 21st century.
The Virtual Meeting included:
· Clifford Lynch, executive director, Coalition for
Networked Information, speaking on “ Libraries
and Worldwide Access to Information”
“ We’ve talked about this global knowledge
base that libraries have played such an
important role in developing,” said Dr. Lynch.
“ Now they’re going to have to help steward it
through this transition to global digital access.”
· Phyllis Spies, vice president, OCLC Worldwide
Library Services, speaking on “ Defining a
Global Library Cooperative in the 21st
Century”
· Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO,
discussing “ OCLC’s Strategic Vision”
· A panel discussing OCLC roles and
governance— Nancy Eaton, chair, Strategic
Directions and OCLC Governance Advisory
Council, and member, OCLC Board of Trustees,
moderated the discussion by Larry Alford,
senior associate university librarian, University
of North Carolina- Chapel Hill; Christine
Deschamps, president, International Federation
of Library Associations and Institutions; and
Kate Nevins, chair, Regional OCLC Network
Directors Advisory Committee.
George Needham, vice president, OCLC
Member Services, served as master of ceremonies
for the event. A question- and- answer period
followed each presentation. At the conclusion of
Users Council elects two to OCLC Board of
Trustees, holds videoconference seen by
7,500 librarians worldwide
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 5
the meeting, 1999– 2000 Users Council president
Betsy Wilson passed the gavel to the 2000– 2001
president, Larry Alford.
A videotape of the virtual meeting is available
through interlibrary loan. Requests for these
tapes may be sent to the OCLC Information
Center— holding symbol OCC, OCLC control
number 44106226. Libraries that do not
participate in the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service
may send requests on the ALA interlibrary loan
request form to: OCLC Information Center, P. O.
Box 7777, Dublin, Ohio, 43017- 0702. Borrowed
videos may be freely duplicated for the borrowing
organization’s use.
Highlights from the balance of the meeting
include a presentation by David Levy, information
consultant, on “ Digital Libraries and the Problem
of Purpose.”
“ We’re part of a cult of efficiency. Efficiency is
our god,” said Mr. Levy. “ We believe that anything
that isn’t efficient, or isn’t as efficient as it could
be, is bad, and we base our cost- benefit analysis
on efficiency.”
Questioning the wisdom of moving rapidly
toward providing access to electronic materials,
Mr. Levy said that libraries rushing to organize
electronic resources without a clear purpose is
one of the problems he sees today. He called for
a debate about the purpose of digital libraries and
how they should function in society.
Herbert Van de Sompel, head of Library
Automation, University of Ghent, Belgium, spoke
on “ Global Information Flows and the Open
Archives Initiative.”
“ The survival of the library at the end of the
information chain is in danger,” said Mr. Van de
Sompel. “ The disappearance of the library from
the information chain could lead to the
disappearance of information equity from the
chain. We need to find a new equitable system
for information dissemination.”
OCLC staff gave a presentation on “ Libraries
around the World.” The presentation featured
segments by Phyllis Spies; Daniel Boivin, director,
OCLC Canada; Nicholas Cop, director, OCLC Latin
America and the Caribbean; Janet Lees, managing
director, OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa;
Nancy London, executive director, OCLC Library
Services for the Americas; and Andrew Wang,
executive director, OCLC Asia Pacific.
Nancy Eaton updated delegates on the ongoing
governance study. The delegates then split into
small groups to discuss OCLC roles and
governance and provide feedback for the study.
On the final day of the meeting, Tom Kirk,
college librarian, Earlham College ( Richmond,
Indiana), and member, Strategic Directions
and OCLC Governance Advisory Council,
summarized the continuing discussion on OCLC
roles and governance.
Users Council passed two resolutions at the
May meeting. The first resolution called for Users
Council to examine how leased or collectively
owned electronic resources figure in the OCLC
Principles of Cooperation and urged OCLC to
explore ways to enhance the accessibility and
affordability of bibliographic records for such
resources. The second resolution urged OCLC
and OCLC member libraries to create
bibliographic records for full- text databases in
WorldCat ( the OCLC Online Union Catalog).
Minutes from the May 2000 meeting are
available on the OCLC Users Council Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ uc/>. The next Users
Council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 22– 24.
The Users Council supports OCLC’s mission by
serving as a key discussion forum and
communications link between member libraries,
regional networks and other partners, and OCLC
management. By providing a channel for
recommendations 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.
• • •
Users Council president Betsy Wilson addresses the audience during the Virtual Meeting.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
6 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
University of Oregon enters 100 millionth
OCLC Interlibrary Loan request
On June 5, the Knight Library of the University of
Oregon made history. At 12: 05 a. m. ( U. S. Pacific
Daylight Savings Time), the library created the
100 millionth request on the OCLC Interlibrary
Loan ( ILL) service, the sixth time the library has
entered a millionth request.
Joanne Halgren, head, Interlibrary Loan,
entered the request for the article
“ Anteroposterior and Rotational Movement of
Femur During Knee Flexion” from the journal
Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.
The request was submitted to the ILL Department
by a graduate student using the OCLC FirstSearch
service, which links to the OCLC ILL service. The
Oregon Health Sciences Library filled the request
the same day.
The record was the second such milestone
entered by Ms. Halgren who also entered the
7 millionth request in 1985.
“ In a way it was similar,” said Ms. Halgren.
“ Both times I was in the office all by myself. The
big difference this time was that it was much
more nerve wracking.”
In addition to the 7 millionth and 100 millionth
requests, staff at the Knight Library also entered
the 72 millionth request in 1997, the 87 millionth
request in 1998, and the 91 millionth and 96
millionth requests in 1999.
“ This significant milestone marks some 21
years of resource sharing over the OCLC
Interlibrary Loan service,” said Jay Jordan,
OCLC president and CEO. “ Global resource
sharing is almost an everyday occurrence today,
and we are just getting started. We are always
looking for new ways to help libraries cooperate
to better serve their users and to lower their
costs. OCLC recently introduced the Global
Sharing Program to make it easy for groups of
libraries around the world to share resources, and
Interlibrary Loan Fee Management is helping
libraries better and less expensively fulfill their
missions in resource sharing.”
“ At the University of Oregon, people have
heard about our million marks so much in recent
years that it is old hat, but they still come in to
congratulate us,” said Ms. Halgren. “ Mark Watson,
my boss, called me the Michael Jordan of ILL land.
That was extremely impressive to my two sons.”
[ Mr. Watson is assistant university librarian for
Technical Services, University of Oregon.]
“ Those of us from before OCLC who
remember the paper forms and telexes have to
remind those newer to the field about what it was
like. But OCLC keeps making wonderful
advances, so those new to ILL land get a taste of
how OCLC improved the process in the first
place,” she said.
“ The items that libraries are willing to share
continually amazes me, and the lengths that ILL
staff go in obtaining these materials is incredible.”
When the library entered the 96 millionth
request in December 1999, Ms. Halgren joked that
Joanne Halgren ( center) entered the 100 millionth OCLC ILL request on June 5 for the
University of Oregon Knight Library. Chelle Batchelor ( left) and Aimee Yogi also work in the
library’s ILL Department.
photo provided by University of Oregon
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 7
library staff were practicing for the 100 millionth
record. To hit the milestone, Ms. Halgren went
into the office on Sunday and entered the request
very early Monday morning.
En route to the 100 millionth request, Ms.
Halgren entered four of the last five requests
preceding it. The University of Alaska at
Anchorage ( OCLC symbol: UAA) entered the
99,999,998 request, and the University of
Colorado at Boulder ( OCLC symbol: COD)
entered the 100,000,001 request.
Ms. Halgren works with two other staff
members in the Interlibrary Loan Department.
Chelle Batchelor handles much of the borrowing
for the library and has entered three millionth
OCLC ILL requests. Aimee Yogi has been with the
library for 16 years and is primarily responsible
for lending.
To mark this milestone in resource sharing,
OCLC will award a $ 1,000 credit toward future
ILL requests to the Knight Library. In addition,
both the Knight Library and the Oregon Health
Sciences University Library will receive: a one-year
subscription to the OCLC ILL Management
Statistics service, a one- year subscription to the
OCLC Monthly Activity Report, a three- month
subscription to the OCLC ILL Direct Request
service and a commemorative plaque.
Montana State University– Bozeman ( OCLC
symbol: MZF) made the 99 millionth request on
the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service April 14.
The University of Oregon ( OCLC symbol:
ORU) and the Oregon Health Sciences University
Library ( OCLC symbol: OHS) are members of
OCLC Pacific, the western regional support,
training and marketing division of OCLC.
The University of Oregon’s Knight Library, an
OCLC member since 1981, is the largest library in
the state of Oregon, with collections totaling
more than 2 million volumes and approximately
17,000 journals.
The Oregon Health Sciences University is
dedicated to improving the health of all
Oregonians through education of health care
professionals and biomedical researchers.
The OCLC Interlibrary Loan service came
online in 1979. In the 1998/ 99 fiscal year, nearly
6,200 libraries arranged over 8.2 million loans
through the system. OCLC offers a number of
products and services that support ILL, including
the OCLC ILL Direct Request service that allows
library users to enter ILL requests with little or no
staff intervention.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
8 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
To quest or not to quest— what may be found Interlibrary:
Whether ‘ tis nobler in the mind to search locally
The shelves and archives of our literate fortune,
Or, writ answered, returned from distant place,
To take with arms books full and see no troubles
And by apposing these, fulfill the quest. To delve, to seek—
Knowing of more— and by such seeking to say we fill
The heart’s aim and the thousand natural hints
That flesh is here to live and give and do—’ tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wielded. To delve, to seek—
To seek, perchance to see. Ay, there’s the route,
For in that seeking, and seeing what delving may create,
When we have searched oft this most telling presence
Must give us pause. And with that pause the reference librarians
Guide, informed … such make clarity of the learner’s life.
For who inspired could dare the words of quest unreturned,
And uncertainties of time’s wait, the form written wrong,
The proud man’s tangled certainty,
The printings of wondering lists, the searching libraries’ delay.
The insouciance of “ ifs,” and the surety
That patience merits in the wending takes,
When himself might his voiced request make
With barely inked form? Who among reference librarians
Would such oft given fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a word- full life,
But for some well treasured memory within their own
Heart and life do work and serve
That one such questing patron could so dearly read
Of something after unfilled quest, filled a new way,
And the previous undiscovered book like a country
From whose bourn drinking deep
A now more clearly knowing traveler returns,
Having puzzled the will
And makes us rather uncloak such keen delight
In these I. L. L. s no need we find
to fly to other less filling options
Words on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service …
from a library user:
What May Be Found Interlibrary
OCLC Statistics
( as of July 1, 2000)
Current statistics are at
< http:// www. oclc. org/
oclc/ new/ stats. htm>.
Par ticipating
libraries
37,297
New member libraries
( March 1– April 30, 2000)
200
Total interlibrary loan
requests
100,587,787
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 9
from a librarian:
I could go on and on about OCLC and
how you tie us all together coast to coast
and abroad. We lent books to Spain and
Ireland without a qualm, knowing that
they ‘ belonged’ to OCLC. I was never
fearful of any new update, knowing that
we could download this or that
instruction/ bulletin and get on with it.
