O C L C
N E W S L E T T E R
J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 1 I S S N : 0 1 6 3 - 8 9 8 X N O . 2 5 2
July/ August 2001 No. 252
Editor in chief:
Nita Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nita_ dean@ oclc. org
Editor:
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Assistant Editors:
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Christopher Barton . . . . . . . . . . . . . bartonc@ oclc. org
Editorial Assistant:
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Cover Design: Linda Shepard
Art Production: Tammy Miller, Rick Limes
Desktop Publishing: Lithokraft II
All photos taken by Tammy Miller or Rich Skopin
unless otherwise noted.
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Correspondents:
Linda Arnold
Rhonda Barry
Christopher Barton
Bob Bolander
Robin Buser
Sandy McIntyre Colby
Kay Covert
Sharon Domier
Martin Kalfatovic
Laura Kreis
Evelyn Kuo
Lorraine Normore
Alice Sneary
Bradley Watson
Alane Wilson
C O N T E N T S
Membership News
OCLC users council votes to add delegates, change name
Allegheny College enters 47 millionth record in WorldCat
OCLC Statistics
Evergreen State makes 108 millionth ILL request
Alternative Press Center becomes OCLC member
University of Göttingen library becomes ILL supplier
OCLC President’s Luncheon celebrates 30 years of WorldCat
OCLC selects Oracle for new technology platform
Collaborative Digital Reference Service pilot project surpasses
100 participants
Virtual reference service coming to Indiana libraries
Florida State and Syracuse conducting digital reference study
Marcia Bates is 2001 Frederick G. Kilgour Award winner
Lynn Wiley is Virginia Boucher– OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian
Brian Schottlaender receives Margaret Mann Citation
Marisa Duarte named LITA/ OCLC Minority Scholarship recipient for 2001
Herman Totten receives the 2001 Melvil Dewey Medal
Norman Horrocks named John Ames Humphry/ OCLC Forest Press
Award winner
The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s contributions of records and
authorities benefit other OCLC libraries
OCLC Users’ Group in Mexico holds second meeting
Moore Theological College speeds materials to readers with OCLC Cataloging
Advisory committee focuses on workflow
Public, special, academic and research library advisory committees meet,
advise OCLC
Type- of- library advisory committee members 2000/ 01
“ Webinar” demonstrates ILLiad for large audience
OCLC CJK Users Group elects officers in Chicago
OCLC Anniversaries
Two appointed to Dewey Editorial Policy Committee
CURL partners with OCLC in collection analysis pilot project
ebrary announces membership in OCLC, addition of online collection
to WorldCat
Research
Russian scholar studies at OCLC
Christine Borgman discusses information infrastructure
Tim Bray discusses searching the web
OCLC seeks applicants for research grants
Pathfinders
Pathfinders update
Pathfinders: A collaborative reference tool
OCLC divisions pave way to accessing information through Pathfinders
Cataloging and reference staff use Pathfinders to improve access
Product News
Copyright, technology can add challenges to accessing online full text
Full- text ATLAS database now available on FirstSearch
How Kellogg Community College uses OCLC PromptCat
OCLC to wind down SiteSearch development
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MOVING WORLDCAT TO A NEW
TECHNOLOGICAL PLATFORM,
A NEW PHILOSOPHY
F R O M J A Y J O R D A N
W e recently took an important step
in our strategy to evolve WorldCat
beyond bibliography into a globally
networked, web- based information resource.
On July 16, we announced that we will use
Oracle database technology to power the
next generation of WorldCat. The decision
was both technological and philosophical.
Technologically, we are moving from
proprietary software to commercially
available, off- the- shelf software.
The new relational database management
system will enable WorldCat users to access
abstracts, full text, images and sound files as
well as bibliographic and location inform-ation.
The new database system will support
UNICODE as well as IFLA standards for
bibliographic records. We expect that it
will reduce operating costs and the time
it takes to develop new applications and
services.
Philosophically, we are perhaps taking
an even bigger step. We have built and
maintained WorldCat for over 30 years on
our own proprietary system. This system has
obviously served the membership well these
past 30 years, enabling WorldCat to grow to
47 million records in 434 languages and 800
million location listings. I would like to take
this opportunity to commend and thank the
OCLC staff, who, over the years, have
developed and maintained the database
structure for WorldCat. I am also pleased to
note that these same staff members who have
invested their careers in the care and tending
of WorldCat enthusiastically support this
move to new technology. They agree that our
new technological approach is the right thing
to do.
Going outside for the next generation of
WorldCat also signals that we are looking for
new ways of doing things. We must become
faster and more agile in the web world. That
means looking to outside solutions when they
make economic and technological sense. We
will continue to seek new technologies and
new alliances as we pursue our public
purposes of furthering access to the world’s
information and reducing library costs.
We will implement the Oracle database
technology in phases, starting in late 2001.
I will keep you posted on our progress.
Jay Jordan
President and Chief Executive Officer
OCLC
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
4 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
The OCLC Users Council unanimously ratified
changes to the OCLC Articles of Incorporation
and Code of Regulations recommended by the
OCLC Board of Trustees following a yearlong
study of strategic directions and governance.
Under new bylaws adopted May 21, Users
Council changed its name to Members Council
and added six new delegates from outside the
United States to better define its role in strategic
planning and extend global representation.
Action came May 20– 22 during the third and
final meeting of the 2000/ 01 Users Council with
the dual themes of “ The Library as a Virtual Place”
and “ OCLC Strategic Directions and Governance
Study.”
The OCLC Board of Trustees retained the
Arthur D. Little consulting firm in January 2000
to conduct an independent study of OCLC’s
strategic directions and related issues of gover-nance.
An advisory council of distinguished
librarians and other leaders in the information
professions and academe interacted with the
consultant and prepared recommendations. The
Users Council spent a great deal of time during its
2000/ 01 meetings discussing these issues before
the May vote.
In addition to changing its name, council
bylaws were amended to read that the “ Members
Council shall advise the Board of Trustees and
OCLC management of emerging, critical issues
that require OCLC tracking, planning or other
responses so that OCLC’s own strategic planning
is informed by this input.”
Council voted to add delegates from the
Netherlands, Japan, South Africa, France, Mexico
and China to serve for the next three years while
a group of representatives from council, the
Board of Trustees, regional networks and service
centers continue work on a new algorithm to
help define new standards for membership and
council representation.
“ These changes represent a reinvigorated coun-cil
that has the opportunity to advise OCLC on
the needs of members early and often, upstream
as far as is practical, and to have a significant
impact on the directions OCLC takes in the next
few years,” said Larry Alford, OCLC Users Council
president and deputy university librarian, Davis
Library, University of North Carolina– Chapel Hill.
Featured speaker Sarah Thomas, Carl A. Kroch
University Librarian, Cornell University, addressed
the May meeting topic,“ Partnerships in Creating
the Library Portal,” with her presentation,“ OCLC’s
Metadata Strategy and the Catalog as Portal to the
Internet.”
Dr. Thomas said libraries are still very popular
on college campuses, but changing expectations
in information access and delivery mean that
libraries should work with other types of informa-tion
providers and partners to keep pace with the
current environment. She said OCLC’s plan to
extend WorldCat— from a single database cover-ing
eight formats to an international network of
metadata repositories connected with a variety of
fulfillment options— is on the right track.
“ There is an incredible convergence in the way
I’ve been thinking and what OCLC is doing, only
OCLC is doing it much more concretely and sys-tematically,”
said Dr. Thomas.
“ People want to be able to do a single search
across files, retrieving a variety of materials
and, of course, find what they’re looking for,”
Dr. Thomas said. “ We want to be able to take fea-tures
that we see manifested so well in the more
successful Internet services and combine those
with the core values and the excellence we bring
to libraries.”
OCLC users council votes to add delegates,
change name
At the May meeting, Larry Alford ( left), outgoing Users Council
president, passed the gavel to Jerry Stephens, who will serve as
the first president of the OCLC Members Council.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 5
During the previous Users Council meeting in
February, interest groups discussed in detail plans
to extend the OCLC cooperative. Discussion lead-ers
met with Bob Seal, member of the Users
Council Executive Committee, and university
librarian, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas
Christian University, who summarized the group
discussions for the full council. Mr. Seal listed
several recommendations from group leaders for
OCLC to consider.
At the May meeting, Phyllis Spies, vice presi-dent,
OCLC Worldwide Library Services,
responded to council’s recommendations and pre-sented
an update on extending the cooperative.
Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO, updated
delegates on OCLC services including new pro-jects
such as a digital collection management and
preservation service pilot project to develop tools
for libraries and archives to preserve and maintain
access to digital content; a names service that will
provide a registry of identifiers such as ISBN,
ISSN, BICI and SICI; and progress in extending the
cooperative through Pica B. V., OCLC’s partner in
the Netherlands.
“ I think it is fair to say that this has been a very
demanding year,” said Mr. Jordan. “ Users Council
has been very much involved in development and
validation of our global strategy. And, of course, you
have been immersed in
the governance study.
In my opinion, you were
in the right place at the
right time, and OCLC is
the better for it.”
Council elected the
2001/ 02 Members
Council Executive
Committee: Jerry
Stephens, librarian and
director, Mervyn H. Sterne
Library, University of
Alabama– Birmingham, president;
Kris Senecal, director, Waidner-
Spahr Library, Dickinson College,
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, vice
president/ president- elect; and
delegates- at- large, Tom Kirk,
college librarian, Lilly Library,
Earlham College, Richmond,
Indiana; Ian Mowat, librarian,
Edinburgh University Library,
Edinburgh, United Kingdom;
and Jay Starratt, associate vice
chancellor/ dean, Lovejoy Library, Southern
Illinois University– Edwardsville.
Delegates met in interest group discussions
focusing on Collections and Technical Services,
Online Reference/ Electronic Publishing,
Preservation/ Electronic Archiving, Research, and
Resource Sharing. During the Members’ Forum
portion of the meeting, facilitated by George
Needham, vice president, OCLC Member
Services, interest group leaders reported discus-sion
topics to council.
Minutes from the May 2001 meeting are avail-able
on the OCLC Members Council web site
< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/ uc/>. The next
regularly scheduled Members Council meeting
is Oct. 7– 9, 2001.
The Members Council supports OCLC’s mis-sion
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 recom-mendations
and questions from Members Council
delegates, approving changes in the Code of
Regulations, and electing six members of the
Board of Trustees, Members Council helps shape
the future direction of OCLC.
• • •
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
6 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
Lawrence Lee Pelletier Library at Allegheny
College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, entered the 47
millionth bibliographic record into WorldCat ( the
OCLC Online Union Catalog) on May 23.
The record was for The East- India Pilot, an
atlas of 105 nautical charts published in 1799 and
written by Robert Laurie and James Whittle.
Barry Gray, the library’s principal cataloger
who entered the gold record, said the milestone
is significant to Pelletier Library because it came
from one of its largest special collections— the
James Winthrop Library, containing more than
3,000 volumes. The Special Collections Library
has over 20,000 volumes as a result of private
donations since Allegheny College was founded
in 1815.
Mr. Gray said he tracked the progression lead-ing
up to the 47 millionth record by entering a
record each day before May 23.
“ I had a large file
of records I had
been working on in
relation to our ret-rospective
conver-sion
project,” he
said. “ I noticed the
number was getting
close to the million
mark and figured I
would wait awhile
and see if I could
hit it.”
Mr. Gray said he
used the OCLC
Cataloging Micro
Enhancer ( CatME) for Windows in hitting the 47
millionth record. CatME for Windows allows
users to combine interactive and batch cataloging
in one interface.
“ We are proud that we were able to provide
the 47 millionth record, but we are equally as
proud of a profession that had the foresight to
develop a project such as WorldCat in the first
place,” said Cole Puvogel, director, Pelletier
Library, Allegheny College. “ I am particularly
pleased that the 47 millionth record is one of
such lasting value. It reinforces the fact that
academic libraries are still interested in preserv-ing
materials. Also, the fact that a small liberal
arts school like Allegheny College has materials
that need original cataloging reinforces the idea
that catalogers are a vital and necessary compo-nent
within the library.”
Pelletier Library recently hired an archivist to
concentrate on its History and Heritage Program.
Library staff are working on the college’s history
in preparation for its 200th anniversary celebra-tion
in 2015.
The Lawrence Lee Pelletier Library has com-bined
resources of more than 700,000 volumes,
including the College Archives, the Ida Tarbell
Collection and the original library developed from
the bequests of William Bentley and Mr. Winthrop.
