OCLC Newsletter

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French administration and OCLC
sign accord to explore international
library cooperation
DUBLIN, Ohio, Feb. 14-Libraries through­out
France and the United States may have a
unique opportunity to exchange scientific,
technical and literary information as a result
of an arrangement between the French ad­ministration
and OCLC.
DBMIST (Direction des Bibliotheques, des
Musees et de l'Information Scientifique et
Technique) has entered into an accord with
OCLC to mutually explore ways to reduce
redundant efforts, accelerate joint research,
and build shared databases. The signatories
will seek to overcome technological barriers
to such efforts by arranging for access to each
other's data, software, research and systems.
In the first and current phase of the accord,
the Bibliotheque Nationale and other French
libraries selected by DBMIST and DLL (Direc­tion
du Livre et de la Lecture) will search the
OCLC database on an experimental basis for
specific titles in specific subject areas to de­termine
whether the bibliographic data found
in the OCLC database would be useful in help­ing
to build computerized catalogs and other
Users Council discusses networking
and the national database
by Leslie Pearse and Phil Schieber
"Networking and the National Database"
was the topic for a forum and small group dis­cussions
at the winter OCLC Users Council
meeting in Atlanta, Ga., Feb. 16-19. Presid­ing
was Users Council President Betty Taylor,
Director of the Legal Information Center and
Professor of Law, University of Florida.
Delegates also heard reports on fmances,
telecommunications pricing, strategic plan­ning,
the Online Audiovisual Catalogers,
duties and responsibilities of OCLC Board
members, the Board's Principles and Guide­lines
Advisory Committee (for third-party use
of records derived from the OCLC database),
and the redesign and reimplementation of the
OCLC system (Oxford Project).
SOLINET sponsored a reception for the
-. delegates at its headquarters on Feb. 17.
Financial Report
Sunday evening, Feb. 16,John Shary, OCLC
Vice President, Finance, and Treasurer, pre­sented
the OCLC fmancial report. Service
revenues from July I thwugh]an. 31 totalled
S44.5 million, up 15 percent over 1985.
Membership equity has increased from S 38
million to $46 million, which means that
OCLC owos S46 million of the 590 million in
reported assets. Mr. Shary said OCLC's strong
financial position gives it more flexibility to
support its programs. He noted that while
OCLC's S40-million capital equipment expen­diture
program, which includes telecommu­nication
modernization and the redesign and
reimplementation of the OCLC System, will
decrease contributions to equity over the next
three years, OCLC hopes to be able to main­tain
or decrease prices for members. ''OCLC
is walking fmancially strong into a new era of
services," said Mr. Shary.
OCLC President's Report
Rowland Brown, President of OCLC, re­ported
briefly on the following topics:
(continued on page 3)
electronic ftles being developed in France to
serve the library and information community.
The experimental access will also indicate the
degree to which records from French librar­ies
may increase the size and usefulness of the
OCLC database for libraries in the United
States.
M. Denis Varloot, Director, DBMIST, issued
the following statement regarding the accord
with OCLC
''OCLC is a vivid example of the be,!lefits
(continued on page 2)
Contents
French, OCLC explore cooperation ..• , • 1-2
Users Council discusses networking. 1-3-4-5
OCLC, RLG exchange of preservation
records , •• , ... , •• , , •..•• , •...••. , 2
Telecommunications network modernized . 6
OCLC ga1ns license for iNet 2000
software .....•••..••..•••...••.... a
13 Millionth database record input • , •.... a
New York Public Library records available , 7
Library of Congress music catalog online , . 7
1bree university libraries acquire
J..S/2000 .••.••.•..•••.•..••.....•• 9
Federal agencies acquire LS/2000 .... , ••. 9
OCLC Founder receives Ohio Governor's
Award ....••.••.... , ••... ,, •..•. 10
OCLC participates in ARL RECON Program 11
J..S/2000 accepted at 3 libraries ••..••. , . 11
OCLC opens gateway to DRS , ... , , ••..• II
3.5 million CSU records to be converted •. 12
Contact Desk answers the call for
help ..... , ..•.••.•••..••... ,. 13-14
Classification in online catalogs studied. , • 14
Cataloging ME Version 2 available
for M300 ... , ••......••...••• , ... 15
MICROCON observes first anniversary. 16-17
"Libraries Learning for Life" kickoff •••• , 1a
OHIONET "OhioPi" demonstrated at OCLC 19
Europeans participate in ILL Subsystem .• , 19
Special collections guide to be updated . , , 16
New OCLC Fonnat documents now
a .... allable, , ••......• , •.... , ••..••• 16
Send us your slides , •• , , .. , •• , ... , ••. 19
Optical disk technology video available, .. 10
2 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
French administration
(continued from page I)
libraries can get from cooperation and
resource-sharing. I am deeply convinced that
a cooperative mind should be applied by the
library community to every field of action, on
the international level as well as the national
level. This is even more true as new techno­logical
developments offer us unprecedented
means of communication and information ex­change,
in an increasingly cost-effective man­ner.