Mary L. Augustine
head, ILL/ Resource Sharing
Chalmer Davee Library
University of Wisconsin- River Falls
Highest OCLC
record number
44,516,438
Location listings
( holdings)
766,968,896
OCLC FirstSearch service searches
( since October 1991)
278,573,421
This consequence of clarity does make no cowards ( of us all)
And thus the native heat of resolution’s excitement
Is strengthened o’er with the well peeled kernel of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn ever new ways
And loose the name of option— Soft you now,
This fair desire of fulfillment traveled through knowledge,
And beyond, addressed— Sweet unveiling, in thy answered blessings,
Be all or most my requests fulfilled,
Even well read, and heart touched, remembered,
Of what may be found Interlibrary.
Paul Salgado
library user
Hampton Public Library
Hampton, Virginia
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
10 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
Wellcome Library in London adds 44 millionth
bibliographic record to WorldCat
The Wellcome Library for the History and
Understanding of Medicine in London, England,
entered the 44 millionth bibliographic record
into WorldCat ( the OCLC Online Union Catalog)
on May 8.
The record was for an article in a limited
edition of secondary material relating to the
Islamic philosopher al- Farabi: al- Farabi wa- Tumas
Murus, aw, al- Madinah al- fadilah wa- Jazirat al- tubá
( al- Farabi and Thomas More, or, The Excellent
City and the Isle of Blessedness). It compares
Sir Thomas More’s “ Utopia” with a similar work
by al- Farabi.
Nigel Allan, curator of the Wellcome Library’s
Oriental collections for 22 years, entered the
milestone. “ Hitting the record serves as a
reminder of the intrinsic value of OCLC records
to this library,” said Dr. Allan. “ We look forward to
continuing cooperation with OCLC to our mutual
benefit in the future.”
The Wellcome Library is the second European
library to enter a millionth WorldCat record.
The 32 millionth record was entered by the
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland,
on Feb. 16, 1995.
“ I am delighted to learn that the Wellcome
Library made this noticeable contribution to such
a key resource for librarians and library users all
over the world,” said David Pearson, chief
librarian.“ It is salutary to be reminded of the size
of the OCLC database, and it is also a milestone
which helps us to recognise the benefits that
professional collaboration can bring.”
The Wellcome Library is based on the
collections of Sir Henry Wellcome and is a leading
resource for medical history research in Europe.
It holds over 600,000 volumes of printed works,
with over 60,000 printed before 1850. It also
holds extensive collections of western
manuscripts, prints and other iconographic
material. The Oriental collections form one of the
major collections of Oriental manuscripts and
printed books outside Asia. They span 3,000
years of documentation in over 40 different
languages and record almost every area of human
endeavor. The library has 20,000 users who visit
from all parts of the world, and the library is
extensively used through the Internet. The
Wellcome Library is a member of the Wellcome
Trust, the world’s largest medical research charity
dedicated to “ promoting and fostering research
with the aim of improving human and animal
health” < http:// www. wellcome. ac. uk/>.
The Government Printing Office entered the
43 millionth bibliographic record into WorldCat
on Dec. 14, 1999.
WorldCat, available to libraries online since
1971, is a merged, electronic catalog of the
bibliographic and holding information of OCLC
member libraries. The more than 44 million
records in WorldCat represent over 760 million
items held in libraries around the world.
• • •
The Wellcome Institute for the History and Understanding of
Medicine Library entered the 44 millionth bibliographic record
into WorldCat on May 8. The Reading Room in the Wellcome
Building includes a tribute to some of the illustrious names in the
history of medicine at the base of the gallery balustrade.
photo provided by the Wellcome Trust
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 11
WebExpress provides access to local and remote information
resources through a library’s own customized interface
The OCLC WebExpress service is now available to
libraries worldwide, providing an easy- to- use,
integrated gateway to local and remote Z39.50
information resources through a single, locally
customized interface that puts the library at the
forefront as an information provider.
��� The OCLC WebExpress service gives librarians the
power to create a system that is uniquely designed to
meet the needs of their users,” said Frank Hermes,
vice president, OCLC Marketing and Planning. “ With
OCLC WebExpress, librarians without programming
experience can focus on facilitating information
access to their users through an interface they can
design themselves.”
OCLC WebExpress brings the library’s full range
of resources together by providing user access
through a single interface to both remote and local
information resources, such as the library catalog,
the OCLC FirstSearch service and non- OCLC Z39.50
reference databases. These information resources
receive automatic configuration updates through the
OCLC WebExpress Service Center, a Web site intended
for use by librarians or service administrators that
also provides current documentation, training
materials, upgrades, feedback forms, and contact and
support information.
The information resources can also be linked to
resource sharing options.
“ We see OCLC WebExpress as a way to integrate
the diversity and range of electronic information
resources that have become such a strategic part of
our collections for faculty and students,” said David
Carlson, director of libraries at Bridgewater State
College in Massachusetts, an OCLC WebExpress
service subscriber. “ We see the ability to integrate
not only ‘ public domain’ resources— such as online
library catalogs ( including our own)— but also the
resources of commercial systems, especially full- text
resources, into a seamless presentation. Finally, we
were impressed with the product’s ease of use and
its balance of power with local configuration—
down to the nitty- gritty issues at the display level.”
The OCLC WebExpress administrator interface
includes Wizards that make it easy to set up access
to information resources, group those resources for
users, and set up user authentication.
The administrator chooses the user interface
look and feel, and creates a library home page if the
library does not already have one. The library also
has the option to allow users to create individual,
customized OCLC WebExpress sub- accounts, which
can store individual user information like search
strategies for later use, user- specified URLs, or user-specified
address information to make it more
convenient for the user to complete interlibrary loan
request forms. Libraries can also earn Amazon. com
referral fees by having users purchase books through
the OCLC WebExpress “ Buy It” feature.
The administrator interface will connect to the
OCLC WebExpress Service Center.
“ The service center, with all its updates, features
and support, will make OCLC WebExpress an
evolving, ongoing service linking the library and
OCLC via the Web and distributed technology,” said
Mr. Hermes. “ This kind of dynamic service will
encourage libraries to remain on the cutting edge of
technology and information access.”
The OCLC WebExpress service comprises two
components: the OCLC WebExpress Service Center,
which includes the demonstrations, ordering
information, documentation, training materials and a
repository of Z39.50 configurations from OCLC; and
the integration software, which is stored at the library
site on the library’s Linux or Solaris server and
includes the administrative module that allows the
librarian to customize the user interface, select and
add Z39.50 resources, and set up various levels of
patron authentication and profiling.
For more information, visit the OCLC WebExpress
Service Center < http:// www. oclc. org/ webexpress/>.
• • ���
OCLC’s Victoria Miller leads a class on using WebExpress.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
12 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
OCLC at ALA
Shedd Aquarium
Shedd Aquarium
Shedd Aquarium
Update Breakfast
The Cooperative Online Resource Catalog ( CORC) was the main focus of
several events hosted by OCLC at the American Library Association annual
conference held in Chicago from July 8– 12. From a CORC reception at the
Shedd Aquarium to the OCLC Update Breakfast and the exhibit booth,
thousands of librarians attended events to learn more
about CORC and other OCLC products and
services, as well as to reaffirm their
relationships with OCLC.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 13
In the OCLC Booth
OCLC ILL Web Projects Meeting
On the Exhibit Floor
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
14 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
OCLC President’s Luncheon celebrates launch of CORC
More than 1,200 directors of
OCLC member libraries and
other OCLC community
leaders attended the OCLC
President’s Luncheon, which
was held July 10 at the
Chicago Hilton & Towers
during the American Library
Association Annual
Conference in Chicago.
William J. Crowe, chair,
OCLC Board of Trustees,
and Spencer librarian,
Kenneth Spencer
Research Library,
University of Kansas,
was the master of
ceremonies for the
OCLC annual meeting.
“ This past year, we
have focused primarily
on a study of OCLC’s
future strategic directions and
governance,” said Mr. Crowe, describing the board’s activities. “ The main purpose of the study is to
determine what changes, if any, might be made to OCLC’s governance structure to enable it to advance
its time- tested public purposes of furthering economical access to the world’s information, now in a
global environment.”
Betsy Wilson, immediate past president of the OCLC
Users Council, and associate director of libraries for
Research and Instructional Services, University of
Washington, highlighted the Users Council’s 1999/ 2000
program, which followed the theme,“ A New World:
OCLC, Libraries and Users in the 21st Century.”
“ The powerful influences of member libraries,
networks and librarians are ensured at the highest levels
of OCLC governance through the deliberations and
composition of Users Council and the Board of
Trustees,” said Ms. Wilson.
In his address, Mr. Jordan said,“ Our new strategic
directions are aimed at taking us to a 21st century
OCLC, one that is providing services to libraries around
the globe, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and
helping them connect in new collaborative ways . ”
Luncheon guests viewed “ The Wizard of the Web,” a video parody of the Wizard of Oz, in which a
librarian named Dorothy and three library users discover the truth about the Internet and learn about
the power of cooperation when linked to the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog ( CORC). The video
is available through interlibrary loan. Requests may be sent to the OCLC Information Center— holding
symbol OCC, OCLC control number 44546310. It is also available on the OCLC Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ new/ announce/ wizard. htm>. A 51- minute video of the entire President’s
Luncheon Program, including ��� The Wizard of the Web,” is also available— OCLC control number
44670012. Libraries that do not participate in the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service may send requests on
the ALA interlibrary loan request form to: OCLC Information Center, P. O. Box 7777, Dublin, Ohio,
43017- 0702. Borrowed videos may be freely duplicated for the borrowing organization’s use.
• • •
All of OCLC’s presidents, past and present, attended the luncheon.
Standing ( left to right): K. Wayne Smith, Rowland Brown and Fred G.
Kilgour; ( inset) Jay Jordan gives his address.
Betsy Wilson
William J. Crowe
More than 1,200 people attended the luncheon on July 10.
photos by John Reilly Photography
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 15
The Paul J. Gutman Library of Philadelphia
University won a one- year subscription to
OCLC WebExpress and a VA Research Linux
server in an OCLC raffle held at ALA Annual
in Chicago. Steven J. Bell, Director of the
Library, submitted the winning card.
Some 160 people registered to win a
seminar of their choice from the OCLC
Institute. The contest winners were: Carol
J. Nahrwold, manager, Readers’ Services,
Allen County Public Library; Deborah B.
Maher, head, Monograph Cataloging,
Florida State University; and Bonnie Hedin,
associate professor/ cataloger, St. Cloud
State University.
Geauga County Public Library in Ohio
and Northland Baptist Bible College in
Wisconsin won a free profiling for the
OCLC PromptCat service at the conference.
• • •
Virginia Boucher- OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian
Award recipient named
Joanne Halgren, head of interlibrary loans at
the University of Oregon, has been selected as
the recipient of the Virginia Boucher- OCLC
Distinguished ILL Librarian Award.
The $ 2,000 cash award and citation are
administered by the Management and
Operation of User Services Section ( MOUSS)
of the Reference and User Services
Association ( RUSA), a division of the American
Library Association ( ALA).
Ms. Halgren’s “ 25- year career in interlibrary
loan best exemplifies the spirit of mutual
cooperation and dedication to imaginative user
services that form the very foundation of any
successful ILL operation. She can most often be
found at the forefront of the ILL profession, yet
she willingly and graciously shares her
expertise with colleagues through professional
publications and committee service at the state,
regional and national levels,” said Mary
Hollerich, award committee chair.
The award was presented on July 10 during
the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.
• • •
Winners of OCLC- sponsored ALA awards honored at President’s Luncheon
Pictured from left to right are: Paul
Sybrowsky, winner of the Melvil Dewey
Medal; Patricia Thomas, winner of the
Margaret Mann Citation; Robert
Wedgeworth, winner of the John Ames
Humphry/ OCLC Forest Press Award;
Gary Marchionini, winner of the
LITA/ Frederick G. Kilgour Award for
Research in Library and Information
Technology; and Joanne Halgren, winner
of the ALA Virginia Boucher- OCLC
Distinguished ILL Librarian Award.