Allegheny College is a member of PALINET, an
OCLC- affiliated, regional network.
The Boston Public Library entered the 46
millionth bibliographic record into WorldCat
on Feb. 21.
• • •
Allegheny College enters 47 millionth record in WorldCat
OCLC Statistics
( as of July 1, 2001)
Current statistics are at
< http:// www. oclc. org/ news/
product/ statistics. shtm>.
Participating
libraries
40,102
New member libraries
( May 1– June 30, 2001)
150
Total OCLC Interlibrary Loan
( ILL) service requests
109,262,001
Dolores Higham, assistant cataloger; JoAnne LaTourette, special
collections cataloger; and Barry Gray, principal cataloger,
Allegheny College, stand behind their work … the atlas
represented by the 47 millionth record entered in WorldCat.
photo provided by Allegheny College
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 7
On April 30, Evergreen State College Library in
Olympia, Washington, entered the 108 millionth
request on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) ser-vice.
The request was for a book, Beyond Prince
and Merchant: Citizen Participation and the
Rise of Civil Society, for a student.
The University of Puget Sound Collins Memor-ial
Library ( OCLC symbol: UPP) filled the request
on May 3.
Michiko Francis, ILL specialist, entered the
request. Ms. Francis works with an assistant and
four student staff in the ILL Department.
Ms. Francis was not immediately aware that
she had hit the milestone. “ I thought, oh, that’s
strange,” said Ms. Francis. “ I was really busy and
not really paying attention. Someone then told
me that I had hit a millionth ILL.���
“ It was nice to hit it and nice to get publicity
for our institution,” said Ms. Francis. “ We are mov-ing
into a more virtual type of library in the next
few years, and have plans to remodel the library
within the next five years.”
The library plans to use OCLC ILLiad for interli-brary
loan in the 2001/ 02 school year.
Evergreen State College is a public, four- year
institution with annual enrollment of over 4,000
students. According to annual ratings in U. S.
News & World Report, Evergreen was ranked first
among public regional liberal arts colleges in the
West for the fourth consecutive year, and was
ranked fourth among all Western
liberal arts colleges.
The library houses some 250,000 volumes.
Students may also check out tape recorders, cam-corders,
35mm cameras, VCRs and other media
items. Students and faculty at Evergreen State
College ( OCLC symbol: ESR) can request materi-als
through Cascade, a Washington State
Cooperative Library Project. Through Cascade,
borrowers can search the catalogs of
Washington’s six public universities and request
materials online. Borrowers may also check out
materials at each of the Cascade libraries.
The 107 millionth ILL request was created
March 23 by the University of Tennessee.
• • •
Evergreen State makes 108 millionth ILL request
Highest OCLC
record number
47,222,683
Location listings
( holdings)
802,296,655
FirstSearch libraries
18,747
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
8 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
The Alternative Press Center ( APC) will be joining
OCLC as a cataloging member and has agreed to
offer its database, the Alternative Press Index
( API), on the OCLC FirstSearch service. The data-base
will be available both via subscription and
per- search and will link to the holdings in OCLC
library collections.
Through a collaborative agreement between
OCLC and the Alternative Press Center, OCLC will
add information on the APC library holdings of
periodicals and monographs into WorldCat. The
holdings symbol is ALTPR. The APC library main-tains
the last five years of items indexed in the
Alternative Press Index.
“ We are pleased and excited at the opportunity
to work with OCLC,” said Chuck D’Adamo,
co- editor of the Alternative Press Index. “ The
collaboration with OCLC will significantly
enhance the fulfillment of the Alternative Press
Center��s general mission to increase public aware-ness
of the alternative, independent, critical press.”
“ With these materials linked in WorldCat to
holdings in libraries worldwide, FirstSearch will
make them visible and more available,” said Lori
Saviers, director of Product Marketing and Licens-ing,
OCLC Reference and Resource Sharing. “ This
project represents OCLC’s new product strategy
at work and will greatly expand options for
libraries. OCLC is actively seeking to expand the
ranks of ‘ non- traditional’ members, and the library
of the Alternative Press Center is a reflection of
this expansion by reaching out beyond the tradi-tional
membership base.”
The back files of source materials indexed in
the API are currently being archived in the Albin
O. Kuhn Library & Gallery Special Collections at
the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
This archive represents one of the most complete
collections of alternative and left- wing periodicals
available in the United States.
“ We are very excited to be collaborating
with the Alternative Press Center and OCLC
on this project,” said Larry Wilt, library director,
University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “ We
recognize the great value of this project to the
library community. It will result in greater visibil-ity
and use of the Alternative Press Center’s col-lections
by libraries and researchers everywhere.”
The Alternative Press Index covers nearly 300
periodicals that report and analyze the practices
and theories of cultural, economic, political and
social change. OCLC plans to add the database
to FirstSearch in the fourth quarter of 2001. The
full text of 39 publications in API are currently
available through OCLC FirstSearch Electronic
Collections Online.
The Alternative Press Center is a non- profit
collective dedicated to providing access to and
increasing public awareness of the alternative
press. It has indexed 880 newspaper and periodi-cal
titles since its launch in 1969 to provide
access to the practices and theories of radical
social change. The Alternative Press Index ( API)
has been recognized as a leading guide to the
alternative press in the United States and around
the world. The API is international and interdisci-plinary,
spans the social sciences and humanities,
and includes popular and scholarly magazines
and journals.
The Special Collections Department of the
Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery of the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County, makes available
for appreciation and study a number of the great
artistic and documentary treasures of western cul-ture.
Rare books, photographs, artifacts and man-uscripts
are accessible here in the original, with
trained professionals ready to assist in the use and
interpretation of these research materials.
• • •
Alternative Press Center becomes OCLC member
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 9
The Niedersächsische Staats und
Universitätsbibliothek ( SUB), Göttingen/
the State and University Library of Göttingen,
which last year became the first German
university library to become a full OCLC
member, has become a supplier on the OCLC
Interlibrary Loan service.
“ Joining the OCLC ILL service, the SUB
will fulfill its traditional tasks and aims much
better than before: to serve the international
research community,” said Elmar Mittler,
director of the Niedersächsische Staats und
Universitätsbibliothek. “ As once Napoleon said,
‘ Göttingen belongs to the whole world.’”
“ The addition of the Niedersächsische Staats
und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, to the
OCLC ILL service is a momentous event,” said
Janet Lees, managing director, OCLC Europe,
the Middle East & Africa. “ The addition of over
850,000 bibliographic titles from this prestigious
university not only provides access to German
material but to one of the most comprehensive
collections of literature on Anglo- American
culture and literature in the world. The library
will join the Global Resource Sharing Group,
which encourages interlibrary loan on an inter-national
scale.”
“ The participation of this prestigious library
in the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service is an
important step in our ongoing efforts to inter-connect
knowledge repositories,” said Jay Jordan,
OCLC president and CEO. “ It significantly moves
forward our work to create true global access to
information.”
The Niedersächsische Staats und
Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, ( OCLC
Symbol ZXW) was founded in 1734 by King
George II of England, and precedes the University
of Göttingen by three years. During the 18th cen-tury,
the library, with its well- classified collections
from all over the world, had great influence on
the development of the academic library in
Germany, Central and Northern Europe as well as
in the United States. The library serves as the cen-tral
library of the University of Göttingen and the
Göttingen Academy of Science ( founded 1751).
Today the State and University Library of
Lower Saxony ( SUB) is one of the largest libraries
in Germany. The collection comprises over 4 mil-lion
books. The libraries of the various university
departments contain another 3 million items. The
actual library subscribes to about 16,000 journals
and serial titles. The library’s special collections
contain more than 210,000 maps, 12,000 manu-scripts,
350 literary bequests and 3,100 incunab-ula.
With more than 160,000 interlibrary loans in
1999 the library plays a key role in national litera-ture
supply. Together with five other leading
German libraries, the SUB Göttingen is a part
of the cooperative National Library system,
responsible for German 18th century printing.
The federal State of Lower Saxony provides fund-ing.
The library employs 248.5 staff, and its bud-get
for 1999 was about 9 million ( Deutsch Mark).
With financial support from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft the library collects com-prehensively
in 20 special fields as part of the dis-tributed
German National research Library
< http:// www. sub. uni- goettingen. de/>.
• • •
University of Göttingen library becomes ILL supplier
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
10 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
More than 1,100 directors of OCLC member
libraries and other OCLC community leaders
attended the OCLC President’s Luncheon, which
was held June 18 at the San Francisco Marriott
during the American Library Association Annual
Conference.
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 meet-ing.
This year, the luncheon was also a celebra-tion
of the 30th anniversary of WorldCat.
“ While WorldCat is indeed a technological mar-vel,
it would not have been possible without the
efforts of thousands of individuals in libraries
from many countries who, keystroke by key-stroke,
have helped to build this database over
the years,” said Mr. Crowe.
Larry Alford, immediate past president of the
OCLC Users Council, and deputy university librar-ian,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
highlighted the Users Council’s 2000/ 2001 pro-gram,
which focused on “ The Library as a Virtual
Place” and “ OCLC Strategic Directions and
Governance.”
“ I think our discussions on governance have
helped to shape the OCLC culture on several
fronts, but especially in the relationships between
and among council, networks and service centers,
OCLC management and staff, and the Board of
Trustees,” said Mr. Alford. “ The OCLC collabora-tive
will continue to be strengthened if our
advice is given and heard freely and in a spirit of
mutual respect and goodwill.”
“ We have many great opportunities ahead of
us,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC president and chief
executive officer. “ As we enter Year 31 of our
cooperative odyssey, our collaborative endeavor,
we at OCLC remain clearly committed to our
public purposes of furthering access to the
world’s information and reducing library costs.
It is still a great time for libraries and librarians.”
Luncheon guests viewed a brief video parody
of Stanley Kubrick’s film, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
which introduced Mr. Jordan’s address.
A tape of the luncheon is available through
interlibrary loan. The control number for this
tape is # 47441208. Requests may be sent to
the OCLC Information Center— holding symbol
OCC. Libraries that do not participate in inter-library
loan may send requests on the ALA
Interlibrary Loan request form to: OCLC,
P. O. Box 7777, Dublin, Ohio 43017- 0702.
Borrowed tapes may be duplicated for use by
the borrowing organization.
• • •
OCLC President’s Luncheon celebrates
30 years of WorldCat
More than 1,100 members of the OCLC community attended the 2001 OCLC President’s Luncheon at the Annual
ALA Conference in San Francisco.
Rick Limes
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 11
“ As we enter Year 31 of our cooperative odyssey, our collaborative endeavor, we at OCLC remain clearly
committed to our public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs,”
said Mr. Jordan. “ It is still a great time for libraries and librarians.” William J. Crowe ( seated, left) and Larry
Alford also spoke at the luncheon.
Rick Limes
OCLC has selected Oracle database technology
as the new platform for WorldCat ( the OCLC
Online Union Catalog) and its online services
in cataloging, resource sharing and reference
as part of its global strategy to transform
WorldCat into a globally networked, web- based
information resource of text, graphics, sound
and motion.
“ The selection of Oracle to power OCLC’s
WorldCat database solidifies Oracle’s leader-ship
in managing the world’s largest repo-sitories
of information,” said George Roberts,
executive vice president, U. S. Sales for Oracle.
“ We are pleased to be working with OCLC in
this endeavor.”
“ Oracle’s relational database management
system will enable us to provide access to not
only bibliographic information, but abstracts,
full text, images and sound files customized to
the needs of libraries and users around the
world,” said Donald J. Muccino, OCLC execu-tive
vice president and chief operating officer.
OCLC will implement the new technologi-cal
platform in phases, starting in late 2001.
The Oracle platform will replace proprietary
systems that OCLC has developed and updated
over the past 30 years.
“ The new database system will enable us to
support UNICODE as well as the IFLA
[ International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions] Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records standards,” said Mr.
Muccino. “ We will also be able to consolidate
systems used to support our online cataloging,
interlibrary loan and reference services. This
holds the promise of reducing operating costs
and development time as we move forward with
new services based on open systems architec-ture
and international standards.”
Mr. Muccino noted that when OCLC imple-ments
UNICODE in the Oracle environment,
OCLC will be able to store records from all of
the world’s written languages in the vernacular.
“ This will move us closer to building a truly
international resource- sharing network of
libraries, facilitating the international exchange
of information,” he said. “ The end result will
be a distributed technological infrastructure
and expanded set of services that will help
libraries better serve their users.”
The new platform is part of OCLC’s new
global strategy to extend its cooperative ser-vices
to more libraries around the world.
• • •
OCLC selects Oracle for new technology platform
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
12 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
Over 100 libraries are participating in a pilot
project to create a collaborative authoritative
reference service using the collective expertise
of reference librarians worldwide to provide
answers to information requested by researchers
anytime, anywhere.
The Library of Congress ( LC) and OCLC are
partners in the Collaborative Digital Reference
Service ( CDRS) pilot project that has so far
attracted participation from libraries in the United
States, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany
and the United Kingdom.
In May, the Washington County Cooperative
Library Services, Digital Reference Team,
Hillsboro, Oregon, became the 100th library
to participate.
More libraries are encouraged to participate in
the pilot project, which will continue through
2001. So far, academic, national, public and spe-cial
libraries as well as consortia have enrolled in
the project. Any library can participate in the
project after the Collaborative Digital Reference
Service has approved its profile. There is no
charge for participation during the pilot.
OCLC is developing a knowledge base and pro-filing
service, as well as providing operations and
marketing support to the project. Together, LC
and OCLC expect to develop a viable model for a
self- sustaining digital reference service and pro-mote
CDRS in the library community.
“ It is a great opportunity in Boise, Idaho, for us
to be part of an exciting project,” said Rosemary
Cooper, librarian at Boise Public Library. “ The
bulk of our experience to date has been in work-ing
with CDRS and our reference staff in develop-ing
enthusiasm and commitment to participate in
the project. CDRS is about more than providing
answers. It is about sharing expertise. It adds the
important element of interpretation and analysis
to data.”
Boise Public Library, Cornell University,
Smithsonian American Art Museum and Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction shared their
experiences in the project during a session on
“ Virtual Reference: Opportunities for Collabora-tion,”
at the American Library Association Annual
Conference in San Francisco June 18. The Library
of Congress also held two CDRS Interactive
Sessions on “ Collaborative Digital Reference
Service: What’s it Worth to You?” on June 16.
Information on how to become a participant
in the project is at < http:// www. oclc. org/ services/
reference/ cdrs. shtm> and < http:// www. loc. gov/
cdrs/>.
The Library of Congress is the largest library
in the world, with nearly 121 million items on
approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The
collections include some 18 million books,
2.5 million recordings, 12 million photographs,
4.5 million maps and 54 million manuscripts. In
addition to its primary mission of serving the U. S.
Congress, the library serves all Americans in its 21
reading rooms on Capitol Hill, as well as through
its popular web site < http:// www. loc. gov/>.
• • •
Collaborative Digital Reference Service
pilot project surpasses 100 participants
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 13
Libraries in Indiana and beyond will soon have
the ability to offer online reference services to
their patrons through a new Indiana Cooperative
Library Services Authority ( INCOLSA) initiative.
INCOLSA has joined with OCLC in a project to
develop an online system to assist libraries in
delivering traditional
reference services to
their users via a web-based
interface.
“ It is obvious that
library patrons are get-ting
more and more
information they need
from the Internet-linked
computers in their homes, offices and
schools,” said Millard Johnson, INCOLSA execu-tive
director. “ To be a vital part of people’s lives
in the 21st century, we need to find a way to play
our historic role in the electronic environment.
We have done that with INSPIRE [ Indiana’s virtual
library]. I am excited about the virtual reference
service because it is another step toward making
the library relevant in the changing, day- to- day
lives of our clients.”
According to Juck Lowe, INCOLSA special pro-jects
manager, with this virtual reference system,
libraries can receive, negotiate and answer refer-ence
questions online, or redirect them to
another library or facility with expertise in a
particular area, such as an INCOLSA Information
Resource Center. Any Indiana library with
Internet connectivity and a web browser can
deliver this service directly to its users through
the library’s own web site or even through
INSPIRE.
The prototype provides a library or group of
libraries, regardless of size or type, with a full-featured
‘ out- of- the- box’ reference solution that
uses web forms and e- mail alerts to pose ques-tions
and provide answers. Other anticipated
features include a knowledge base of previously
answered questions, access to a database of
library collection profiles, detailed usage statis-tics,
and the ability for libraries participating in
the Library of Congress’s Collaborative Digital
Reference Service ( CDRS) to redirect questions
to other institutions in that network.
“ Developing cooperative reference services to
help position libraries as strategic web resources
and librarians as information source authorities is
an important aspect of OCLC’s global strategy,”
said Frank Hermes, vice president, OCLC
Marketing and Planning. “ Our ultimate goal is to
improve the effective-ness
and efficiency of
reference services
around the world by
networking local/
regional reference
systems together with
such global initiatives
as the Collaborative
Digital Reference Service, which OCLC joined in
January 2001 as a full partner.”
Mr. Lowe said INCOLSA is delighted to have
formed this partnership with OCLC.
“ They have a wealth of technical expertise and
unparalleled experience in large- scale library pro-jects,”
said Mr. Lowe. “ INCOLSA brings to the
table a lot of ideas and, most importantly, eager
librarians from every type and size of library to
guide us at every stage of system development.
As with most INCOLSA projects, we have formed
an advisory group to represent the interests of
the various types of libraries in Indiana.”
The reference interface will be fully “ brand-able.”
A library will be able to display its own
logo and customize its own e- mail signature so
the user knows exactly who is providing
the service.
“ No existing software solution provides the ref-erence
features and flexibility that libraries need
to cooperate efficiently with their patrons and
with each other,” said Mr. Lowe. “ This system,
which uses web forms and e- mail notification, will
provide a solid foundation onto which other refer-ence
techniques such as video, chat and voice-over-
IP can be added.”
INCOLSA is currently piloting a prototype of
the system. Further testing and evaluation by the
libraries of Indiana will take place during the
remainder of 2001.
INCOLSA’s participation in the development of
this virtual reference system is funded through
the Indiana State Library with an LSTA grant.
• • •
Virtual reference service coming to Indiana libraries
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
14 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
The Information Institutes of Florida State
University and Syracuse University have initiated a
study to assess quality, costs and impacts in digital
reference service. The study began in May and
will be completed in March 2002.
OCLC and the Digital Library Federation,
Washington, D. C., are the lead sponsoring organi-zations
for the study. Other organizations sup-porting
the $ 150,000 study include: Multnomah
County Library System ( Portland, Oregon), the
Library of Congress, University of Maryland,
Florida State University, Mid York Library System
( Utica, New York), Cleveland ( Ohio) Public
Library, Bristol University ( UK), John Moores
University ( UK), Syracuse University, the
Reference and User Services Association and the
state libraries of Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Florida.
The purpose of the study is to develop meth-ods
to assess the quality of digital reference
services, test and refine measures and quality
standards to describe digital reference services,
and to produce a guidebook that describes how
to collect and report data for these measures and
standards. The study will also explore organiza-tional
factors that may affect the quality and cost
of digital reference services.
Co- principal investigators for the study are
R. David Lankes, director, Information Institute,
Syracuse University; Charles R. McClure, director,
Information Institute, Florida State University;
and Melissa Gross, assistant professor, School of
Information Studies, Florida State University.
Project managers are Bruce Fraser at the FSU
Information Institute and Joanne Silverstein at the
Syracuse Information Institute.
The complete study proposal and additional
information about the study are available at:
< http:// quartz. syr. edu/ quality/>. Updates about
project activities will be posted to the web site on
a regular basis.
Preliminary findings from the study will be
presented at the annual Virtual Reference Desk
Conference, to be held Nov. 11– 13 in Orlando,
Florida < http:// vrd. org/ conferences/
VRD2001/>.
• • •
Florida State and Syracuse Universities conducting
quality of digital reference study
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 15
Marcia J. Bates, professor in the Department
of Information Studies at the University of
California, Los Angeles ( UCLA), is the winner of
the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in
Library and Information Technology for 2001.
OCLC and the Library and Information
Technology Association ( LITA), a division of the
American Library Association ( ALA), sponsor
the award.
The award was established to honor the
achievements of Frederick G. Kilgour, founder of
OCLC, and a seminal figure in library automation.
The award is given to a person who has amassed
a significant body of “ real world” research in the
field of library and information technology that
has had an impact on the way in which informa-tion
is published, stored, retrieved, disseminated
or managed. It consists of $ 2,000, an expense-paid
trip to the ALA Annual Conference and a
citation of merit.
“ The Kilgour Award Committee was delighted
to acknowledge so distinguished a researcher as
Dr. Bates, whose work spans 30 years of research,
teaching and scholarship in search strategies,
information- seeking behavior, subject access, user-centered
design of information retrieval systems
and interfaces, and science and technology infor-mation
services,” Award Committee chair Karen
M. Drabenstott said.“ Among Dr. Bates’ published
papers are ‘ Idea Tactics,’‘ The Fallacy of the Perfect
30- Item Online Search,’ and ‘ The Design of
Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the
Online Search Interface,’ which, over the years,
have become seminal papers in our field. Her
work carries on the tradition of Kilgour, in its
recognition of the centrality of the user in the
design of responsive information systems.”
Dr. Bates received a doctorate in librarianship
from the University of California, Berkeley. She is
the recipient of grants from the Department of
Education, Council on Library Resources, National
Science Foundation and UCLA, where she has
published research results in dozens of refereed
journal articles, conference proceedings and
research reports. Her research has contributed
toward increasing the available knowledge about
how library users search, how online systems
could make more useful responses to user
inquiries and definitions of and reflections on the
field generally.
• • •
Marcia Bates is 2001 Frederick G. Kilgour Award winner
Marcia Bates
Lynn Wiley
Lynn Wiley, Information Resource Retrieval
Center coordinator, University of Illinois at
Urbana– Champaign, is the 2001 Virginia Boucher–
OCLC Distinguished Interlibrary Loan ( ILL)
Librarian Award recipient.
The award recognizes and honors a librarian
for outstanding professional achievement, leader-ship
and contributions to ILL and document deliv-ery
through publication of significant
professional literature, participation in profes-sional
associations and/ or innovative approaches
to practice in individual libraries, and is adminis-tered
by the Management and Operation of User
Services Section of the Reference and User
Services Association, a division of the American
Library Association. The $ 2,000 cash award and
citation is sponsored by OCLC.
“ Lynn Wiley’s long and distinguished record of
contributions to the interlibrary loan profession
made her a unanimous choice for the second
annual Boucher Award,” said Mary Hollerich, the
award committee chair. “ Whether presenting a
conference paper, chairing a committee or spear-heading
an innovative project, Lynn brings to bear
an absolutely boundless energy and enthusiasm
that inspire all those who have the pleasure of
working with her.”
• • •
Lynn Wiley is Virginia Boucher– OCLC
Distinguished ILL Librarian
photo provided by Lynn Wiley photo provided by Marcia Bates
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
16 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
Brian E. C. Schottlaender, university librarian at the
University of California, San Diego, is the recipi-ent
of the 2001 Margaret Mann Citation pre-sented
by the Cataloging and Classification
Section of the Association for Library Collections
& Technical Services ( ALCTS), a division of the
American Library Association ( ALA).
The award, a citation and a $ 2,000 scholarship,
is donated by OCLC in the recipient’s honor to
the library school of their choice. The citation
recognizes outstanding professional achievement
in cataloging or classification either through pub-lication
of significant professional literature, par-ticipation
in professional cataloging associations,
demonstrated excellence in teaching cataloging
and/ or valuable contributions to practice in indi-vidual
libraries.
“ The Margaret Mann Citation committee is
pleased to present this award to Brian E. C.
Schottlaender for his outstanding contributions
to cataloging practice and for his leadership and
commitment to cooperative cataloging,” commit-tee
chair Cynthia Whitacre said.
“ As cataloger, cataloging manager and head of a
major research library, Mr. Schottlaender has dedi-cated
his professional life to leading the North
American cataloging community in accomplishing
two objectives: fundamental revision of Anglo-
American Cataloguing Rules ( AACR) to ensure the
code’s accommodation of emerging media for-mats
and its interoperability with other emerging
metadata schema, and fuller realization of the
promise of cooperative cataloging, hinted at in
the mid- to late- 1970s,” said John Byrum, chief,
Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division,
Library of Congress, and the 1998 Margaret Mann
recipient.