Martin Knott, winner of the LITA/ OCLC
Minority Scholarship in Library and
Information Technology, was not present
Winners of ALA Annual conference drawings announced
Hong Kong Public Libraries sponsors a seminar
Hong Kong Public Libraries, a new government agency
through a merger of Urban Council Public Libraries and
Regional Council Public Libraries, sponsored a seminar
on OCLC Online Cataloging and Electronic Information
Services. Over 90 librarians of public libraries and
other government agencies attended the May 12 event
held at Hong Kong Central Library. Andrew H. Wang
( pictured), executive director, OCLC Asia Pacific, and
Shu- En Tsai, senior library services executive, OCLC
Asia Pacific, were speakers at the seminar.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
16 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
ALCTS announces Margaret Mann Citation recipient
Patricia M. Thomas, a recently retired head
cataloger at Stockton- San Joaquin County
Public Library, California, is the recipient of
the 2000 Margaret Mann Citation presented by
the Association for Library Collections &
Technical Services ( ALCTS) Cataloging and
Classification Section of the American Library
Association ( ALA).
The award is a citation and a $ 2,000
scholarship donated in the recipient’s honor by
OCLC to the library school of the winner’s
choice. It recognizes outstanding professional
achievement in cataloging or classification either
through publication of significant professional
literature, participation in professional cataloging
associations, demonstrated excellence in teaching
cataloging or valuable contributions to practice in
individual libraries.
“ The Margaret Mann Citation Committee is
pleased to present this award to Patricia M.
Thomas for her outstanding contributions to
cataloging and classification practice in public
libraries. Ms. Thomas has become one of the
most active and well- known public library
catalogers in the country,” said Bruce Johnson,
Margaret Mann Citation Committee chair.
“ In a culture dominated by academia, Thomas
has consistently and skillfully presented the
viewpoints of public libraries. A practicing
cataloger, Thomas is grounded in theory. She
understands why things are done certain ways
and is able to apply this knowledge in her local,
state and national professional work. Thomas’
knowledge and use of the Dewey Decimal
Classification ( DDC) led to her appointment to
the board that advises the editors of the DDC.
Her work there is regarded highly,” said Arlene G.
Taylor, professor of library and information
science at the University of Pittsburgh.
For more than 40 years, Ms. Thomas has served
the public libraries and has been active in
professional associations. Her accomplishments
include having served as advisor to the Dewey
Decimal Editorial Policy Committee; contributing
a chapter to the book Cataloging Correctly for
Kids ( 1998); contributing to Wynar and Taylor’s
Introduction to Cataloging and Classification
( 1992); and teaching Dewey Decimal
Classification system at the San Jose ( California)
State Library School for many years.
“ The Library of Congress and the nation’s
libraries have been the beneficiaries of Pat’s
energetic approach to subject access in public
libraries,” said Beacher Wiggins, director for
cataloging at the Library of Congress. “ Under her
guidance, the Stockton- San Joaquin County Public
Library is participating in the LC/ OCLC Fiction
project, which provides enhanced access to
works of fiction. This has dramatically improved
access in library catalogs to popular publications
for library patrons. ... Pat Thomas is a model for all
librarians, in particular because she has always
underscored the importance of cataloging to
good public library service.”
Ms. Thomas holds a master’s in library science
from the University of Southern California and
a bachelor’s degree from the University of
California, Los Angeles.
ALCTS is a division of the ALA.
• • •
photo provided by Hong Kong Public Libraries
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 17
Paul K. Sybrowsky receives 2000 Melvil Dewey Medal
Paul K. Sybrowsky is the 2000 recipient of the
American Library Association ( ALA) Melvil Dewey
Medal, which recognizes distinguished service to
the profession of librarianship.
The award, a citation and medal donated by
OCLC Forest Press, is given to an individual or
group for recent creative professional
achievement in library management, training,
cataloging and classification and the tools and
techniques of librarianship.
Mr. Sybrowsky, chairman emeritus of
Ameritech Library Services ( previously Dynix), is
recognized for continued and significant
achievement in the development of tools and
techniques that significantly improve library
service and management.
He has won numerous awards including
Utah’s Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year,
software category; Utah Small Businessman of the
Year Award; and LITA/ Gaylord Award for
Achievement in Library and Information
Technology. He is also involved in many areas of
community service including: chairman of Global
Management Technologies’ Board of Directors,
Direct Quest Board of Directors, Progressive
Solutions and Brigham Young University ( Utah)
Special Gifts Committees.
“ Mr. Sybrowsky was chosen because he
exemplifies the spirit of both a leader and
entrepreneur through his professional efforts and
personal commitments in service to libraries,”
said Nancy Tessman, award jury chair.
• • •
OCLC Usability Lab celebrates 10- year anniversary
by Mike Prasse
In 1990, OCLC established a
usability lab ( Ulab), staffed
by members of the newly
formed and all- volunteer
Human- Computer
Interaction Team
( HCI Team).
On July 11, the HCI Team
and the Ulab celebrated
their 10- year anniversaries. In those 10 years, the
Ulab tested 118 products and services with over
550 users. In addition, the HCI Team was the
primary user interface design team for several
services, including the initial versions of
Electronic Journals Online, FirstSearch and
FirstSearch Web.
The idea of determining the ease- of- use of an
OCLC product by observing users while they try
the product in a controlled setting was a novel
idea in software development in 1990. However,
both the OCLC Office of Research and the OCLC
Quality Assurance Department recognized its
potential value to our member libraries and their
users. These two areas, together with staff from
Documentation Department and Media Services,
combined forces to develop a proposal for
constructing a Ulab. Many site visits and
conversations with staff involved in usability
testing at other companies lead to a proposal that
was presented at a meeting of OCLC management
in early 1990. The meeting was intended to
discuss the value and need for a Ulab at OCLC,
and included a videotape of a usability test on a
prototype of a major product. The proposal was
funded, and the lab was built within six months.
Since that meeting, the Ulab and HCI Team
have changed in many ways. The Ulab has
expanded locally by adding an extra room
exclusively for observers. And it has expanded
globally by adding the capability to conduct
remote usability tests over the Internet. Its
services now include videotaping focus groups
and conducting product design meetings. The
HCI Team has had many changes in its volunteer
staff, and a new volunteer group ( the Ulab
Friends), was created for OCLC staff members
who want to help exclusively in usability testing.
Despite all these changes however, one tenet
has remained constant: the best way to make
OCLC products easier to use is by changing our
products to accommodate how our users think,
act and work. Or, as the Ulab motto says: “ The
user is always right.”
More information about the Ulab is available
on the OCLC Web site
< http:// wwwoclc. org/ usability/>
— Mike Prasse is consulting user interface
designer, OCLC Quality Assurance, and manager
of the OCLC Usability Lab.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
18 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
Members of the Regional OCLC Network Directors Advisory
Committee ( RONDAC) met in Dublin, Ohio on May 24 to discuss
OCLC's Strategic Directions and Governance study with Phyllis
Spies, vice president, OCLC Worldwide Library Services; George
Needham, vice president, OCLC Member Services; and staff from
A. D. Little. The next RONDAC meeting will be held Oct. 4– 6,
2000, at OCLC in Dublin.
Pictured at the May meeting are: ( front row seated, left to
right) William DeJohn, MINITEX Library Information Network;
Karin Ford, OCLC/ WLN Pacific Northwest Service Center; Pamela
Bailey, OCLC Pacific; Mary- Alice Lynch, Nylink; Arnold Hirshon,
NELINET; Susan Tarr, Federal Library and Information Center
Committee; Bonnie Juergens, Amigos Library Services; Ruth
Dukelow, Michigan Library Consortium; ( back row standing, left
to right) Kathy Schneider, WiLS; Susan Singleton, Missouri
Library Network Corporation; Susan Olson, OCLC; David Brunell,
Bibliographical Center for Research; Jay Jordan, OCLC; Bob
Drescher, CAPCON; Millard Johnson, Indiana Cooperative Library
Services Authority; Kate Nevins, Southeastern Library Network;
Phyllis Spies, OCLC; Bernadette Freedman, PALINET; Jo Budler,
Nebraska Library Commission; and Suzanne Lauer, OCLC.
Not pictured: Michael Butler, OHIONET; Randy Dykhuis,
Michigan Library Consortium; and Pat Norris, Illinois State
Library ( ILLINET/ OCLC Services).
• • •
Anne Robertson appointed to Dewey
Editorial Committee
Anne Robertson has been appointed to the
Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee
( EPC) through December 2002 to fill the term
vacated by Giles Martin, former Australian
delegate to the EPC. Mr. Martin joined OCLC
Forest Press as assistant editor of the DDC in
October 1999.
“ We are delighted that the Australian
Committee on Cataloguing nominated Anne
Robertson,” said Joan S. Mitchell, editor in chief,
Dewey Decimal Classification, and executive
director, OCLC Forest Press. “ In her 20 years as a
librarian, Ms. Robertson has used the last four
editions of the DDC as a cataloger, manager and
trainer. Her experience with the DDC will prove
of immense value to the committee.”
Ms. Robertson is currently manager, Technical
Services Branch, State Library of Queensland in
South Brisbane, Australia. She has held a number
of positions within the State Library, primarily in
cataloging, indexing and organizing information
and collections. She has cataloged everything
from manuscripts to Internet journals, and she
has considerable experience in the planning and
management of automation projects.
• • •
Network directors meet in Dublin, Ohio
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 19
Dewey Editorial Policy Committee meets
at the Library of Congress
The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy
Committee ( EPC) held its 114th meeting at the
Library of Congress on May 3– 5. It was the first
meeting chaired by Andrea Stamm, head, Catalog
Department, Northwestern University.
“ This was an important meeting in terms of
international participation and the consideration
of several major updates to parts of the DDC that
will affect the worldwide community of DDC
users,” said Ms. Stamm.
The meeting featured a presentation by
Isabella Kubosch, project coordinator,
Nasjonalbiblioteket— the National Library of
Norway, on the challenges of translating the
Dewey Decimal Classification system into
Norwegian. The translation she is editing will be
the fifth Norwegian edition of the DDC.
The committee considered updates for several
parts of the Dewey Decimal Classification system
to be included in the next edition: Tables 1, 5 and
6; 004– 006 Computer science; 305– 306 Social
groups and institutions; 320 Political science; 330
Economics; 340 Law; 540 Chemistry;
551.46– 551.47 Oceanography; 616– 617 Diseases
and branches of medicine; and 630 Agriculture.
EPC also approved drafts of the abridged edition
versions of 560– 590 Life sciences and 700 The arts.
EPC recommended that the editors solicit
outside opinion on several of the proposed
updates. Discussion papers on the proposed
changes to 004– 006 Computer science, 305– 306
Social groups and institutions, and 340 Law is
available on the Dewey Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/> for user review
and comment.
The May meeting was the first EPC meeting for
Anne Robertson, manager, Technical Services
Branch, State Library of Queensland, Australia, who
is the new Australian representative on the EPC.
The next meeting of the Editorial Policy
Committee will be Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, 2000 at the
Library of Congress.
The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy
Committee is a joint committee of OCLC Forest
Press and the American Library Association. The
committee works with the editors of the Dewey
Decimal Classification system and advises OCLC
Forest Press on matters relating to the general
development of the classification. The
committee’s 10 members include public, special,
and academic librarians and library educators
< http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/ news/ epc/>.
OCLC Forest Press, a division of OCLC since
1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal Classification
system, the world’s most widely used library
classification system, and a variety of related
materials. More information about OCLC Forest
Press is available at < http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/> or
via telephone at 1- 800- 848- 5878, extension 6237
or + 1- 614- 764- 6237.
• • •
The EPC includes: ( top row, left to right) Beacher Wiggins, director for Cataloging, Library of
Congress, Washington, D. C.; Helena Van Deroef, serials librarian, Lucent Technologies,
Holmdel, New Jersey; Pamela Brown ( vice chair of EPC), information technology services
director, Suburban Library System, Burr Ridge, Illinois; Janice DeSirey, audiovisual materials
cataloger, Hennepin County Library, Plymouth, Minnesota; Lucy Evans, cataloguing manager,
British Library, Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, England; Richard Baumgarten, cataloger, Johnson
County Library, Overland Park, Kansas; Winston Tabb, associate librarian for Library Services,
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.; ( bottom row) David Balatti, director, Bibliographic
Services, National Library of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; Anne Robertson, director, Technical
Services Branch, State Library of Queensland, South Brisbane, Australia; and Andrea Stamm
( chair of EPC), head, Catalog Department, Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois.
James R. Higgins, Jr.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
20 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
by Bruce Newell
Montana is using the OCLC SiteSearch suite to
build its Montana Library Network Web Gateway.
The MLN Gateway is built on the Z39.50 protocol
and includes access to just short of a dozen
Montana libraries and WorldCat ( the OCLC Online
Union Catalog). The gateway is a central feature
of the Montana Library Network, a statewide
multitype project of the Montana State Library
( in partnership with Montana libraries).
Held at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, on May 1– 4, the
OCLC SiteSearch Users’ Meeting provided an
opportunity to hear from other state libraries,
library consortia and university libraries doing
work similar to what’s happening in Montana
with the MLN. It was a wonderful opportunity to
talk with folks about how they solved problems
that are just beginning to become visible over
Montana’s wide horizons.
Highlights of the users’ meeting included
having the opportunity to better understand the
role of certain technical standards, see how
others are using OCLC SiteSearch to provide
networked information and what
information they provide, as well as to
meet others engaged in providing
consortium library services.
Former Butte ( Montana) bookseller
Bill Moen, now a Texas- based Z39.50
guru, described the Bath and Z Texas
profiles for the Z39.50 standard
community. Z39.50 is a communication
standard that allows two flavors of
online public access catalogs, say Sirsi
and GEAC, to search for and retrieve
records from one another, presenting the
user with a single interface. The OCLC
SiteSearch suite allows users to perform
broadcast Z39.50 searches and then to
sort and deduplicate the search results.
Z39.50 is a complicated and
cumbersome standard, providing
implementers with an embarrassing
wealth of options; that is the problem
the Bath and Z Texas profiles set out to
solve. Too many options make
implementation as difficult as too few or no
options at all. The Bath profile provides a
manageable and utilitarian subset of options for
those trying to make two or more OPACs talk
with one another. Mr. Moen’s discussion
provided enlightenment on Z39.50’ s role in
implementing the MLN Gateway, in particular
the virtual union catalog and implementing
Montanaiana— Montana- focused digital
library material.
Several presenters discussed user
authentication, notably Mary- Elise Haug of the
Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority
( INCOLSA). Indiana uses digital certificates to
allow authorized access to subscription
databases. This solution works well but is
relatively expensive and complicated. Proxy
servers, digital certificates, and simple password
schemes were discussed. I came away thinking
there is no easy, simple or cheap way to prevent
unauthorized access while at the same time
making authorized access to Web resources easy
for library users. I enjoyed the opportunity to
speak with implementers from Indiana and
SiteSearch users meet to share successes, concerns
Montana Library Network http:// msl. state. mt. us/ mln/
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 21
Kentucky, whose groups have taken divergent
paths in their attempts to find cost- effective
means of authenticating statewide consortia.
The scheme we have chosen for Montana ( a
combination of IP verification and a simple
library- specific password to be distributed to
users through their local library) is not perfect
or pretty, but ( we are assured by our Kentucky
colleagues who use a similar method) it will
work and it is affordable.
In a meeting the week before the OCLC
SiteSearch Users’ Meeting, I had discussed with
Montana indexers the need for a working draft
set of standards and protocols for newspaper
indexes. At the OCLC SiteSearch Users’ Meeting,
I chatted with several librarians wrestling with
this same problem. The most promising
alternative seems to be adapting portions of
the Dublin Core record structure, AACR2 for
field syntax, and a combination of Library of
Congress Subject Headings, augmented by local
and shared local headings.
Rose Smith, project manager/ programmer,
University of Wisconsin- Madison, and creator of
the University of Wisconsin- Madison’s AfricaFocus
digital project, spoke about how UWM
incorporated stunning photographs, extensive
sound files, and an abbreviated Dublin Core- like
data structure into this online digital library
resource using the OCLC SiteSearch suite.
AfricaFocus http:// africafocus. library. wisc. edu/
Alberta is building a province- wide union
catalog. Peter Binkley, interface development
coordinator, Alberta Library, discussed their
strategies for giving their single- site catalog
an individual- library look and feel by using
XML and Java to extend OCLC SiteSearch’s
standard interface.
Jennie McKee, systems librarian, Reed
College ( Portland, Oregon), spoke about Reed’s
new course materials support system. This is
an ambitious application, which will, in the
future, interact with a variety of campus
information systems.
The concept of standards wove itself
through all our discussions. Ralph LeVan,
consulting research scientist, OCLC Office
of Research, described the structure of library
standards, such as MARC. MARC, he suggested,
is really three standards:
1. There is a transfer syntax ( Z39.2) that governs
how the data is encoded for transmission
2. USMARC or Canadian MARC or UKMARC
governs the syntax of the records themselves
( breaking the record into fields and subfields)
3. Data content standards ( AACRII) structure the
syntax of data within fields
A variety of standards were discussed,
including Encoded Archival Description, MARC
and Dublin Core.
David Barton, director of Minnesota’s MnLINK
project spoke about the politics of building
Minnesota’s union catalog. MnLINK has provided
Montana’s Networking Task Force with an early
good example of how to build a statewide
catalog, and so hearing first hand of the coalition
building was illuminating.
Elizabeth Kraemer, electronic resources
librarian, and Eric Weig, digital library project
manager, Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual
Library ( KCVL), offered a presentation on KCVL’s
preparations for rolling out a digital library
component to the statewide network. Mr. Weig
has been hard at work developing a coherent and
extensive standards underpinning for Kentucky’s
digital library effort. He expected to have a
working draft of this standard set in June. It
seems to me that Kentucky’s work extends the
Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual Library http:// www. kcvl. org/
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
22 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
preliminary good work done by the Colorado
Digital Initiative, and I hope that Montana adopts
these working draft standards as well.
It is interesting to see that Kentucky and
Minnesota have a shared OPAC component to
their projects. Montana’s MLN project structure
has evolved in directions remarkably similar to
other states.
Paula Busey, Access Colorado and Library
Information Network coordinator, Colorado State
Library, spoke about implementing a Web
interface for Colorado’s digital collections. This
working interface will link a distributed Colorado
digital library for users’ convenience. It’s already
a great place to browse Western photos. Access
Colorado: http:// www. aclin. org/.
Jeff Penka, a consultant at OCLC, showed how
OCLC engages in usability testing. On its Dublin
campus, OCLC uses a laboratory and an
established method for finding what works ( and
what does not) with interfaces and applications.
I took fast and furious notes, thinking this
technique would stand Montana in good stead
as we roll out the MLN Gateway.
There was quite a bit of discussion about the
role of standards ( guidelines vs. ‘ the law’) and
how they evolve ( different models and practices).
I came away feeling pretty confident that the
library community is getting wiser about the
creation and adoption of key standards; I expect
future standards to emerge as more working
drafts than gospel, and for development time to
compress from years to months.
It was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet
with colleagues from other state libraries and
consortia and to find out what is happening in
each other’s worlds.— Bruce Newell is director,
Montana Library Network
• • •
Minnesota’s MnLINK http:// www. mnlink. org/
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 23
University of Washington and OCLC work together
to improve access to digital collections
OCLC and the University of Washington’s Center
for Information Systems Optimization ( CISO)
have formed a strategic alliance to ensure
interoperability between OCLC SiteSearch and
CISO’s CONTENT Multimedia Archival Software.
This partnership adds the powerful media
management capabilities of CONTENT to the
comprehensive OCLC SiteSearch catalog offering.
Libraries will easily be able to put their special
media collections online in digital format and
support a comprehensive, integrated search
across cataloged materials.
The CONTENT Software Suite, developed by
CISO, is designed to handle all phases of media
asset management— from placing media items
such as photos, images, slides and audio/ video
clips online to ultimately providing ready access
for a broad range of users, including researchers,
students, curriculum developers and the public.
Search capability from any Web browser is
provided across multiple collections, and
CONTENT also offers Web development tools to
create customized interfaces to collections for
specific purposes, such as public kiosks or class
Web sites.
OCLC SiteSearch software provides a flexible
solution for an integrated catalog. It supports a
comprehensive search across multitype cataloged
materials and allows the user to directly view a
particular image, record or resource online.
“ OCLC SiteSearch and
CONTENT are a perfect fit,” said
Greg Zick, director of CISO and
electrical engineering professor
at the University of Washington.
“ We anticipate that a library
having a license for both OCLC
SiteSearch software and
CONTENT will create their
online collections with the
CONTENT software and then
import the indexing data from
CONTENT into OCLC SiteSearch
using a CONTENT utility tool.
Importing this data will link the
online CONTENT collections
into the integrated catalog.”
“ This agreement to foster
interoperability between OCLC
SiteSearch and CONTENT will help libraries
more easily develop their online digital
collections and promote access of valuable
archived resources to library end users,” said
Frank Hermes, vice president of OCLC Marketing
and Planning. “ Through this partnership, OCLC
and the University of Washington improve the
flexibility of the software each makes and provide
libraries with a powerful set of tools to manage
digital collections.”
CISO is a research laboratory in the
Department of Electrical Engineering at the
University of Washington. Formed in 1990, the
mission of the center is to create tools and
implement solutions for media asset management.
As a result of research, extensive field testing, and
close collaboration with the University of
Washington Libraries, the center has developed
the CONTENT Software Suite. CONTENT is now
widely used by numerous groups and individuals
within the university as well as at libraries,
universities and commercial enterprises across
the United States. More information is available
on the CONTENT Web site
< http:// content. engr. washington. edu>,
by sending e- mail to
< content@ ciso. engr. washington. edu> or
via telephone + 1- 206- 543- 5604 or
fax + 1- 206- 543- 3483.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
24 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
The Colorado Virtual Library—
providing access to virtually anything
by Brenda Bailey
Imagine a system where
available information on a
topic is located and
delivered to the user
regardless of format. With
just one search, a student
can find information about
available library books, state
documents, the best Web
sites on a particular topic, historical photographs
and other digitized objects. And many of these
materials can be displayed online immediately.
On May 17, just such a resource became
available when the Colorado Virtual Library
debuted. The Colorado State Library created a
new interface using OCLC SiteSearch WebZ
software, made available
via the state���s library
network— ACLIN ( Access
Colorado Library and
Information Network).
The Colorado Virtual
Library provides Web
access via Z39.50 to
approximately 100 library
databases in Colorado.