As chair of the Policy Committee of the
Program for Cooperative Cataloging ( PCC),
( 1997– 1998), Mr. Schottlaender oversaw the
successful consolidation of the PCC with the
Cooperative Online Serials Program. As ALA’s
representative to the Joint Steering Committee
for Revision of AACR since 1995, he has demon-strated
the unique ability to address the fine
details of the rules, while keeping in mind the
need for their development and maintenance in
an international and evolving standard- setting
environment.
Mr. Schottlaender serves on the editorial and
review boards of the Journal of Internet
Cataloging and the National Endowment for the
Humanities Division of Preservation and Access.
He has published extensively in the library field
and has actively served the profession through
leadership on numerous ALA and other profes-sional
association committees.
Mr. Schottlaender holds a master’s degree in
library science from Indiana University and a
bachelor of arts degree from the University of
Texas at Austin.
• • •
Brian Schottlaender receives Margaret Mann Citation
Brian Schottlaender
The Library and Information Technology
Association ( LITA), a division of the American
Library Association, has announced the winner of
the LITA/ OCLC Minority Scholarship, sponsored
by OCLC. Marisa Duarte will use the $ 2,500
scholarship to pursue her studies at Catholic
University in Washington, D. C.
The scholarship is designed to encourage the
entry of qualified persons into the library technol-ogy
and/ or automation field. Ms. Duarte was cho-sen
from 70 applicants.
Criteria for the scholarship include previous
academic excellence, evidence of leadership
potential and a commitment to a career in library
automation and information technology. The
LITA/ OCLC Minority Scholarship requires U. S. cit-izenship
and membership in one of four minority
groups: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian
or Pacific Islander, African- American or Hispanic.
• • •
Marisa Duarte named LITA/ OCLC Minority Scholarship
recipient for 2001
Marisa Duarte
photo provided by Brian Schottlaender photo provided by Marisa Duarte
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 17
Herman Lavon Totten is the 2001 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 achieve-ment
in library management, training, cataloging
and classification, and the tools and techniques of
librarianship.
Recognized for numerous accomplishments,
including training paraprofessionals in small pub-lic
libraries throughout Texas, Dr. Totten also has
been a mentor and teacher for information profes-sionals
across the country and instills in his stu-dents
the importance of being involved in
professional library organizations.
“ Dr. Totten is a renowned scholar and a prolific
writer with an inventive mind, sharing creative
tools and techniques to strengthen librarianship,”
said award chair Leslie Burger.
Dr. Totten is regents professor and associate
dean for the School of Library and Information
Sciences at the University of North Texas in
Denton. He is a life member of ALA, has served on
numerous committees and is a member of the ALA
Council.
He has received many awards, including the
1999 Association for Library and Information
Science Education ( ALISE) Outstanding Teacher
Award. He also is a member of the Alpha Phi
Omega National Service Fraternity, the Beta Phi
Mu International Library Science Honor Fraternity
and the Phi Delta Kappa National Honor Society.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Wiley
College and a master’s of library science and doc-torate
in educational media/ library science from
the University of Oklahoma.
• • •
Herman Totten receives the 2001 Melvil Dewey Medal
Norman Horrocks is the recipient of the
American Library Association ( ALA)
International Relations Committee’s John
Ames Humphry/ OCLC Forest Press Award.
OCLC Forest Press donated the $ 1,000 award,
which is given to an individual for significant
contribution to international librarianship.
Dr. Horrocks received this award for his lead-ing
role in international librarianship for nearly
half a century. He has made a difference by men-toring
librarians, at home and abroad, interested
in getting involved with the international library
community. Dr. Horrocks has contributed to pro-fessional
organizations in the area of international
relations through his writing, speaking and teach-ing.
He has served as a liaison, welcoming inter-national
visitors to North American library
meetings.
One of his most important contributions has
been helping establish standards of reciprocity
and equivalency in credentialing librarians mov-ing
across national boundaries. As a publisher, he
worked to encourage contributions relating to
international issues in librarianship and informa-tion
science.
“ There are few people that follow international
librarianship who do not know Dr. Norman
Horrocks,” Humphry Award Chair Jeff Huetis said.
“ Given his contributions to the global library
community, this award is long overdue.”
Dr. Horrocks is an editorial consultant for
Scarecrow Press of Lanham, Maryland, a member
of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group
and professor emeritus at Dalhousie University
School of Library and Information Studies. He
also has served as chair of ALA’s International
Relations Committee and International Relations
Round Table.
• • •
Norman Horrocks named John Ames Humphry/
OCLC Forest Press Award winner
Herman Totten
Norman Horrocks
photo provided by Norman Horrocks photo provided by Herman Totten
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
18 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
by Evelyn Kuo
The Chinese University of Hong Kong is one of
the most prestigious institutions of higher learn-ing
in Hong Kong and Asia. The campus is
located in Shatin, New Territories, with a unique
mountain and harbor setting. Since its inception,
the university has adopted bilingualism and bicul-turalism
as the basis of its teaching, giving equal
emphasis to both Chinese and English languages,
as well as to Eastern and Western cultures.
The University Library System ( ULS) was estab-lished
in 1963 to serve the then newly founded
Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently, the
University Library System has a main Library,
three branch libraries and two special libraries,
one for medicine and one for architecture. ULS
has a collection of 1.53 million volumes of books
and bound journals, of which 40 percent are
Chinese and other East Asian language titles and
60 percent are Western language titles. The
annual new acquisition rate is about 60,000 to
65,000 volumes. The majority of Chinese materi-als
are publications from China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan ( about 55 percent from China and 45 per-cent
from Taiwan and Hong Kong). ULS is using
the INNOPAC automation system, and the data-base
is searchable in Chinese and English, includ-ing
Pinyin.
Cataloging Operation
at the University Library
The University Library handles all acquisition and
cataloging functions centrally. The University
Library System acquires about 22,000 to 25,000
new Chinese titles annually in a wide range of
subjects to meet the research and teaching needs
of 60- some departments and nine research insti-tutes.
ULS has used the Library of Congress classi-fication
system since 1969 for Western language
materials and from 1971 for East Asian language
materials. Materials are allocated in the university
libraries according to subjects. Cataloging staff
is using the INNOPAC system to catalog all titles
including Chinese, Japanese and Korean ( CJK)
language titles.
Because of the location of Hong Kong, the
University Library usually receives Chinese mate-rials
faster than libraries outside the Asian region.
The eight Hong Kong academic libraries have a
shared cataloging database for Chinese language
materials and have cooperated on cataloging via a
Z39.50 setup on the INNOPAC system.
Because the University Library receives
Chinese materials before most other institutions
and usually catalogs them promptly, it is often the
first institution to catalog materials. UL generally
achieves a hit rate of only 10 percent to 20 per-cent
from the Hong Kong shared database for
Chinese language materials. The nonmatching
titles are then searched against OCLC WorldCat.
However, the matching rate is again relatively
low at about 10 percent. Therefore, 70 percent
to 80 percent of new Chinese acquisitions require
original cataloging.
For a variety of reasons, it takes longer to cata-log
a Chinese title than the English counterpart.
To begin with, Chinese characters require more
strokes for data entry. There is also the need to
provide both Chinese script and pinyin for biblio-graphic
and authority records. In addition, it is
time consuming to perform the Chinese name
authority control work. The cataloging staff
always has more tasks than they can handle, so
the idea of contributing records to OCLC is not
the top priority. With so much to attend to, cata-loging
staff have not always considered contribut-ing
records to OCLC as a top priority.
Contribution of Original Chinese
Cataloging Records
In February 2000, the University Library, which
had been using OCLC cataloging services since
1996, became a contributing member for Chinese
records. After reviewing the pros and cons
regarding Chinese cataloging, the University
Library’s management determined that it was a
worthwhile venture to contribute the library’s
original Chinese records to OCLC. This would
allow OCLC members to share the records.
One of the initial barriers to the contribution
of records to WorldCat was a problem with non-displayable
characters. The library’s INNOPAC
system uses CCCII codes that contain over 22,000
CJK characters. OCLC is using EACC codes that
contain only 15,850 CJK characters. As a result,
some Chinese characters become unrecognizable
on the CJK workstation after uploading to OCLC.
[ Editor’s note: OCLC adopted the U. S. standard
for East Asian Character Code ( EACC) for
The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s contributions
of records and authorities benefit other OCLC libraries
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 19
bibliographic use to make OCLC CJK vernacular
records transferable between OCLC and LC, RLIN
CJK or local systems as part of OCLC CJK devel-opment
and implementation. OCLC is aware that
the predetermined coverage of EACC characters
is not necessarily adequate or appropriate to cata-log
materials that reflect such deep historical,
social, cultural and political spectrums.]
The ingenuity and persistence from the
Cataloging staff have been the engine behind
the successful resolution of the Chinese code
disparity issue. After collecting over 330
non- displayable characters over a period of sev-eral
months, the Cataloging staff painstakingly
found an OCLC equivalent EACC code for each
of those 330 characters. The software Hex
Workshop and macros were then used to filter
and convert non- EACC characters prior to the
contribution of records to OCLC. The process
is done in batches automatically and takes about
an hour on a PC to process 400 records. After
the conversion process, the records are then
uploaded to OCLC. The weekly uploading includ-ing
the duplicate checking of 350 to 400 records
usually takes about 10 hours. The staff is looking
at other options to improve the speed of con-tributing
records.
Examples of the internal code differences:
The filtering and converting process adds more
work for the cataloging staff, but it is a trade- off
for being able to do cataloging for all language
titles using the same workstation in a more effi-cient
way. In the last 12 months, the University
Library has contributed more than 16,000 original
Chinese records to OCLC and is one of the largest
contributors in the Asian region.
Chinese Authority Name Control
Hong Kong is a bilingual society, with Chinese
and English as the official languages. Many local
authors publish in both English and Chinese. And
in terms of bibliographic searching in Hong Kong
libraries, both Chinese and English publications
have equal importance, as do authors’ names. But
all non- roman language headings in the Library of
Congress Name Authority records are rendered in
romanized form without vernacular scripts. As
a result, even Chinese- speaking catalogers may
encounter difficulties in identifying the correct
authority records.
In early 1999, a number of Hong Kong acade-mic
libraries explored the possibility of establish-ing
a Hong Kong Chinese Authority Name
( HKCAN) database to include both Chinese
scripts and English headings. After two years of
planning and with assistance from the Council on
East Asian Libraries ( CEAL), a Hong Kong Name
Authority Model was agreed upon with the rec-ommendation
of the Library of Congress. Seven
Hong Kong academic libraries— the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, the City University of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong
Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and the
University of Hong Kong— would contribute their
authority records to the HKCAN database prior to
September 2001. After duplication removal, the
database is expected to have approximately
100,000 unique authority records from Hong
Kong contributing libraries.
TIS, a software company in Taiwan, was con-tracted
to develop the software based on a similar
platform used by the National Central Library and
the National Taiwan University Library. A data-base
containing over 250,000 authority names
was acquired recently from the Beijing National
Library. The HKCAN workgroup expects to
obtain exchanged authority records from Taipei’s
National Central Library. The combination of
authority records from national libraries in Beijing
Staff at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library includes ( from left to right):
CW Lam, cataloger; Maria Lau, head, Cataloging; Colin Storey, university librarian;
Evelyn Kuo, head, Collection Development; Fanny Chen, cataloger; Florence Tam, cataloger;
and Yee Ip Ho, cataloger.
photo provided by Chinese University of Hong Kong
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
20 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
and Taipei coupled with HKCAN’s database
should constitute a very rich Chinese authority
name database. The plan is to make these records
searchable by the end of 2001.
The HKCAN database software is presently at
the last stage of fine- tuning. The next phase is to
work on the online interface between the HKCAN
database and the INNOPAC system. When that
happens, the HKCAN database will be made avail-able
to overseas libraries. We are confident that
the HKCAN database will be a valuable resource
for Chinese cataloging. We appreciate the assis-tance
provided by Andrew Wang, executive direc-tor,
and Shu- En Tsai, senior library services
executive, OCLC Asia Pacific, and the leadership
and support of Maria Lau, head of Cataloging,
CUHK. — Evelyn Kuo is head, Collection
Development, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• • •
Present at the Mexican OCLC Users’ Group meeting were: ( from left to right) José de Jesús Santos, Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey ( ITESM) Campus Ciudad de México; Arcadia Flores, Escuela Nacional de Biblioteconomía y Archivonomía
( ENBA); Mario López Berumen, University de Monterrey; Adán Suriano, University de Montemorelos; Claudia Galván, ENBA; Antonio J.