This count includes both
connections to individual
libraries as well as those in
regional union catalogs or
other consortia. There are
several other projects in
process in the state that
soon will allow Z39.50
access to additional
libraries— bringing the
Colorado Virtual Library’s
total to nearly 200 within
the next few months. The
goal is to make library
holdings from all of
Colorado’s 1,500+ libraries
available via access to
regional union catalogs
within the next few years.
Users have several
options for accessing
information through the
Colorado Virtual Library.
Clicking on a Colorado map allows users to
search libraries in a particular geographical
region. Those who prefer to search a single
library catalog may go to a section that allows
them to browse libraries in alphabetical order.
They then have an option to search through the
CVL interface when the library offers Z39.50
access, or to click on the library name to go
directly to the library’s Web site for Web or telnet
access via the native interface. The Best Web Sites
for Coloradans section directs users to search a
database of high- quality, Colorado- focused Web
sites selected over the last several years by
volunteer team members from the ACLIN
Collection Development Committee. A drill-down
hierarchical subject structure or a simple
keyword browse may be used to find the Web
sites of interest.
One of the most exciting features of the
Colorado Virtual Library, however, is the ability for
users to create their own “ virtual library” of
resources, which remains available during their
searching session. Any database— whether library
catalogs, Best Web Sites, digitized collections or
other files— can be made part of this group.
One of the major challenges of the project
included trying to develop an interface for a
public clientele as diverse as that in Colorado.
We decided to create our first interface for adults
with a high school education who are native
English speakers. A task force made up of
representatives of all types and sizes of libraries
was used to provide input on proposed designs
throughout the process. Recognizing that other
significant populations exist, and using the
flexibility of the WebZ software that allows for
multiple interfaces, we are already designing a
children’s interface and expect to develop others
such as one for native Spanish speakers.
Another challenge is the variant ways that the
integrated local library system vendors have
implemented Z39.50. We have discovered just
how many different flavors of Z39.50 exist. Some
keyword indexes are just words from the title, but
others include words from titles, subjects and
notes fields. A title search in one library catalog
may not work because the vendor only supports a
title browse. Some vendors support ISBN
searching via Z39.50 and many others do not.
However, Z39.50 is still a viable option— and the
best one the library community has for
Colorado Virtual Library staff include:
( left side, top to bottom) Rose Nelson, Steve Gregory,
Steve Walker, Brenda Bailey, ( right side, top to bottom)
Mary McCarthy, Carol Tagstrom and Paula Busey.
photo provided by Colorado Virtual Library
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 25
interoperability for the foreseeable future. And as
libraries encourage vendors to use standard
Z39.50 profiles such as the Bath Profile, it can
only improve.
Our most serious challenge, however, was the
timeframe. The project had languished for some
time due to staff vacancies at the Colorado State
Library. With new people joining the State
Library staff in October, November and January,
there was a steep learning curve for the OCLC
SiteSearch suite, upgrading our network
infrastructure, and designing and implementing a
new interface— all within six months. The secret
to our success was the ability to hire qualified
staff who had worked previously in integrated
local systems, document delivery and library
consortial environments, and hiring adequately
for the project. In addition to the director, there
is a full- time Unix administrator, an interface
designer, an OCLC SiteSearch programmer with
Java skills, a support and collections librarian, and
a consultant devoted to assisting libraries
throughout the state with understanding
technology and acquiring adequate Internet
connectivity. We consider ourselves lucky to have
such a large staff with rich, complementary skills
and experience.
Since the Colorado State Library is part of
the Colorado Department of Education, we
feel strongly about our role in supporting
K– 12 education, and in particular the
Educational Standards adopted by Colorado.
The children’s interface will guide students
to quality Web sites that will assist them in
completing homework assignments based on
the standards. Teachers and educators will be
able to search a curriculum database that will
allow them to identify materials for creating
assignments. These resources are being
developed with the assistance of a dedicated
group of media specialists, regional system
consultants and other interested librarians.
Another collaborative project is the Colorado
State Library’s involvement in the Colorado
Digitization Project, which is funded by a grant
from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services. Liz Bishoff, project director, is working
with libraries, museums, historical societies and
archives to identify collections within the state
for digitization and to provide public access to
these materials. The OCLC SiteSearch Database
Builder software will be used to create a union
catalog of metadata either through batchloading
of MARC, Dublin Core and other format records
into a database or through remote individual
record entry using the Record Builder component
of Database Builder. Among the collections that
will be included in the project are slides of alpine
flowers from the Denver Botanic Gardens,
dioramas from the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science, historic costumes from the Boulder
Museum of History and fossils from the Florissant
Fossil Beds.
Those of us who work intimately with the
Colorado Virtual Library think of it as a living
organism that will continue to grow and change
as the needs of Coloradans and the Colorado
library community change. Currently we are
providing weekly updates to the interface—
sometimes as subtle as adding a new library
database or as bold as a new design for a user
navigation button. More significant plans for the
future include: mounting a union catalog of
digitized Colorado historical newspapers with
article- level indexing; adding true Geographic
Information System access that lets users type in
an address or latitude/ longitude coordinates or
geographic place name to identify and display
materials about a place; and creating a thesaurus
of Colorado- specific terms that can be linked to
databases for vocabulary- assisted searching. So
what will the Colorado State Library be doing
next with OCLC SiteSearch? Virtually anything.
Visit the Colorado Virtual Library at
< http:// www. aclin. org/> or contact Brenda
Bailey at < bailey_ b@ cde. state. co. us> for more
information. More on the Colorado Digitization
Project is available on the Web site
< http:// coloradodigital. coalliance. org/>
or by contacting Liz Bishoff
< bishoffl@ concentric. net>.
— Brenda Bailey is director, Networking and
Resource Sharing, Colorado State Library.
• • •
R E S E A R C H
26 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
Dublin Core releases recommended qualifiers
to improve access to information
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative ( DCMI), an
organization leading the development of
international standards to improve electronic
resource management and information discovery,
has announced the formal recommendation of the
Dublin Core ( DC) Qualifiers. The addition of the
DC Qualifiers enhances the semantic precision of
the existing DC Metadata Element Set.
For the past year, working groups of the
Dublin Core developed these newly agreed upon
refinements to give better access to information.
The new recommendations for Dublin Core
Qualifiers increase the effectiveness of metadata
by giving it finer granularity. For example, a
publication’s date, which would be the Dublin
Core Metadata Element, may be further detailed
as a particular type of date by using a Dublin Core
Qualifier such as date last modified, date created
or date issued.
“ Think of Legos,” said Stuart Weibel, OCLC
consulting research scientist and DCMI director.
“ The close tolerances of these simple toys ensure
all the different Lego themes, built at different
times, can work together smoothly. Dublin Core
is the basic Lego block for promoting discovery of
resources on the Web: a simple and interoperable
foundation upon which many information
solutions can be built. The introduction of Dublin
Core Qualifiers is like adding color and themes to
the Legos— it helps enrich the description of
information resources on the Internet.”
The DC Qualifiers build upon the DC Metadata
Element Set, which provides 15 categories to
describe resources on the Web. Known as the
Dublin Core, the metadata model has become the
de facto standard for description of information
on the Internet.
Dublin Core’s usage committee has launched
the next step toward a cohesive metadata
standard. The DC Qualifiers improve
interpretation of metadata values and can be
easily recorded or transferred into HTML, XML,
RDF or relational databases. The evolution of DC
Qualifiers draws from the input of many
individuals across a broad array of disciplines.
Users include museum informatics specialists,
archivists, digital library researchers, libraries and
government information providers, as well as a
“ The ratification of Dublin Core Qualifiers is an
important milestone that will improve the
usefulness of Dublin Core metadata for libraries
and the greater Internet community. OCLC is
pleased to host the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
as part of its continuing commitment
to global open standards which facilitate
international knowledge access. We expect the
Dublin Core to play an important role in
bridging traditional library cataloging and Internet
resource description.”
Jay Jordan
president and CEO, OCLC
“ I’m delighted to see this important next step on
the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative’s program,
which begins to map the path between the lowest-common-
denominator unqualified elements and
the need for greater precision in many actual
applications. This is a relatively short document,
but it distills an enormous amount of thinking,
discussion and hard work by a worldwide
community concerned with metadata, and
the consensus it captures represents a
substantial accomplishment.”
Clifford Lynch
executive director, Coalition for Networked Information
Praise for DC Qualifiers from Key Leaders in Metadata:
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 27
variety of content providers. Their efforts have
led standards organizations, such as NISO
( National Information Standards Organization) in
the U. S. and CEN in Europe ( European Committee
for Standardization) to view the DC Metadata
Element Set as a benchmark candidate for simple
resource description on the Internet. More
recently, new sectors, such as education and
industry, have been attracted to Dublin Core’s
simplicity, multilingual scope, consensus
philosophy and widespread adoption.
More information about the new
recommendation can be found at:
< http:// purl. org/ dc/ documents/
dcmes- qualifiers/>.
The metadata for the Dublin Core Qualifiers
news release can be viewed at: < http:// purl. org/
dc/ pressreleases/ qualifiers20000711. htm. rdf>.
The text of the proposed national standard
NISO Z39.85: Dublin Core Metadata Element Set,
a cover memo from the Standards Committee
and are on the NISO Web site at:
< http:// www. niso. org/ Z3985. html>.
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an open
forum engaged since 1995 in the development of
interoperable online metadata standards that
support a broad range of purposes and business
models. Its primary offering, the Dublin Core
Metadata Element Set, is the de- facto worldwide
standard for the description of information
resources across disciplines and languages.
DCMI’s activities include consensus- driven
working groups, global workshops, conferences,
standards liaison and educational efforts to
promote widespread acceptance of metadata
standards and practices. Representatives from
industries worldwide are active contributors to
the DCMI; participation is open to practitioners
and theoreticians from the public, private and
not- for- profit sectors. Further information on
DCMI, the Dublin Core family of specifications
and various online metadata solutions can be
found at < http:// purl. org/ dc/>.
The 8th Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
Workshop, hosted by the National Library of
Canada and the International Federation of
Library Associations and sponsored by OCLC, the
Coalition for Networked Information, and the
National Science Foundation, will be held
October 4– 6 and will help shape the future of
metadata, implementation and evolution of the
standard. To register, visit
< http:// www. ifla. org/ udt/ dc8/ call. htm>.
• • •
“ The Dublin Core Qualifiers establish an important
precedent for the ‘ best- practice’ use of the Dublin
Core Element Set. The W3C work on the Resource
Description Framework ( RDF) anticipated from its
very beginning the need within the Dublin Core
framework to use qualifiers to represent encoding
schemes as well as vocabulary refinement. The
adoption of this set of qualifiers leads the way for
more widespread use of the Dublin Core to describe
materials on the Web in greater detail.”
Ralph R. Swick
technical director, Technology and Society Domain
World Wide Web Consortium
“ Most Dublin Core implementation projects have
always used element qualifiers. To current and
future Dublin Core users, agreement on core
qualifiers is a hallmark event which can only be
compared with completion of the 15 basic Dublin
Core Metadata Elements. Now, with both elements
and their qualifiers in place, Dublin Core is a much
more powerful and versatile tool.”