Alba, OCLC; Nancy London, OCLC; Sara Ancira Jiménez, University Anáhuac del Sur; Darío Hermosillo, ITESM Campus Querétaro;
Gabriela Mtz. Muñoz, University Veracruzana; Genoveva Méndez, ITESM Campus Estado de México; Nicolás Cop, OCLC; Virginia
Alvarez, University Anáhuac del Sur; Patricia Carranza, ITESM Campus Monterrey; Angelina Hernández, ITESM Campus Estado de
México; Jorge Tapia, University de Guadalajara; and Eloisa Puente Berumen, ITESM Campus Monterrey.
On May 2, the Mexican OCLC Users’ Group met
at the Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios de
Información [ USBI] at the Universidad
Veracruzana en Xalapa, Veracruz. The meeting
was held in conjunction with the 31st Jornadas
Mexicanas de Biblioteconomía.
The purpose of the meeting was to update
attendees on new projects that OCLC is develop-ing,
report on upgrades to cataloging and refer-ence
services products, promote camaraderie
among users of OCLC services, and create a
forum for questions and answers.
Representatives from 14 institutions partici-pated
in the event. Attending from OCLC were
Nicolás Cop, consultant, Latin America and the
Caribbean; Nancy London, executive director,
Library Services for the Americas; and Antonio
Jose Alba, library services executive for Latin
America and the Caribbean.
For more information about this event, contact
america_ latina@ oclc. org.
• • •
OCLC Users’ Group in Mexico holds second meeting photo provided by OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 21
by Rhonda Barry
In 1788, when the First Fleet arrived from Great
Britain at the new convict colony of New South
Wales, amidst all the stores and supplies, convicts
and officers, were 700 spades and one Bible. It
was not a significant beginning for theology in
the colony.
In 1840 a local magistrate, Thomas Moore,
passed away and left a bequest to establish a col-lege
for education in the principles of Christian
knowledge. As Marcus L. Loane wrote in A
Centenary History of Moore Theological College,
“ Americans may trace their descent from the
Pilgrim Fathers. Australians owe their country to
the Prodigal Son.”
Moore Theological College opened on
March 1, 1856, with three students. The first
principal established the beginnings of a library,
which grew slowly over the years with much
effort from various principals and bishops of
the colony of New South Wales. In 1873, Bishop
Barker secured from Oxford a gift of almost 270
books selected from the works published by the
University Press and a smaller number from
Cambridge.
Since then the collection has grown to 175,000
volumes. The annual increase is approximately
7,000– 8,000 titles, supplemented by donations.
The library collects in all areas of theology with
particular strengths in Biblical studies,
Anglicanism, Reformation and Puritanism. As one
of the largest theological libraries in Australia,
Moore is collecting many titles that are not held
elsewhere in the country. Although we had been
part of an Australian cooperative cataloging net-work,
we found that we were still faced with large
amounts of original cataloging and backlogs.
We decided to try OCLC, particularly attracted
by its membership, which included many large
North American theological and university
libraries. For the present we have joined as par-tial
users and have not been disappointed. We are
achieving a hit rate of approximately 95 percent;
slightly less for our Australian material. We are
benefiting from cataloging done by Harvard,
Princeton, University of Notre Dame, Asbury
Theological Seminary, and State University of
New York, to name just a few libraries. The
American Theological Library Association’s
Microform Preservation Project has added many
records to the OCLC database that we can use,
even though, more often, we have a copy of the
original text. Most of our current purchased
material is now received, cataloged and available
for readers within two to three days. We have a
large backlog of older theological pamphlet mate-rial
on which we have been achieving a hit rate of
approximately 50– 60 percent. Previously this
was all original cataloging.
Staff feel that membership in OCLC has added
significant value to our overall processing.
— Rhonda Barry is librarian, Moore Theological
College Library, Sydney, Australia.
• • •
Moore Theological College speeds materials
to readers with OCLC Cataloging
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
22 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
by Kay Covert
The Collections and
Technical Services Advisory
Committee ( CTSAC) met
April 17 and 18 in Dublin,
Ohio. The committee is
composed of 12 members
from three countries, repre-senting
a variety of library
types including law, art,
university and public libraries. The group helps
OCLC identify needs, policy and political issues in
the development and implementation of metadata
products and services. Overall the meeting
focused on the workflow issues libraries are cur-rently
facing.
During the two- day meeting the committee
was presented with scenarios applicable to the
current environment, and product management
staff gave presentations focusing on current and
future CORC, cataloging services, workstation
interface functionality, digital collection man-agement
and preservation, and nonroman
language cataloging projects. Through individual
and team exercises the committee provided
OCLC with their ideas and suggestions.
The meeting began with an icebreaker discus-sion
titled “ Getting Mere Mortals Interested in
Becoming Librarians.” Committee members saw
statistics illustrating the large number of librarians
close to retirement age and the small number of
library school graduates ( especially catalogers)
entering the profession and offered suggestions to
encourage entry into the library profession. Ideas
included focusing on the intellectual aspect of the
work, emphasizing the high- tech environment,
improving the image of cataloging, recruiting
more mentor teachers, offering internships and
scholarships, and recruiting older individuals who
are likely to desire a career change.
During discussions on Metadata Services strat-egy
and workstation interface functionality, the
committee said it is important for OCLC to get
local system vendors involved early in the process
and to design the metadata desktop to run simul-taneously
with other desktop applications. The
group liked the idea of being able to customize
the interface at the authorization level. An exer-cise
on challenges in modern resource descrip-tion
revealed that “ What the catalog should be”
and “ What should be in the catalog” are the two
biggest issues these libraries are facing. Addi-tional
top challenges include competing metadata
standards, recruiting and training of staff, and reli-able
bibliographic records for acquisitions.
Members of the Collections and Technical
Services Advisory Committee are Richard C.
Amelung, head of Technical Services, St. Louis
University Law School; Linda Barnhart, head,
Catalog Department, Geisel Library, University
of California, San Diego; Martha O’Hara Conway,
catalog management librarian, Yale University
Library; Judy Dyki, library director, Cranbrook
Academy of Art Library; John A. Edens, assistant
director of Libraries, State University of New York
at Buffalo; Lois Fenker, director, Technical and
Collection Services, Seattle Public Library;
Kathryn Hughes, head of Bibliographic Data
Management, National Library of Wales; Sam Kalb,
coordinator of Technical Services, Queen’s
University Libraries; Robert Neville, assistant
dean, Technical Services, College of Charleston;
Janet G. Padway, assistant library director,
Technical Services Division, University of
Wisconsin– Madison; John Schalow, special
collections cataloger/ coordinator, University of
Maryland; and Louise Sevold, technical services
director, Cuyahoga Public Library.— Kay Covert
is marketing analyst, OCLC Marketing.
• • �������
Advisory committee focuses on workflow
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 23
by Linda Arnold
Members of the Advisory
Committee on College
and University Libraries,
Advisory Committee on
Public Libraries, Advisory
Committee on Special
Libraries, and the Research
Libraries Advisory
Committee attended seven
meetings this fiscal year on a variety of topics.
These directors of libraries, library systems or
information centers offered their expertise to
OCLC by discussing and evaluating OCLC
strategic plans and ideas for new services and
products.
The main discussion topics in the 2000/ 01
meetings were: OCLC’s global strategy; the strate-gic
direction and governance study; and digital
collection management and preservation services.
Most meetings included an OCLC report from Jay
Jordan, OCLC president and CEO. Other topics
discussed at the meetings were: the resource
sharing environment, public libraries and the
future, and updates on OCLC ILLiad Resource
Sharing Management software, the OCLC
FirstSearch service, the OCLC Office of Research
and CORC. Two committees planned conference
programs.
Members of the Advisory Committee on Public
Libraries planned a program proposal for the
Ninth National Public Library Association
Conference in 2002. The program, Internet2—
What’s In It for You?, was approved by the PLA
National Conference Program committee. Jane
Ryland, membership consultant to Internet2 and
a member of the OCLC Board of Trustees; Mona
Carmack, county librarian, Johnson County
( Kansas) Library; and Don Barlow, director of the
Westerville ( Ohio) Public Library, will be the speak-ers.
Mr. Barlow; Ms. Carmack; Betty Long, Roswell
( New Mexico) Public Library; and Dan Walters, Las
Vegas– Clark County ( Nevada) Public Library, put
together the theme and suggested speakers.
The Research Libraries Advisory Committee
hosted the 19th Annual International Conference
of Research Library Directors March 5– 8 at
OCLC. The international conference, Weaving
Libraries into the Web and the Web into
Libraries, was attended by over 100 participants
from 28 countries. David F. Kohl, chair of RLAC
and dean of libraries at the University of
Cincinnati, presided over the program.
The speakers discussed the strategy issues of
branding and portals in making the library more
visible in the web world. Conference speakers
included: Sam Hill, president and chief executive
officer, Helios Consulting, who spoke on brand-ing;
Howard Strauss, manager, Academic
Applications, Princeton University, who spoke on
portals; and Gary Houk, vice president, OCLC
Metadata and Content Management Services, and
Patricia Stevens, director, OCLC Product Planning
and Strategy, who explained OCLC’s global strat-egy.
More information about the conference is
available on the OCLC web site < http:// www.
oclc. org/ oclc/ press/ 20010326a. shtm>.
The OCLC Institute offered three workshops
following the conference, which were attended
by over 50 conference participants. Developing
a Global Strategy and Measuring Academic
Library Performance in the Digital Age began
the program, and The Role of Libraries in Knowl-edge
Management ( And the Role of Knowledge
Management in Libraries) concluded the ses-sions.
Lunch featured Heather Joseph, president
and chief executive officer of BioOne, who intro-duced
OCLC’s strategic partnership with her
organization.
These committees and their activities provide
OCLC and its member libraries with continuing
information on the current library environment
and help shape the future of OCLC and libraries.
“ These type- of- library committees are
extremely important for communication and com-munity,”
said Mr. Jordan. “ We appreciate the time
the library directors give to help the OCLC coop-erative
grow and thrive.”— Linda A. Arnold is
program manager, Library Member Relations.
• • •
Public, special, academic and research library advisory
committees meet, advise OCLC
“ These type- of- library committees are extremely
important for communication and community,” said Mr.
Jordan. “ We appreciate the time the library directors give
to help the OCLC cooperative grow and thrive.”
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
24 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
Type- of- library advisory committee members 2000/ 01
Advisory Committee on Public Libraries
Left to right: Sheldon Kaye, director, Portland ( Maine) Public Library; Jan Ison, director, Lincoln Trail Libraries System ( Illinois);
Helen Moeller, director, LeRoy Collins Leon County ( Florida) Public Library; Mona Carmack, County Librarian, Johnson County
( Kansas) Library; Don Barlow, director, Westerville ( Ohio) Public Library; James Fish, director, Baltimore County ( Maryland) Public
Library ( standing in back); Molly Raphael, director, District of Columbia Public Library; and Donald Napoli, director, St. Joseph
County ( Indiana) Public Library. [ Not pictured: Betty Long, director, Roswell ( New Mexico) Public Library; Gary Strong, director,
Queens Borough ( New York) Public Library; Daniel Walters, executive director, Las Vegas– Clark County ( Nevada) Library District;
and David Warren, executive director, Richland County ( South Carolina) Public Library.]
Advisory Committee on College and University Libraries
Around the table, left to right: Sharon Bonk, professor and chief librarian, Queens College– CUNY; Stephen Rollins, dean, University
of Alaska, Anchorage; Sandra Yee, head, Eastern Michigan University; Susan Curzon, dean, California State University, Northridge;
Michael LaCroix, director, Creighton University; Nicholas Burckel, dean of Libraries, Marquette University; Stephen Stoan ( chair),
director, Drury University; Nancy Allen ( vice- chair), dean, University of Denver; Jesús Lau, direción general de Apoya Académico,
Universidad Autónoma Ciudad Juárez; Emma Perry, dean, Southern University; and Gillian McCombs, central university librarian,
Southern Methodist University. [ Not pictured: Samuel Demas, director, Carleton College.]