Juha Hakala
development director, Helsinki University Library
R E S E A R C H
R E S E A R C H
28 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
An abstract from the Annual Review of OCLC Research 1999:
How “ World Wide” is the Web? Trends in the
internationalization of Web sites
by Brian F. Lavoie and
Edward T. O’Neill
The Web is often
characterized as a universal
information space, in the
sense that the provison of
and access to Web content
is open to all. It is well
known, however, that the
majority of Web content
originates from a small group of English- speaking
countries, chiefly the United States. This paper
examines trends in the internationalization of
Web content, and in particular, whether the Web
is becoming increasingly globalized as it matures,
and to what segment of the world’s countries and
languages it currently extends. Sample data from
1998 and 1999 suggests that
the Web’s content is still far
from a true global cross-section,
but is slowly
expanding both in terms of
its geographical origins and
the languages in which it is
made available.
The full text of this paper
and others is available on
OCLC’s Web site < http:// www. oclc. org/
oclc/ research/ publications/ review99/>.
— Brian F. Lavoie is associate research scientist,
and Edward T. O’Neill is consulting research
scientist, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
“ Implementers of Internet search engines are
certain to welcome the most recent development of
the Dublin Core standard. In Australia, Dublin Core
is being used to support access to information
resources by governments, the museum and library
communities, and a number of projects within
academia. The approval of standard qualifiers will
be welcomed by these communities and ensure
improved interoperability in the discovery of
Internet resources.”
Warwick Cathro
assistant director- general of the National Library of Australia
“ With the general adoption and the publication of
the Dublin Core Qualifiers, Dublin Core establishes
itself as a reliable international metadata standard.
I am pleased that this consolidation process, with
its great importance for libraries, museums,
archives and many other communities,
was set in motion during the 7th Dublin Core
Workshop in Frankfurt.”
Elisabeth Niggemann
director, Die Deutsche Bibliothek
“ Melbourne IT’s clients register domain names to
move their businesses and other activities online.
Their goal of realizing the potential of the Web can
be fulfilled by Dublin Core. It delivers relevance to
the information end users seek. Today, we are well-placed
to implement the new Dublin Core standards
in our own developments and to advise our clients
as to how they can benefit from using them.”
Peter Gerrand
CEO of Melbourne IT
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 29
by Keith Shafer
While Shakespeare may
have been right about rose
fragrances, the same cannot
be said about Web- based
names. We have entered an
age where naming plays a
role in who can access and
provide services for an
object. Here we propose
that references on the Web reflect standard
library names because these names provide a
means for developing services that will better
serve libraries, library users and scholars.
Every object has at least one name, sometimes
more. We use names because we need simple
monikers for things we describe and build
services around. On the Web, we often think of a
URL as a name for the item it points to. Of
course, this is not quite true. The item can move,
invalidating the URL name, and the item
described might not exist on the Web, like a car
or old book. What has commonly been called a
name on the Web is really just a “ reference.” A
traditional reference in the paper world would
include many pieces of information about the
object in question. On the Web, it is assumed that
the complete unique identification of an item can
be accomplished in a single URL. The real name
of the object is independent of the service being
provided or any URL that might refer to some
manifestation of the object.
The idea of naming objects instead of relying
on URLs is not new. Work on Uniform Resource
Names ( URNs) as a replacement to URLs is nearly
a decade old. Many articles have been written
describing the need for digital object names, as
well as the pros and cons of naming solutions.
Interest in more natural names on the Web is
quite widespread. For instance, on March 14,
2000, Steve Ballmer, president and CEO of
Microsoft, announced Microsoft’s further
commitment to RealNames Corporation Internet
Keyword solution. This technology relates
phrases like “ ford explorer” to appropriate
URLs. This brand name to URL lookup
manifests itself today in several Internet browsers
and search engines.
The library community deals with standard
names of many different forms every day. Some
of these traditional names and services need to be
carried over to the Web to offer users and
scholars the level of service they require.
Consider a book. The book’s title is a name. It
provides a reader with a set of words to help
them identify and remember the book. We can
also say that the book’s ISBN is a name. While the
ISBN is not used to entice a potential reader or
recommend the book to a friend, it is much easier
to use than a title when building services since it
more uniquely identifies the book.
We propose that identifiers on the Web reflect
the names used before the Web came into being.
This would allow many of the traditional library
services to be provided along with many new
services. In essence, we suggest that the name is
not a URL or URN or URL- like link. The real name
of the object is somehow unique in the physical
world and the Web. The name should be part of a
URL that designates a service request. For
instance, if the name for a book is the ISBN, a
standard reference could look something like:
http:// names. oclc. org/ isbn/ ISBN- NUMBER
Since this is a simple URL, the resulting
reference might be a display with the book’s title
and a list of available services. We could even
make specific services, like a title/ author display
available as links:
http:// names. oclc. org/ isbn/ title- author/
ISBN- NUMBER
Many services become possible because of the
fact that the ISBN is a known standard supported
by many systems with additional metadata. If,
however, the reference for a given book is just an
arbitrary URL or private identifier, these enhanced
services become very difficult, if not impossible
to provide.
As an example of third- party services and the
power of open naming, we are researching
prototype name services using ISBNs and
metadata we can access. These services show
that naming on the Web can reflect standard
names from pre- Web days. They also show that
third- party services do not have to be complex for
Web- based name services can improve
access to resources
“ What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet.”
R E S E A R C H
30 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
end users to benefit from them. For instance, the
following two live references in our prototype
use ISBNs as suggested above:
http:// names. oclc. org/ isbn/ 0- 590- 33314- 3
http:// names. oclc. org/ isbn/ title- author/
0- 517- 01505- 6
[ The URLs listed above also work replacing
“ names. oclc. org” with “ purl. org,” e. g.,
http:// purl. org/ isbn/ 0- 590- 33314- 3. The PURL
versions provide a means of accessing and using
the name services without putting “ oclc” in the
machine name. Long term, having a “ names”-
branded machine will make it easier for end users
to remember and use name services.]
There are over 8,225,500 ISBNs in WorldCat
already. That is a large member investment in
standard naming. Several other values in
WorldCat could also be used as names such as
LCCN, ISSN, CODEN, GDN and MPN. The breadth
of these is outstanding. Articles in the OCLC
FirstSearch service already use SICIs and standard
names as well. All these names should be carried
over to the Web and used to build name services.
You can follow our Open Name Services research
on the Web < http:// names. oclc. org/>, where
various name services will be demonstrated.
The idea of building name services does not
address the issues of access and rights. The fact
that the names are well known does not imply
that all services on the names will be free.
Services may be restricted, as in the case of
document delivery. However, standard references
would help make these services more robust.
If references contain the standard name, sites
receiving requests that they cannot fulfill can
take the standard name in the request and put
new links on the resulting page to jump- start
the user elsewhere. One such link might be
something like:
http:// names. oclc. org/ NAME- TYPE/ NAME
Hopefully, the default name service for this
name would then help the user find an
appropriate copy or at least provide enough
metadata for the user to inquire further from their
information provider. The default service might
even help the user properly authenticate
themselves with the site that could not fulfill the
original request— or provide a hidden
id/ password automatically for them.
The idea of default services and services that
help users after unsuccessful access attempts
takes on increased importance in light of some
recent developments elsewhere. The publishing
community recently announced an initiative to
ensure that article references can be resolved to
the original publisher so the article can be
retrieved. This is a wonderful step toward better
scholarly research on the Web. Hopefully, this
will result in quicker access to the articles and
wider dissemination of the materials. However,
this effort has several important implications for
OCLC members.
OCLC members require multiple suppliers
for many resources. They do not want to be put
in a situation where there is only one supplier
for the information and services their users
require. As a simple example of why a single
source is not sufficient, imagine that a consortium
has reached an agreement with a publisher to
host a copy of the journals for a given period at
the consortium headquarters. When a reference
is seen by a user from the participating
institutions, the consortium would want the
article retrieved from the local copy, not the
remote supplier. Simple resolution back to the
original supplier may not sufficiently address this
appropriate- copy problem.
One possible solution to the appropriate- copy
problem would be for third- party services to act
as resolvers for standard references. These
services could take the requested reference,
match it against complex profiles based on IP
addresses, id/ passwords, and administrative and
resource metadata to pick the appropriate copy
for the user. The reference and the metadata
needed to determine which copy to retrieve need
not be ( and probably would not be) bound
together. We do not believe that each information
provider or naming service is going to want to
deal with all this complexity. It is therefore likely
that name services will have to be provided by
parties other than the original content providers.
Also, users will need help should they come
across a reference to a site they cannot access.
The appropriate- copy problem will have many
solutions. For instance, recent developments
show that SFX could be used to customize local
solutions. SFX is a system for dynamically
determining related items for a given object and a
known set of possible target data sources. SFX
was developed by Herbert Van de Sompel, head of
Library Automation, University of Ghent, and
recently acquired by Ex Libris. More information
is available on the Web about SFX
< http:// www. sfxit. com/> and the acquisition
< http:// www. exlibris- usa. com/
news1. asp? categoryId= 58& admin=>). We are
currently researching ways to make OCLC
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 31
products SFX- aware. We have also begun work to
better understand and relate Open Name Services
and SFX.
We believe that many services should be built
using names that the library community already
uses, like ISBNs. It is interesting to note that
many of the items for which ISBNs have been
assigned are not available on the Web. That does
not diminish the importance of these names and
services. The names can still be used on the Web
if appropriate services are built around them,
such as purchasing, cataloging, referencing and
lending. While we have focused on ISBN
examples in this article, similar arguments can be
made about ISSNs, SICIs and other unique
identifiers in the library and publishing worlds.
It does not take too much effort to think of many
potential services once well- known names are
applied to objects. Technology is not the limiting
factor. We need groups like the OCLC members
and publishers to agree on open names. We need
organizations to step forward and commit to
services based on the names. The library
community should then promote the use of these
names and services.— Keith Shafer is consulting
research scientist, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
Karen Drabenstott is visiting scholar
Karen M. Drabenstott, associate professor,
University of Michigan, has been named
OCLC Visiting Distinguished Scholar for a seven-month
term.
The Visiting Distinguished Scholar program is
sponsored by the OCLC Office of Research to
bring experienced scientists, educators and
administrators to OCLC.
Dr. Drabenstott will design and develop a
Web- based multimedia presentation to teach
those without prior training how to use the
Dewey Decimal Classification system to classify
Web artifacts.
Since 1987, Dr. Drabenstott has been a
member of the faculty of the University of
Michigan, School of Information, where she has
taught courses in the areas of bibliographic
control, library automation, online searching and
multimedia production. She has conducted
research in the areas of subject access,
classification, search strategies, digital libraries
and visual images.
From 1981 to 1987, Dr. Drabenstott was
a research scientist in the Office of Research
at OCLC.
Dr. Drabenstott is the author of four books and
over 100 research reports, journal articles and
conference papers. She has been awarded
research grants from the Council of Library
Resources, the Department of Education, the
National Science Foundation and OCLC.
The American Library Association has
recognized Dr. Drabenstott’s contributions to the
field by awarding her the first Frederick G.
Kilgour Award for Research in Library and
Information Technology in 1998 and the Esther J.
Piercy Award in 1988.
In addition, Dr. Drabenstott and co- authors,
Schelle Simcox and Eileen Fenton, have been
chosen as recipients of the 2000 Jesse H. Shera
Award for Distinguished Published Research.
Their article,“ End- User Understanding of Subject
Headings in Library Catalogs,” was published in
Library Resources and Technical Services in July
1999. Research for this project was supported by
a grant awarded through the OCLC/ ALISE Library
and Information Science Research Grant program.
Dr. Drabenstott received a bachelor of arts
degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a
master of library science degree and a doctoral
degree in library and information science, both
from Syracuse University.
Highlights of Dr. Drabenstott’s seminar are
available on the OCLC Web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ research/ publications/
review99/ drabenstott/ multimedia_ ddc. htm>.