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 25
Research Libraries Advisory Committee
( Seated, left to right) Frank Winter, director, University of Saskatchewan; Pamela Andre, director, National Agricultural Library; Dana
Rooks, dean of Libraries, University of Houston; Charles Lowry, dean of Libraries, University of Maryland; ( Standing) David Kohl
( chair), dean and university librarian, University of Cincinnati; Kenneth Frazier, director, University of Wisconsin– Madison; Eileen
Hitchingham, dean of University Libraries, Virginia Tech; and Marianne Gaunt, university librarian, Rutgers University. [ Not
pictured: Thomas Graham, university librarian, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; Paula Kaufman, university librarian, University
of Illinois at Urbana; Merrily Taylor ( vice chair), Joukowsky Family university librarian, Brown University; and William Walker,
Andrew Mellon director, New York Public Library.]
Advisory Committee on Special Libraries
Left to right: Laurie Stackpole, chief librarian, Naval Research Laboratory; Eugenie Prime, manager, Corporate Libraries,
Hewlett- Packard; Benita Weber Vassallo, chief of Library Services, Inter- American Development Bank; Douglas Macbeth, director,
Jackson Laboratory; Barbara Kunkel, director of Information Sciences, General Motors; Priscilla Ratliff, manager, Library &
Information Services, Ashland Specialty Chemical Company. [ Not pictured: M. E. Brennan, manager, Global Library Network,
Lucent Technologies/ Bell Labs.]
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
26 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
by Laura Kreis
On May 15, over 170 librari-ans
from the United States,
Canada and England logged
into a web seminar to see
a demonstration of OCLC
ILLiad Resource Sharing
Management software, a
complete ILL management
tool. OCLC ILLiad provides
seamless integration and automation of borrow-ing,
lending and document delivery, resulting in
faster ILL service while saving staff time and
money. With OCLC ILLiad, library users get the
materials they need quickly, while libraries elimi-nate
all of the paper ILL files currently maintained.
During the first hour, Tony Melvyn, senior con-sulting
product support specialist, OCLC Product
Marketing, demonstrated OCLC ILLiad and offered
an overview of the service, and the last 30 min-utes
were devoted to addressing questions. Genie
Grimm, director, Technical Services, Atlas Systems
( the company that developed OCLC ILLiad), also
answered participants’ questions.
The web seminar was held using Placeware’s
web conferencing service. Participants log on to
Placeware through a web browser and then dial
in to a conference call. Participants were able to
view the OCLC ILLiad presentation online and lis-ten
to the presentation with their telephones.
An archived version of this presentation is
available on the web < http:// www. placeware.
com/ cc/ oclc/>. Under “ Enter Meeting,” type your
name, the recording ID (“ OCLC ILLiad”), the
recording key (“ may 2001”) and click View ( the
recording ID and key are space and case sensi-tive).
A page should appear listing the formats
available for viewing the recording, which include
RealAudio and HTML. Select the format and the
presentation begins.— Laura Kreis is marketing
specialist, OCLC U. S. Library Services.
• • •
“ Webinar” demonstrates ILLiad for large audience
from minutes recorded by Sharon Domier
The OCLC CJK Users Group celebrated its 10th
anniversary at its annual meeting March 24 in
Chicago. Karl Lo, University of California, San
Diego, addressed the future prospects of the
Users Group. Mr. Lo, a group co- founder who
served as chair from 1993– 95, also provided his
vision of the future.
“ Our challenge is to find the way to unlock the
power of the personal digital library,” he said. “ If
we can meet the challenge that OCLC poses with
its own strategic plan to change from a biblio-graphic
utility to a virtual library of multilingual,
multiscript, multimedia libraries, we will no
longer be just catalogers but virtual library orga-nizers
and users.”
Chair Hideyuki Morimoto ( 1999– 2001) intro-duced
the new officers, who will serve from
2001– 2003: Wen- ling Liu, chair, Indiana
University; Philip Melzer, vice- chair/ chair- elect,
Library of Congress; Meng- fen Su, Chinese officer,
University of Texas at Austin; Toshie Marra,
Japanese officer, University of California, Los
Angeles; Mikyung Kang, Korean officer, University
of California, Los Angeles; and Vickie Fu Doll,
member- at- large, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Guest speaker John Jenkins of Apple dis-cussed
“ Unicode and East Asian Ideographs.”
His presentation is available on the web < http://
homepage. mac. com/ jenkins/ Papers/ OCLC. pdf>.
James Lin, of Harvard– Yenching Library,
reported that July 2001 will mark the completion
OCLC CJK Users Group elects officers in Chicago
Marty Withrow, director, OCLC Metadata Services, addresses
the OCLC CJK Users Group in Chicago.
photos provided by Hisako Kotaka
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 27
of a five- year project with the library and OCLC in
which approximately 325,000 catalog cards were
converted to machine- readable format. The pro-ject
for its East Asian collections is the largest
OCLC CJK retrospective conversion project to
date and makes all Harvard– Yenching Library’s
titles accessible online.
Mr. Lin said the completion of the retroconver-sion
project enables the Harvard– Yenching
Library to realize its long- standing goal: the com-puterization
of its entire catalog in both roman-ized
and vernacular scripts. It also enriches the
WorldCat database and makes these valuable East
Asian research materials readily available to schol-ars
and researchers around the world.
In an earlier project completed in 1995, OCLC
converted 17,000 Korean and 42,500 Chinese
card catalog records into machine- readable for-mat,
with both romanized and vernacular scripts,
for Harvard– Yenching Library.
Sarah Elman, University of California, Los
Angeles, reported that OCLC asked the OCLC
CJK Users Group Pinyin Task Force to review
its first conversion test file in December 2000.
A total of 440 pairs of records ( consisting
of “ before” and “ after” images of the biblio-graphic
records) were sent to the task force.
Records were divided equally among the five
task force members. OCLC then worked on
improving the conversion program based
on comments received in early January 2001.
The second test file, consisting of the same
set of records, was sent in late January and
the task force completed the second review
in early February.
“ Many libraries will depend on OCLC to
deliver authority records based on the converted
bibliographic records, so it is important to ensure
that access points in converted bibliographic
records are accurate and conform to the national
authority file,” Ms. Elman said.
Marty Withrow, director, OCLC Metadata
Services, recognized the outgoing committee
members for their service. He discussed “ OCLC
21st Century Global Strategy: Focusing on
Metadata Services Roadmaps.”
Mr. Withrow said that instead of waiting for
libraries to bring their data to Dublin, Ohio, OCLC
is going to use linking technology to reach that
data, which consists not only of books but also
includes images, sound files and other data.
Glenn Patton, director, OCLC Metadata Policy
and Standards, focused on the pinyin conversion
project. He said OCLC wants its users to know
that OCLC has become much more proactive
about doing maintenance to the database and cor-recting
errors in bibliographic records. Details
are available on the web for the OCLC pinyin con-version
project < http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/
pinyin/ index. htm>; the pinyin conversion time-line
and procedures < http:// lcweb. loc. gov/
catdir/ pinyin/>; and local catalog conversion
through OCLC < http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/
pinyin/ 1localcat. htm>.
OCLC reports to the CJK Users Group are
also available < ftp:// ftp. rsch. oclc. org/ pub/
documentation/ cjk_ users_ group/>, as is a
complete report of the meeting < http://
www. library. umass. edu/ subject/ easian/
oclc- cjk2001. html# chair>.— Sharon Domier
is librarian, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
and the 1999– 2001 Japanese officer of the OCLC
CJK Users Group.
• • •
The March meeting marked the 10th anniversary of the OCLC CJK Users Group. The OCLC CJK database consists of some 2 million
records, and each record contains approximately 5,000 characters.
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
28 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
DDC— 125 years
The Dewey Decimal Classification system ( DDC) was
conceived by Melvil Dewey in 1873 and first published
in 1876. Today, the Dewey Decimal Classification is the
most widely used library classification system in the
world. It is used in more than 135 countries and has
been translated into over 30 languages. The DDC is
published by Forest Press, which in 1988 became a
division of OCLC.
RetroCon— 25 years
A millennium of experience, 25 years of service … OCLC RetroCon services staff members
have over 1,000 collective years of cataloging experience. Since 1976, RetroCon staff have
processed over 64 million records for 1,007 libraries.
OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa— 20 years
As part of the OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa’s 20th anniversary celebrations, this
year the annual forum was held in the auditorium at the British Library, St. Pancras, London.
Delegates and OCLC staff raised a toast to the future of OCLC in the region.
FirstSearch— 10 years
The OCLC FirstSearch service came online in September 1991.
Today, some 19,000 libraries use the service.
OCLCA
photo provided by OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
Union List— 20 years
At the OCLC Union List Users Group meeting at this year’s ALA Conference
in San Francisco, attendees marked the anniversary of OCLC Union List
with a birthday cake. The honor of blowing out the candles went to Janet
Berry, coordinator, Cataloging Services, Arkansas State Library, as the
person who has used OCLC Union List the longest.
OCLC Asia Pacific— 15 years
OCLC Asia Pacific was created on Aug. 1, 1986. Today it serves
nearly 2,000 libraries in the Asia Pacific region.
OCLC Asia Pacific staff members include ( left to right): Wei Fu
Bender, user services specialist; Eliza Sproat, marketing
communications specialist; Shu- En Tsai, senior library services
executive; Janie McGlone, user support coordinator; Josephine
Oppenheimer, administrative coordinator; George S. Ouyang, library
services executive; and Andrew H. Wang, executive director.
Anniversaries
WorldCat— 30 years
On Aug. 26, 1971, Ohio University cataloged the first items
on the OCLC Cataloging system. That night lightning struck
OCLC’s computers, but they were up and running the next day.
Today, libraries enter a new record into WorldCat about every
15 seconds.
photo provided by Janie McGlone
photo provided by Myrtle Myers
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 29
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
30 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
Mary Carroll and Jessica MacPhail have been
appointed to the Decimal Classification Editorial
Policy Committee ( EPC).
The committee is a 10- member international
board that advises the editors and OCLC Forest
Press on matters relating to the general develop-ment
of the Dewey Decimal Classification ( DDC).
EPC represents the interests of DDC users; its
members include public, special and academic
librarians, and library educators.
“ Mary Carroll’s experience in providing subject
access to electronic resources will be an invalu-able
asset on EPC,” said Joan S. Mitchell, editor in
chief, Dewey Decimal Classification, and execu-tive
director, OCLC Forest Press. “ We are looking
forward to her advice on how to develop the
DDC to meet current and emerging knowledge-organization
challenges.”
Ms. Carroll is currently standards librarian,
Standards and Support Division, Acquisition and
Bibliographic Services, National Library of
Canada. Her work and research has focused on
maintaining Canadian MARC communication for-mats,
developing metadata records for electronic
documents, and communicating standards-development
work and changes in MARC cata-loging
policy within the National Library of
Canada and throughout the Canadian library
community. She has also developed and main-tained
the CAN/ MARC web page < http://
www. nlc- bnc. ca/ marc/ index. htm>. Ms. Carroll
holds a master’s of library and information studies
from Dalhousie University and a bachelor’s degree
from Saint Francis Xavier University. Ms. Carroll’s
term on EPC runs through December 2006. She
was appointed by OCLC Forest Press.
“ We are delighted that the American Library
Association nominated Jessica MacPhail as the
ALA representative to EPC,” said Ms. Mitchell.
“ With her 25 years of U. S. public library experi-ence
across four states, Ms. MacPhail is well
equipped to represent the needs of ALA members
on EPC.”
Ms. MacPhail is currently city librarian, Racine
( Wisconsin) Public Library. She is an active mem-ber
of the American Library Association, Public
Library Association and several regional associa-tions.
Ms. MacPhail also served as a member on
the ALA Task Force on the Revised Dewey 780s.
She has written Yesterday’s Papers: a Bibliogra-phy
of the Rolling Stones ( Pierian Press, 1976), as
well as regular columns in library newsletters.
She holds a master’s of library science from
Rosary College and a bachelor’s degree in writing
and humanities from Columbia College. Ms.
MacPhail’s term on EPC ends in December 2003.
OCLC Forest Press, a division of OCLC since
1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal Classifica-tion,
the world’s most widely used system for the
classification of library materials, and a variety of
related materials. More information is available
on the OCLC Forest Press web site < http://
www. oclc. org/ fp/> or via telephone at 1- 800- 848-
5878, extension 6237, or + 1- 614- 764- 6237.
• • •
Two appointed to Dewey Editorial Policy Committee
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 31
The Consortium of University Research Libraries
( CURL) in the British Isles has begun a collection
analysis pilot project with the OCLC Lacey
Product Center in Lacey, Washington, to improve
information about the scope and depth of hold-ings
of research libraries in the United Kingdom.