• • •
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
32 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
Libraries increase
Net Value with CORC
by Gary Houk
In September 1997,
research scientists in the
OCLC Office of Research
began a process that has
culminated in the
development of a 21st
century version of Frederick
G. Kilgour��s vision for a tool
to support libraries in their
mission to build a cooperative, shared catalog. In
January 1999, an international collection of
pioneering libraries boldly went where no
libraries had gone before, partnering with OCLC
to develop a new system for managing electronic
resources with a deadline of July 1, 2000.
The OCLC Cooperative Online Resource
Catalog ( CORC) is one of the most ambitious
projects ever undertaken at OCLC. It has
involved hundreds of library staff, dozens of
OCLC staff dedicated to the project, and
countless others both at OCLC and at the OCLC
networks and service centers. It has truly been a
cooperative effort and one that exemplifies
OCLC’s Principles of Cooperation.
Libraries and OCLC face challenges as we strive
to give definition and shape to the Digital Age.
The 44 million records in WorldCat are a
repository of collectively produced metadata
representing the collections of 37,000 libraries in
76 countries and territories. I am confident that
CORC will give library staff tools to redefine the
boundaries of resource description and to build
services that make their libraries the portal of
choice for their users’ access to the digital
information environment.— Gary Houk is vice
president, OCLC Services.
• • •
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 33
CORC: Build locally, share globally
by Taylor Surface
CORC is a new venture for
OCLC, based on the values
that have built OCLC’s core
resource, WorldCat.
Librarians built WorldCat
over the last three decades
using OCLC tools and their
commitment to automate
repetitive manual processes.
With the computerization of these processes
well- established and standardized, CORC is the
vehicle to once again capture the interest and
energy of a new generation of pioneering
librarians worldwide.
The technological infrastructure is the
backbone of the CORC service, but it is library
cooperation that will make CORC sustainable and
successful. With CORC, OCLC seeks to extend
this natural cooperation in the bibliographic
descriptions of library materials among libraries
to include Web- based resources. Large- scale
cooperation like this provides many benefits for
each library. CORC allows librarians to work
together to create resource descriptions of digital
materials that fit local needs, leveraging a proven
model to minimize duplication of effort and
maximize knowledge sharing among libraries
around the world.
Since its launch, the CORC project has relied
on the valuable input of librarians who have been
working to provide access to Web- based
information resources in real- life situations. The
open communications environment during the
CORC project has provided librarians and OCLC
an accelerated path for working in “ Web time.”
CORC participants have responded to the
opportunity by guiding the path of CORC
development to meet their library’s needs. CORC
participants have made a difference.
We are creating a bridge from the past to the
exciting future of cataloging. OCLC sees CORC
as the first step toward reinventing our core
service to libraries in the new age of digital,
networked information. The integration of CORC
and WorldCat will create a rich, robust database
shared on a global scale, making each library’s
unique material available to library users
worldwide. CORC has captured the hearts and
minds of participants because of three key
ingredients: librarians, cooperation and
technology. The spirit of cooperation embodied
by the CORC project will continue to be integral
to the success of OCLC and the libraries it
serves.— Taylor Surface is CORC program
director, OCLC
• • •
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
34 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
CORC awareness grows on Web
by Alane Wilson
January 1999 was an
eventful month for OCLC:
the merger with WLN was
complete, the 40 millionth
record was entered into
WorldCat, a Users’ Council
meeting had to be
cancelled for the first
time due to inclement
weather, and CORC was officially launched as
a research project.
Not much more than one year ago, the OCLC
Newsletter featured “ The CORC Project” in the
May/ June 1999 issue, introducing CORC in depth
to OCLC members.
In the brief time since the inception of the
Founders’ Phase, participation in CORC has
steadily increased, not only in the number and
type of libraries, but also in geographic location.
OCLC has regularly communicated CORC news
to its members and beyond.
To get some sense of the volume of
information about CORC ‘ out there’ on the
Web, OCLC staff members made searches on
several of the standard Web search engines in
May. The results, not surprisingly, varied wildly
( reminding us once again why CORC is valuable
for refined searches) from about 190 on HotBot,
to 28,787,998 on InfoSeek. Staff looked at the
more than 2,700 results from Google in some
detail, while the results from other search engines
were scanned.
Many interesting items were uncovered, but
space permits only the mention of a few.
· Library schools are beginning to incorporate
CORC into courses, requiring students to
use CORC in assignments. Of those library
schools posting curricula to the public Web,
there appear to be at least seven schools
that have expanded traditional cataloging
courses to include the Dublin Core metadata
elements and the cataloging of Internet and
electronic resources into the basic education
of future librarians.
· Job requirements for catalogers are beginning
to include as requirements or qualifications
knowledge of or participation in CORC, among
other metadata initiatives. Conversely, resumes
accessible from individuals’ home pages
mention knowledge of CORC as a skill. The
OCLC Institute has collected several examples
of job postings requiring new skill sets at
< http:// www. oclc. org/ institute/
career/ career. htm/>.
· Several comparisons of CORC to “ regular”
OCLC cataloging have been posted to the Web
by Founders’ Phase participants, and at least
one comparison of CORC to a Web search
engine has been done and made available to
anyone browsing the Web.
While the staff found that many search engine
hits were for OCLC Web pages, or pointed to an
OCLC site, there were several hundred
independently posted CORC- related Web pages
and sites. This suggests CORC is meeting a need,
that it represents a fresh approach to descriptive
metadata, and that even in its prerelease phase it
has generated much interest in the service.
In a lighter vein, there are a lot of other CORCs
in the world: Canberra Ocean Racing Club,
Confederation of Roofing Contractors, Coalition
of Religious Communities, City of Oxford Rowing
Club, Central Okanagan Railway Club— there’s
even a CORC NASDAQ symbol. Contemplating
baby names? The Society of Kabalarians of
Canada maintains a Web site on names
( http:// www. kabalarians. com/) and has this to
say about “ Corc”: Corc has a natural interest in
the welfare of humanity and a desire to help and
serve others in a humanitarian way. Corc is
responsible and generous. Corc enjoys making
others happy.
The newest member of OCLC’s product family
seems to be well- named.— Alane Wilson is
senior marketing analyst, OCLC Services.
• • ��
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 35
Organizing state government Web resources:
A CORC pilot project
“ The test of a first- rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind
at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
by Julie Schwartz and Stephen Slovasky
If we accept Fitzgerald’s premise, then every
Internet user must necessarily be a candidate for
the Genius Award. For how often has one’s
search of a commercial Web engine led to not
one, nor even two, but a myriad of opposing
ideas, enough to disable the functionality of this
or any planet’s highest intelligence? The situation
is familiar: you have identified your information
need, and you know that the information you
want is out there somewhere, but it can take
hours to discover it. Even then, the information’s
reliability is frequently suspicious. It happens to
you, and it happens to those of us at the state
library whose business it is to provide state
government information that is straightforwardly
organized and coherently accessible.
Libraries have been exercising their traditional
roles as evaluators, selectors and organizers of
information on the Web since its inception. Since
January of 1999, they have been assisted by a new
set of tools developed by OCLC. Instead of
searching through hundreds or thousands of hits
retrieved by a search engine, or even dozens of
hits evaluated by a commercial directory service
such as Yahoo, we can now search a database of
Web sites evaluated and selected by Web clicks-and-
mortarists in libraries throughout the world.
Moreover, these sites have been cataloged as well,
and are retrievable using the same specific
searches as in a library catalog: author, title,
subject, keyword and other fields.
CORC at the State Library— Why?
The Connecticut State Library is responsible,
under the Connecticut General Statutes, for
providing Connecticut’s citizens with access to
state government information. Although the
library has been collecting and cataloging the
printed reports of Connecticut government for
close to 200 years, a new set of tools is required
for describing and retrieving Web publications. It
was important that any records we created to
describe Web publications could be incorporated
into our online catalog.
CORC at the State Library— What?
OCLC’s CORC is a collaborative venture of
libraries around the world that are retrieving and
describing outstanding Internet resources. By
applying traditional library skills using new
electronic means, these libraries are collectively
improving access to and retrievability of Internet
resources in ways not feasible with commercial
search engines.
In the first step, a collection development
librarian carefully selects quality resources in
the subject. Then OCLC CORC software is used
to �� harvest” these selected Web sites, generating
key metadata descriptors from information
contained in the electronic document. Another
librarian reviews and edits these automatically
assigned descriptors. Last, a cataloger adds
subject headings, authorizes name headings and
performs further bibliographic editing.
OCLC has also developed software to
streamline the creation of Pathfinders. Without
knowing HTML, a librarian can quickly create
annotated guides that describe both Web
resources and items physically held by the library.
Most CORC resources are described using the
Dublin Core metadata set. Dublin Core is a 15-
element set of data descriptors—�� MARC Lite.”
One of the key benefits to using CORC is that
records created in Dublin Core can be expanded
to MARC records and transferred to the library’s
online catalog. Because many of the elements
can be assigned automatically by OCLC’s
software, it streamlines creation of descriptive
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
36 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
records for Web resources. There is, for example,
a Descriptor field used in the traditional role
of an annotation. This Descriptor element
can greatly enhance the chances of a Web
site being retrieved.
CORC at the State Library— How?
We have recently completed a pilot project in
which we created Dublin Core records for about
250 Web resources, primarily those produced by
Connecticut state agencies. From these and other
CORC- created records, we designed seven
Pathfinders on public policy topics ( campaign
finance reform, school readiness, asthma in
children, etc.).
The Pathfinders we created with
CORC feature:
· Embedded subject searches of our online
catalog
· The presentation of Web documents and links
to catalog records in the same interface
· Hard- to- find statistical data on a topic in one
place, whether federal or state, Web or
hardcopy
By choosing to use OCLC��s CORC service,
we made the Web publications we cataloged
accessible in a database that contains only
materials selected by libraries and that has all the
specific searching capabilities of the library
catalog. This enhances its usefulness far beyond
that of a search engine. We also left open the
door to the possibility of exporting these records
into our online catalog. For the immediate
future, CORC and the Dublin Core metadata set
will not supplant the MARC- based OCLC
WorldCat database— far faster and more reliable
Internet connections in our libraries must come
first. In the meantime, the “ production” version
of CORC will provide libraries with a window
looking out upon the descriptive cataloging
environment of the future.
More information about the CSL pilot project is
available on the Web at < http:// www. cslib. org/
pathfinders/ corc. htm>.
Julie Schwartz heads the Government
Information Unit, and Stephen Slovasky heads
the Bibliographic Information Unit at the
Connecticut State Library.
• • •
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 37
WebDewey in CORC available
by Suzanne Butte
The WebDewey service in
CORC, which provides
Web- based access to an
enhanced version of the
full Dewey Decimal
Classification system
database, is now available
by annual subscription to
OCLC full cataloging
members and partial users.
A WebDewey subscription contains
every update to the classification that
has been made since the publication of
DDC 21 in 1996, including the new and
changed entries from the Dewey Web
site < http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/>. The
database ( updated quarterly) includes
thousands of Relative Index terms
and built numbers not available in
the print DDC.
A clicks and mortar feature of the WebDewey
service in CORC is its inclusion of selected
Library of Congress subject headings linked to
the LC authority files. Library of Congress subject
headings have been intellectually mapped to
Dewey numbers by the DDC editors and
statistically mapped to Dewey numbers using
records in WorldCat.
“ Working on WebDewey in CORC has provided
a welcome opportunity for OCLC researchers to
continue to pursue our long- standing interest in
The WebDewey in CORC Search Screen
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
38 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
classification practice and
theory,” said Diane Vizine- Goetz,
research scientist, OCLC Office
of Research. “ A great deal of
progress has been made in the
area of enhancing links between
the DDC and other thesauri,
particularly linking subject heading
systems like Library of Congress Subject Headings
( regular LCSH and LC Children’s headings) with
the DDC for the purpose of expanding the
vocabulary and terminology associated with DDC
classes. WebDewey in CORC includes over
100,000 such links.”
The WebDewey service in CORC incorporates
an easy- to- use, browser- based interface that allows
users to search the DDC ( and related
terminology) efficiently and navigate intuitively.
Complete hierarchies and notes are displayed
for each record. The service also contains an
automatic classification tool to generate candidate
DDC numbers during record creation.
A charter annual subscription price, for
unlimited users at one site, is available to OCLC
full cataloging members and partial users through
Sept. 30. Orders can be submitted via the Dewey
Web site < http:// www. oclc. org/ fp/>.
— Suzanne Butte is library services consultant,
OCLC.
• • •
A WebDewey record
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 39
Libraries and OCLC team to build CORC
by Alane Wilson
The CORC project began just over two years ago
in the OCLC Office of Research as a project to
explore the development of a service to help
libraries efficiently describe Web- accessible
resources. However, the groundwork was laid
several years earlier by OCLC research scientists
undertaking various, seemingly unrelated,
research projects. In late 1997, after a series of
meetings, research staff agreed that these projects
should converge. By early 1998, research staff
found that in addressing a contemporary issue
( cataloging electronic resources) they were, in
fact, returning to OCLC’s roots— cooperative
resource description— some 30 years after
Frederick G. Kilgour had started it all.
Development of the first CORC system
prototype began in earnest in November 1998.
By January 1999, a call for participation was
issued to libraries worldwide, and CORC was
made available to interested institutions. Because
of the enthusiasm and interest of early
participating librarians, OCLC shifted the focus of
CORC from a time- limited research project
toward development of a sustainable, ongoing
service for libraries. These “ Founders’ Phase”
institutions were to participate in an
unprecedented event: OCLC and users partnering
in the preproduction phase of a new service.
CORC would be developed with hundreds of
people using the service daily for real tasks.
OCLC decided to use Rapid Application
Development ( RAD) methodology for the project
because it is a user- driven process that can
incorporate rapid change and complies with
accepted standards both at OCLC and externally.
RAD has been widely used for software
development since the mid- 1990s. While the
hallmarks of RAD are those of software
development in general, what distinguishes RAD
is the reliance on small teams and the use of
evolutionary prototypes and very short
timeframes. RAD production is optimal when a
team of users and developers can communicate
effectively and work quickly without
backtracking. Unlike the more traditional
software development lifecycles, requirements
may evolve as the system develops, based on
input from the participating users and as the
usability of the emerging software is judged by
users. A big benefit for CORC was RAD’s ability
to avoid a development cycle that can take so
long that the environment in which the new
software is to be used has fundamentally changed
by the time the system is ready for use.
At OCLC, the management process for this
project has also been a departure from previous
practice. The CORC Project Team has staff from
all areas of OCLC, pulled together for the duration
of the project, not just organizationally, but
physically as well. To facilitate the give- and- take
necessary, staff have worked in close proximity
for a year. The 35 or so OCLC staff comprising
the CORC Project Team were brought together
from 10 different divisions and units within
OCLC to make CORC a reality. Headed by
Taylor Surface, CORC program director, the
larger team is divided into three sub- teams led
by Lynn Kellar, Sharon Bosarge and Rick Bean.
The teams have accomplished a great deal in a
short period of time.
The User System Definition and Creation Team,
led by Lynn Kellar, was responsible for high- level
requirements, developing and documenting the
design and code, implementation plans, design
and testing of changes to OCLC billing and other
administrative systems, and the test environment.
The developers, systems analysts, scientists and
product clicks and mortarists on this team used a
variety of software tools to build CORC. Many
were the result of research conducted by OCLC.
The Marketing and Sales Team, led at the
beginning of the project by Shirley Hyatt and
now Sharon Bosarge, is responsible for writing
business plans for CORC, recruiting participants
through promotions, presentations, direct
mailings and articles about CORC, and
coordinating CORC activities with OCLC- affiliated
U. S. regional networks, service centers and OCLC
Library Services staff. Additionally, this team has
by Alane Wilson
OCLC introduced the Cooperative Online
Resource Catalog with a bang at ALA Annual
2000. Of particular interest was an encore of the
very popular CORC Panel Discussion. At this
conference, three distinguished librarians
explained how they have been using CORC
during the Founders’ Phase.
Sharon Bosarge, manager, OCLC CORC Team,
started the meeting with an overview of CORC.
“ CORC is optimized to help libraries select and
describe local and Web- based electronic
resources. It is a complement to OCLC’s current
Cataloging service designed for cataloging
traditional materials,” said Ms. Bosarge. “ Because
of the exciting possibilities opened by the Web as
a development platform, we believe that CORC
represents the foundation of the future of OCLC’s
technical services offerings.”
Rebecca Routh, electronic resources/
monographic cataloger, Northwestern University
Libraries ( Illinois), discussed how Northwestern
has used CORC to catalog a significant portion of
the Edward S. Curtis The North American Indian
collection. This valuable collection is one of the
American Memory Project collections, funded in
part by a Library of Congress/ Ameritech grant,
and will be accessible later this year on the
American Memory Project Web site.
The Curtis collection documents what he and
other white photographers saw as a vanishing
North American Indian culture. In the early years
of the 20th century, Mr. Curtis made some 2,200
photogravure plates while visiting several
different tribal cultures west of the Mississippi.
For the collection, Northwestern cataloged just
over 700 image records and 20 volume records
associated with 1,500 images, all in Dublin Core,
between April 1999 and February 2000. A
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
40 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
coordinated the Founders’ Phase participants���
advisory meetings.
The Post Sales Customer Care Team, led by
Rick Bean, is responsible for writing the high- level
requirements for the order processing system;
coordinating, planning and performing
participant training sessions; preparing
documentation, providing preproduction users
with product support; and preparing the
networks and service centers for their roles in
providing front- line support and training.
In addition to the official members of the
CORC Project Team, other staff members within
OCLC and at networks and service centers have
assisted with training library staff in the
participating libraries. Staff from the Office of
Research, OCLC RetroCon services and the OCLC
TechPro service have conducted some 400
training sessions for 360 libraries since Jan. 15,
1999. Countless others from many areas in OCLC
have helped the team achieve their goal of
delivering CORC as a production service by July.
When CORC began as a research project in
January 1999, OCLC’s goal was to interest 100
libraries in participating in the project. By
January 2000, about 290 institutions had joined
the Founders’ Phase, and by mid- June 2000, that
number had grown to nearly 500. The CORC
project has leveraged the cooperative capabilities
not only of library staff working in many different
types of libraries, but also those of OCLC staff in
many areas of the organization.— Alane Wilson
is senior marketing analyst, OCLC Services.
• • •
Panelists discuss CORC at ALA Annual
Participants in the July 12 CORC User Meeting at the Chicago Public Library’s Harold
Washington Center gathered for a photo.
John Reilly Photography
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000 41
collection- level record will be added to
Northwestern’s OPAC to lead the
searcher to the collection, once it is
accessible on the American Memory
Project site.
In addition, Northwestern created
CORC Pathfinders, organized by the
geographic region of the peoples
represented, thus allowing searchers to
access related images easily. The URLs
for the pathfinders have been exported
as dynamic links to the Northwestern
Web site.
The next phase of the project,
according to Ms. Routh, will expand
CORC usage on her campus to
departmental libraries. They will work
on data export in Dublin Core RDF to
the Library of Congress and eventually
test the export of CORC records in
MARC to Northwestern’s Voyager library
management system.
Ms. Routh particularly liked CORC’s constant
data, automated creation of provisional records,
workflow statuses, WebDewey, linked authorities,
and the Pathfinder features. She also highlighted
some intangible benefits from her participation in
the CORC Founders’ Phase, all focused on
increased cooperation and sharing: interaction
with other Founders’ Phase participants,
consultation with external partners, consortial
cooperation, interdivisional cooperation within
the library, and last but definitely not least,
increased respect for catalogers and the work
they do. More on Northwestern University and
its use of CORC is available on the Web
< http:// staffweb. library. nwu. edu/ catalog/ corc/>.
D. Alwyn Owen, assistant librarian, Department
of Printed Books, National Library of Wales,
described the use of CORC at the NLW ( Llyfrgell
Genedlaethol Cymru) located at Aberystwyth.
Established by Royal Charter in 1907, it is one of
six Copyright Libraries in the United Kingdom.
As a Copyright ( Legal Deposit) Library it has the
right to claim any work— books, periodicals,
newspapers, music or maps— published in print
in the United Kingdom.
Prior to NLW’s participation in CORC,
obstacles to cataloging online, Web- based
C L I C K S A N D M O R T A R
42 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2000
resources were the lack of resources and
knowledge, the inability of NLW’s system to
handle the 856 MARC field, and the absence of a
graphical user interface.
To prepare for the cataloging of Web- based
resources, the NLW looked at other libraries’
practices and then defined their own “ Online
Collections Cataloguing Policy.” According to Mr.
Owen, this, along with the implementation of a
GEAC Geos2 ILS in 1999, allowed the National
Library of Wales to become a CORC Founders’
Phase participant in April 1999. CORC met needs
that the NLW had identified, including having a
Web harvester feature and software conversion
from USMARC to Dublin Core HTML and RDF.
Other CORC advantages identified by Mr.
Owen were excellent support from OCLC staff,
very good online help, easy links to other
cataloging aids, and useful discussions among
Founders’ Phase participants and CORC staff.
Like Ms. Routh, Mr. Owen identified the less
concrete benefits of CORC as being a good sense
of community, the opportunity to participate in
leading- edge development, and contributing to a
global, high- quality resource catalog.
Mr. Owen claimed it was difficult to think of
any disadvantages of CORC. ��� Compared to
what?” he asked.
The National Library of Wales Web site
< http:// www. llgc. org. uk/> is bilingual, featuring
both English and Welsh.
Jill Thomas followed with a presentation on
Boston College’s participation in the CORC
Founders’ Phase. She began by listing CORC
advantages for the audience.
“ CORC gives access to organized, relevant
electronic resources, supports cataloging in
Dublin Core, allows data harvesting, and provides
automatic link maintenance,” said Ms. Thomas.
Like the National Library of Wales, the
May/ June 2000 implementation of a new ILS at
Boston College Libraries meant that resource
description of Web- based materials could enrich
the local online catalog. The ALEPH 500 system
from ExLibris has a customizable Web- based
interface for searching the catalog and other
electronic resources.
Ms. Thomas said that CORC work was split
among four catalogers, which allowed them all to
acquire hands- on experience with emerging
cataloging tools and build the next- generation
union catalog in partnership with other libraries.
She gave two examples of the kinds of resource
description done during the Boston College’s
Founder’ Phase participation. One record was for
a Web- mounted database of Irish serials in the
Boston College Libraries cataloged in MARC. The
second was a Dublin Core record for a music CD.
In the future at Boston College, CORC will
be used to catalog Boston College’s own
intellectual property in MARC format, as well as
all Web- site catalog requests from bibliographers
and faculty, and research guides created by staff
bibliographers. Dublin Core and CORC will
be used to experiment with cataloging backlog
projects, archival finding aids a