“ CURL has a considerable interest in collection
mapping as it does provide valuable information
for collaborative resource management,” said Chris
Bailey, CURL executive secretary. “ We are very
happy to have the opportunity to review the iCAS
methodology and its potential value in providing
an objective analysis, within the UK context.”
An estimated 3.2 million bibliographic records
will be provided from the local systems of the
six libraries involved in the project: Edinburgh
University Library; University of Hull Library;
Imperial College of Science, Technology &
Medicine; Central Library, the University of
Liverpool Sydney Jones Library; Natural History
Museum; and the School of Oriental and African
Studies.
The OCLC/ WLN Interactive Collection Analysis
System ( iCAS), one component of Automated
Collection Assessment and Analysis Services
( ACAS), will analyze the age, subject content and
overlap of holdings for the libraries, matching
standard classification numbers to a copyrighted
subject structure and reporting the subject areas
included in the collections.
According to Sally Loken, senior ACAS product
consultant, OCLC Western Service Center, many
libraries in the UK do not have classification num-bers
in all of their bibliographic records.
“ Using WorldCat and perhaps other interna-tional
databases, we hope to supply classification
numbers, for analysis purposes only, for biblio-graphic
records that lack them, so that the result-ing
analyses will be as complete as possible,” said
Ms. Loken.
Each institution will receive a CD- ROM that
contains the analysis of its own holdings, and
CURL will receive an analysis of the holdings of
all six institutions, with overlap and uniqueness
measures.
The Research Support Libraries Programme
( RSLP) < http:// www. rslp. ac. uk/> is co- funding
the project.
“ RSLP is delighted to be co- funding this evalua-tion
of iCAS,” said Ronald Milne, programme
director, RSLP. “ The software and methodology
appear to have considerable potential for assisting
in collection assessment activities, in helping
provide an independent analysis of collections
strengths, and in contributing towards the cre-ation
of a map of the distributed national collec-tion
of printed research resources.”
The yearlong project is scheduled to be com-pleted
at the end of April 2002.
The OCLC/ WLN Interactive Collection Analysis
System ( iCAS) is OCLC’s newest tool for distribut-ing
collection analyses for library directors and
collection managers. Libraries receive a CD- ROM
with a Visual Basic front end that queries
Microsoft Access or SQL databases of their analy-sis
results. For the basic age and content analysis,
data is shown in a grid with the library’s choice of
publication date ranges across the top and WLN
Conspectus divisions, categories and subjects
down the side. Each cell contains the number of
titles held for that subject area and publication
date/ date range, as well as its percentage of the
division, category or subject relative to the entire
collection. The CD- ROM includes graphing, print-ing
and export options. The software runs on
Pentium PCs and networks. More information is
available on the web < http:// www. oclc. org/
western/ wlnprods/ aca/ icas. htm>.
Formed following the merger of OCLC and
WLN on Jan. 1, 1999, the OCLC Lacey Product
Center— located in Lacey, Washington— supports
and develops MARS authority control and data-base
preparation services, the Automated
Collection Analysis services and the CD- ROM
products LaserCat and FastCat.
• • •
CURL partners with OCLC
in collection analysis pilot project
M E M B E R S H I P N E W S
32 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
ebrary, which provides software for online deliv-ery
of copyrighted content, has become a mem-ber
of OCLC.
ebrary’s vertical collections of copyright-protected
books, periodicals, journals and more
will be added to WorldCat. Business and finance
and computers will be among the first of the
vertical collections ebrary will make available
through WorldCat. Librarians and library users
will be able to access ebrary documents indexed
in the OCLC database through an online library
site hosted by ebrary.
“ By adding records of their materials to
WorldCat, ebrary will help libraries to provide
their patrons with instant access to documents
not available on the libraries’ shelves,��� said
Gary Houk, vice president, OCLC Metadata and
Content Management. “ The cataloging of these
electronic materials supports OCLC’s long-standing
mission of furthering access to the
world’s information.”
“ As more and more of the world’s information
becomes electronic, it makes sense for us to
become a member of OCLC, a nonprofit organiza-tion
that is highly respected and utilized by
libraries throughout the world,” said Christopher
Warnock, CEO of ebrary. “ The ebrarian solution
will allow libraries to cost- effectively expand their
collections beyond their physical shelves in a very
efficient way.”
ebrary partners with the world’s leading pub-lishers
and academic presses to develop online
collections in major vertical subject areas. ebrary
develops software and services for the secure
online delivery of copyrighted content.
ebrary is privately held and is funded by
Random House Ventures LLC, Pearson plc and
McGraw- Hill < http:// www. ebrary. com/>.
• • •
ebrary announces membership in OCLC, addition of
online collection to WorldCat
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 33
by Bob Bolander
Elza Gousseva is a Russian scholar who was in
residency at the OCLC Office of Research in
Dublin, Ohio, from May 21 through June 9. She
was in the United States during the 2000/ 01
academic year under the auspices of the Junior
Faculty Development Program ( JFDP) of the U. S.
Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs. Her research focuses primarily
on library automation, and secondarily on inter-library
loan systems and procedures.
Dr. Gousseva’s home institution is Moscow
State University of Culture and Arts ( MSUCA)
where she is assistant professor in the Depart-ment
of Library Science. MSUCA trains specialists
in the fields of culture studies, information sci-ence,
library and bibliography activities, document
science, management and economy of culture,
folk arts ( theater, musical, choreography, arts and
crafts), and advertising. She estimates that its
library holds approximately 800,000 volumes.
The OCLC residency is the final portion of Dr.
Gousseva’s JFDP internship. She spent the earlier
portion of the academic year as a visiting scholar
at the Department of Information Studies at the
University of California, Los Angeles. Professor
John V. Richardson, Jr., was her scientific adviser at
UCLA, and he initially suggested that she visit OCLC
as part of her year of study. ( Dr. Richardson was a
Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the OCLC Office of
Research during the 1996/ 97 academic year.)
Dr. Gousseva was hosted at OCLC by Chandra
Prabha, senior research scientist, OCLC Office of
Research. While at OCLC Dr. Gousseva studied
OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) products and ser-vices
as an example of extended automated library
systems. She also learned about library consortia
and the history of ILL in the United States.
Dr. Gousseva specializes in library automation;
information technology developments; informa-tion
technology related to libraries; automated
library systems; and automation of library pro-cesses,
including interlibrary loan, document
digitizing and document delivery. In Russia she
lectures in technical facilities of library- information
activities, teaching courses such as “ Technical
Facilities of Library Information Practice,” and
“ Basics of Library Research.” She also organizes
student practica in Russia’s largest libraries and
supervises the training of foreign specialists.
Dr. Gousseva graduated from Moscow State
University of Culture and held several positions
there, including deputy dean of the Faculty of
Continuing Professional Education, before becom-ing
an assistant professor. She defended her
kandidatskaia thesis ( roughly equivalent to the
American Ph. D.), titled “ Organization and
Methods of Improvement of Qualification of
Instructors of Special Subjects of Library
Departments of Universities of Culture,” in 1994.
Dr. Gousseva’s work in the United States not
only will strengthen her professionally but will
contribute to her institution and the profession
as well. One goal of her research at OCLC was to
enhance the course,“ Modern Technical Facilities
of Library- Information Activity,” and to prepare a
chapter for a student textbook. She also sought
to establish professional contacts between profes-sional
schools in both countries, and she commu-nicated
routinely with students and colleagues in
Russia about conditions and her experiences.
The goal of the JFDP is to provide opportuni-ties
for young faculty at universities in the former
Soviet Union to observe teaching methods in the
United States, to collaborate with their American
colleagues on projects of mutual interest, and to
develop lasting relationships with American insti-tutions
of higher education. In addition to sup-porting
academic exchange, the program more
generally promotes greater cooperation and
understanding between former Soviet Union
countries and the United States.
Serendipitously, Dr. Gousseva’s visit coincided
with the residency of the IFLA/ OCLC interna-tional
fellowships scholars, facilitating an
exchange of ideas and experiences. Another
occurred when she met Nancy Lensenmayer,
technical instructor and consultant, OCLC Office
of Organization Development and Learning. In
addition to her role at OCLC, Ms. Lensenmayer
is an adjunct faculty member at the Kent State
University School of Library and Information
Science, where she teaches courses on topics
similar to those taught in Russia by Dr.
Gousseva.— Bob Bolander is communications
and program manager, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
Russian scholar studies at OCLC
“ I have learned a lot from
OCLC. I will return to
Moscow with a better
understanding of library
automation in general
and especially
interlibrary loan. It has
been a great experience.”
— Elza Gousseva
R E S E A R C H
34 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
by Bob Bolander
Christine L. Borgman spoke
at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, on
April 20, under the auspices
of the Office of Research-sponsored
Distinguished
Seminar Series.
Dr. Borgman is professor
and presidential chair in
Information Studies at the
University of California, Los Angeles, and visiting
professor of Information Science, Loughborough
University ( Leicestershire, UK). Her presentation,
titled “ From Gutenberg to the Global Information
Infrastructure: Access to Information in the
Networked World,” dealt with the idea of an infor-mation
infrastructure, and the role of libraries
within it as the infrastructure becomes increas-ingly
digital in nature and global in extent.
Dr. Borgman was welcomed back to OCLC by
Thom Hickey, chief scientist, OCLC Office of
Research, who noted that she had been a research
assistant in the OCLC Office of Research while
working on her doctoral program at Stanford
University.
Dr. Borgman’s presentation focused on
selected topics from her book of the same title
as the presentation ( published in 2000 by MIT
Press). In that work she builds on scholarly work
from economics, sociology, psychology, business
and computer science to show the threads on
which current trends are built and where tradi-tional
libraries and digital libraries fit into the
information infrastructure. She asked the audi-ence
to consider for themselves where libraries
fit, including the role institutions play, both now
and in the future.
What is “ Infrastructure”?
Examples of infrastructure include electrical
grids, highways, railroads, telecommunications
and computer networks. According to Dr.
Borgman, such components of the national infra-structure
are tightly interconnected. A major
research focus is the nature of the relationship
between technology and infrastructure, and the
related idea of co- evolution: technology does not
cause social change, but social change does not
happen independently of technology, either.
There is a recognition that the available technol-ogy
provides a foundation on which social
processes are built.
Dr. Borgman described eight characteristics of
an infrastructure and asked the audience to con-sider
railroads as a specific example of a common
infrastructure:
• Infrastructures are embedded in other
structures, social arrangements and
technologies. They are interconnected with
other infrastructure components.
• Infrastructures are transparent, in that they
often support tasks invisibly.
• Their reach or scope may be spatial or
temporal, in that they reach beyond a single
event or a single site of practice.
• Infrastructure is learned as part of membership
of an organization or group ( e. g., how to use
railroad schedules, buy tickets and board trains).
• Infrastructures are linked with conventions of
practice of day- to- day work.
• Infrastructures are the embodiment of
standards, so that other tools and
infrastructures can interconnect in a
standardized way.
• They build upon an installed base, inheriting
both strengths and limitations from that base.
( Dr. Borgman noted that this is something
we’re all becoming very aware of as we look at
migrating to the next generation Internet or
library. Infrastructures can be difficult to
extend, especially if new standards develop,
and we need to consider migrating forward as
we build the infrastructure of today on top of
the legacy of the past.)
• Infrastructures become visible upon
breakdown, in that we are most aware of them
when they fail to function.
Dr. Borgman reported that various types of
definitions exist for information infrastructures,
including definitions that treat them as technical
frameworks, that consider them from a public
policy perspective, or that account for them as
combinations of technology, people and content.
What is missing from such definitions, she says, is
an account of the institutions that are part of the
information infrastructure.
The Role of Libraries
in the Information Infrastructure
Dr. Borgman encouraged the audience to con-sider
the role of libraries in the information
Christine Borgman discusses information infrastructure
R E S E A R C H
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 35
infrastructure by thinking about basic issues.
She posed four challenges to be faced as libraries
move forward with the information infrastruc-ture,
digital libraries, and other current techno-logical
and social developments.
Challenge 1: Invisible Infrastructure—
Information work is
embedded in other struc-tures.
It is transparent,
and successful practices
often are invisible. This
can mean that libraries
risk being victims of their
own success— if libraries
are doing a really good job for people, users might
not realize librarians are involved, or what role
the library is playing. Furthermore, users gener-ally
are unaware of the economic structure of
information production, distribution, storage and
transfer processes, and do not understand the
true costs of the apparently free information they
access through libraries.
Challenge 2: Content and Collections— Citing
Buckland ( 1992), Dr. Borgman identified the pur-poses
of collections as including preservation—
keeping materials for the future; dispensing—
providing access to them; bibliographic— identify-ing
what exists; and symbolic— conferring status.
She explained that we know that digital libraries
collect differently, but it hasn’t been broadly stud-ied
why, or what the purposes of their collections
are. At the same time, there is surprisingly little
known about how people use resources in collec-tions.
She argued that more research needs to be
done on a variety of related topics.
Challenge 3: Preservation and Access— Dr.
Borgman observed that collections must be pre-served.
She noted that the question of when to
preserve physical artifacts vs. content alone
( e. g., digitizing, or even microforming), has
become a very political area. Related issues
involve the preservation of metadata and per-sistent
access to information resources. She
observed that libraries really are three kinds of
institutions at once right now. They must pre-serve
the physical collections they have built up
over centuries. At the same time they have to
manage the hybrid collections they currently
have. They also are expected to be research and
development departments to validate the new
generation of technology at the same time.
She noted that digitization does not equal
preservation, and commented on the importance
of clearly recognizing this point.
Challenge 4: Institutional Boundaries— Dr.
Borgman reported that this is an area where social
scientists and historians have become interested
as well. In the 19th century, libraries, museums
and archives were not as differentiated as they are
now. As their collections expanded, they started
to divide by type of mater-ial.
Print collections went
mostly to libraries, muse-ums
collected artifacts, and
archives handled primary
source material. Now that
more and more is available
in electronic form, it is
again becoming hard to draw those lines.
Today’s students of information must know
about generalized information structures and
how these institutions ( and others, too, such as
grocery stores) are organized, rather than just
learning about library classification systems and
procedures.
Summary and Conclusions
Dr. Borgman observed that the notion of informa-tion
infrastructure brings together a number of
different ideas. Libraries certainly are a compo-nent
of the information infrastructure, but they’re
a component of a number of other kinds of infra-structures,
as well. They’re embedded in universi-ties,
schools, corporations and law firms. They’re
a part of the social and policy infrastructures,
they’re part of the community infrastructure, and
they’re very much part of the educational infra-structure
as well.
Where do libraries fit in as we move into the
future and we’re concerned about providing
equality of access? Digital libraries represent the
technologies we will be able use to deliver con-tent,
yet we are moving into this digital future
with a very fuzzy notion of where libraries fit into
the equity issues. Libraries often are in the fore-front
of mediating between resource suppliers
and users, but at the same time the institutions
they are a part of often fail to adequately think
through this relationship, and to provide the
resources necessary when planning future ser-vices.
Libraries and librarians must work to over-come
the four challenges Dr. Borgman identified
if they are to serve their users effectively and pre-serve
their place in the global information infra-structure.—
Bob Bolander is communications
and program manager, OCLC Office of Research.
• • •
Technology does not cause social change, but
social change does not happen independently of
technology, either.
R E S E A R C H
36 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
OCLC seeks applicants for research grants
The OCLC/ ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grant program awards up to $ 10,000 to fos-ter
quality research by faculty in schools of library and information science. Projects are generally com-pleted
within one year, and findings are published in the Annual Review of OCLC Research and in the
public domain. Application materials are available on the OCLC web site, at < http:// www. oclc. org/
research/ grants/>. Deadline for submission is Sept. 15, 2001. For more information, contact the
Office of Research by telephone at + 1- 614- 764- 6487 or by e- mail at diane_ morris@ oclc. org.
• • •
by Alane Wilson
On April 18, Dublin- based
OCLC staff were invited to
hear Tim Bray, one of the
luminaries of the web world,
speak on “ The State of the
Web: Storing, Searching and
Navigating Better.” Some 70
staff from many different
areas of OCLC attended.
Mr. Bray’s presentation began with an overview
of the history of computer- to- computer communi-cation,
ending with the comment that the web
model brings us full circle to the earlier “ black-box”
server- centric model. Users have no idea
what the interaction is between server and
browser, and applications are limited. Web trans-actions
are accomplished by filling out a form and
swapping it back and forth between web servers.
This makes the Internet a speed- of- light network,
moving at a crawl. Mr. Bray suggested many web
sites are merely fancy fax machines, and HTML
is limited as an information exchange standard
because it describes how a browser should
arrange a page, unlike XML, which provides infor-mation-
rich metalanguage about the content of
the web site.
Mr. Bray asserted that web architecture needs
to maximize the value of XML to speed up trans-actions.
He described his methodology for build-ing
web applications called TAXI ( Transform,
Aggregate, Send XML, Interact) which addresses
the problem of delivering the richness and inter-activity
of client/ server user interfaces through a
browser. All the application data is transferred
to and from the application web server and the
browser- based client as XML, including the inter-face
definitions. More information on TAXI as a
web architecture is available on the web < http://
www. xml. com/ pub/ a/ 2001/ 03/ 14/ taxi. html>.
Mr. Bray also spoke about progress in the areas
of searching, navigation and standardization on
the web. Searching for content has seen little
progress. Internationalization of search tools
hasn’t really happened, and categorization and
indexing is still done by humans, if at all.
Metadata about documents on the web is scarce,
as general- purpose search engines will not use
metadata so the problem is in finding things, not
in using them. Mr. Bray is convinced that the
only scaleable solution is the creation of metadata
at the source, either by human authors or self-generated
by documents. Bare bones metadata
is better than nothing. Anything that helps peo-ple
discover and exchange things has high value.
Progress in standardization is slow. The RDF
schema is very promising as an encoding stan-dard,
but the lack of attention to RDF is disap-pointing.
Failure to have standards for document
formats, metadata and exchange protocols means
that infrastructure issues dominate work on the
architecture of the web.
Mr. Bray thinks the web needs to be more like
a library, or a video store, or a phone book, than it
is today.
Tim Bray has been in the software business for
20 years. Between 1996 and 1999, he partici-pated
in the work of the World Wide Web
Consortium, serving as co- editor of XML 1.0 and
Namespaces in XML. In 1999, he founded a soft-ware
company called Antarcti. ca Systems to help
people make better use of ever- expanding,
increasingly unorganized intranets, extranets and
the World Wide Web.— Alane Wilson is senior
marketing analyst, OCLC Marketing.
• • •
Tim Bray discusses searching the web
OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001 37
by Lorraine Normore and Bradley Watson
When the OCLC Office of Research introduced
the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog project
at a 1999 ALA Midwinter preconference meeting,
the most frequently asked question about
Pathfinders was “ What is a Pathfinder?” This ques-tion’s
frequency prior to release of the product in
July 2000 led trainers to begin any instruction on
the topic by giving a quick definition. And so, in
this account of the origins of Pathfinders within
CORC, that’s where we’ll begin.
Definition
Creating subject guides has long been a part of
librarianship. Beginning in library school “ collec-tions”
classes, librarians have selected lists of sig-nificant
resources to help users find good material
on all sorts of subjects. While quality varies from
these initial attempts to such respected works as
the ALA Guide to Reference Books, the idea is
remarkably similar.
Lorraine Normore
Bradley Watson
by Sandy McIntyre Colby
As part of its recommitment to supporting and
improving the Pathfinders toolset, OCLC cur-rently
allows libraries to implement Pathfinders at
no charge. Member library staff are encouraged
to use their OCLC Cataloging authorizations to
search, create, clone, store, embed ( merge) and
export Pathfinders ( Pathfinder link or the HTML)
< http:// corc. oclc. org/>. Created or customized
for local use by member libraries, often as a col-laborative
effort by reference, collection develop-ment,
subject specialist, technology and technical
services staff, Pathfinders may incorporate
reviewed and selected Internet resources, refer-ences
to library materials, licensed electronic
resources and OCLC records. Creating catalog
records for Pathfinders is an efficient way for
member libraries to provide additional access
points to users.
Additionally, in response to user feedback,
numerous Pathfinder features have recently been
added as part of CORC’s monthly installation of
enhancements including:
• Local override of cascading style sheets feature
to specify font type and size, background color
and insert background images in the Pathfinder
• Enhanced searching with the ability to search
date ranges
• Sort entries on the Pathfinder by title
• Additional workflow and Save File status-tracking
capabilities
Upcoming enhancements include:
• Option to request that the system create an RC
record at the same time the Pathfinder is
submitted. The RC record about the Pathfinder
is moved to the institution’s Save File
• Pathfinder Constant Data
Additional enhancements will be announced
on CORC- L < http:// www. oclc. org/ corc/
managing/ corc- l. shtm>. An online tutorial that
describes how to create and use Pathfinders is
available on the web < http:// www. oclc. org/ corc/
learning/ handsoncorc/ createPathfinder. shtm>,
and there is contextual online help available in
CORC. For additional information contact your
OCLC regional service provider < http://
www. oclc. org/ contacts/ regional/>.
Send feedback or questions about CORC’s
Pathfinders to support@ oclc. org or to me via
e- mail at colbys@ oclc. org or phone at 1- 800- 848-
5878 X4378.— Sandy McIntyre Colby is prod-uct
support specialist, OCLC Metadata Services.
• • •
Pathfinders update
Pathfinders: A collaborative reference tool
P A T H F I N D E R S
38 OCLC Newsletter July/ August 2001
In working libraries, the job of creating these
lists is often shared among librarians in collection
development and reference services, and with other
subject specialists. These lists have transferred very
quickly and naturally to the online environment. At
this time, almost all library web sites include pages
identifying collections of
high- quality resources.
In most cases, the con-tent
is organized by
topic. In many cases,
the lists include both
electronic and other
types of library materials.
In addition to these library- centered efforts,
there have been a number of substantial projects
that have focused on creating subject- oriented
bibliographies of web resources. BUBL < http://
bubl. ac. uk/> is a national service in the United
Kingdom that offers subject- based access to the
Internet through subject terms and the Dewey
Decimal Classification system. The BUBL “ subject
tree” has resources arranged by topic and hierar-chically
grouped. In the United States, one of
the more extensive efforts is the Internet Scout
Project < http:// scout. cs. wisc. edu/ index. html>.
Originally funded by a National Science Founda-tion
grant, this project aims to help end users find
the best resources on the Internet, prefiltered by
librarians and educators. Other significant
projects have included the Desire project
< http:// www. desire. org/> funded by the
European Union, which supported the develop-ment
of subject gateways and ROADS,
< http:// www. ukoln. ac. uk/ metadata/ roads/>
another UK project designed to help with the
creation of subject gateways.
In terms of structure and content, these groups
have created resources that are remarkably simi-lar.
We call them Pathfinders.
History
In the formative days of the CORC project, as
members of the team in the OCLC Office of
Research looked at what libraries were doing with
Internet resources, it was obvious that libraries
were creating Pathfinder pages in addition to inte-grating
web resource records into their online
public access catalogs. However, creating and
maintaining Pathfinders were challenging and
time- consuming tasks. Not only do the responsi-ble
parties need to continuously scan a rapidly
growing World Wide Web for new resources, but
they must also continually monitor changes in
the existence, location and content of their many
selected sites. For the most part, these efforts
proceed in isolation, without the benefits of
shared maintenance. If a library chooses to
simply point to one of the project- based pages,
they can pass some of
the responsibility to the
originating project.
However, those projects
themselves are chal-lenged
to find long- term
support for their efforts.
In addition, libraries that want more control over
their web page content face the complete chal-lenge
of selection, creation and maintenance.
Pathfinder creation demanded new skills from
library staff. Even for basic Pathfinders, librarians
needed not only Internet search skills but also
technical skills in HTML and server support to be
able to provide services at the library level. Many
libraries created special webmaster staff positions
to support these needs. However, what truly mat-ters
for high- quality Pathfinders is subject knowl-edge,
not technical skills.
To support Pathfinder creation and use, CORC
needed to develop a set of Pathfinder- specific
tools. To make creation easier, the tool had to be
able to “ harvest” links from pre- existing web-based
resource pages that were already in exis-tence
on a library’s web site. Pathfinders within
the CORC system were developed to allow
libraries to benefit from the subject expertise
of other OCLC participating libraries. The
Pathfinders in the database must be available for
cloning and then for local customization. To
enable li
OCLC Newsletter