DB:MIST and OCLC share a conunon
view of the ways to face the future. Thus, our
cooperative effort will apply not only to pres­ent
services-though making the riches of our
libraries known and available to both aca­demic
communities would, by no means, be
a small accomplishment-but will also en­compass
research projects."
Rowland C. W. Brown, President and Chief
Executive Officer, OCLC, stated:
"Scholarship knows no national bound­aries.
Libraries throughout the world are in­creasingly
collecting foreign language mate~
rials and/or publications of foreign imprint.
Likewise, and perhaps more important, lib1"3!­ies
and scholars are seeking and finding rna~
terials in libraries other than their own, both
nationally and internationally, to meet their
needs. It is very exciting to be working with
the various institutions of the French govern~
ment through DBMIST as they implement
their own national systems. The libraries of
France not only represent unique resources of
European culture but also significant collec~
tions of Islamic, African and Asian materials.
Looking ahead, both OCLC and DBMIST rec­ogrtize
that scholars, researchers, and other
users of scientific and cultural infonnation re~
quire more than bibliographic identification
of materials. OCLC, DBMIST and other
French institutions are therefore pursuing
means of electronically identifying subject
matter, location and ultimately providing elec-
See related story on page 19
tronic delivery of desired information. This
collaborative international venture could set
a pattern for similar agreements between
OCLC and other governments.''
During the six~month test the French librar­ies
will communicate with the OCLC database
in Dublin, Ohio, via a packet-switched serv~
ice to the United Kingdom and thence to
OCLC via transatlantic cable.
The Bibliotheque Nationale will employ
two terminals with access to OCLC through­out
the test period. The DLL will use two ter~
minals for various tests in public libraries, in­cluding
the Pompidou Center in Paris.
OCLC and RLG announce exchange of
preservation and microform set records
DUBLIN, Ohio, March 20-0CLC Online
Computer IJbrary Center and the Research li­braries
Group (RLG) jointly announce that
they are exchanging machine-readable tapes
containing cataloging records of preservation
master microfilms and major microform sets.
Although both RLG and OCLC had previ­ously
acquired and loaded each other's rec~
ords for individual institutions, this is the first
time the organizations have agreed to initiate
a cooperative exchange of records.
In the first exchange, RLG received 40,979
mircoform preservation master microform
records for its Research libraries Information
Network (RL!N) database. The OCLC records
were created by OCLC users (including Uni~
versity Microfilms International) who are in
a variety of preservation microfihn activities.
In tum, OCLC received 39,111 preservation
master records (entered in RLIN by 10 RLG
members for their complete holdings of
microform master negatives and by the par~
ticipants in RLG's ongoing Cooperative
Preservation Microfilining Project) for the
OCLC Online Union Catalog. OCLC will con­tinue
to receive such records monthly and
will send its members' preservation records
to RLG on a regular basis.
The organiZations also exchanged major
microform sets cataloged under Title II-C (of
the Higher Education Act) grants, using OCLC
and RLG systems. RLG received "English and
American Plays of the 19th Century"
(cataloged by Indiana University) and the rwo­volume
"Landmarks ofSdence" (cataloged by
the University ofUtab), totaling some 20,000
records. OCLC received an initial set of about
29,600 records for "Early American Imprints
Second Series by Shaw-Shoemaker'' (being
cataloged by Stanford University; a substan~
tial further set of records will follow after the
Stanford cataloging project is completed).
Made without condition or restriction,
these exchanges will make valuable catalog­ing
and preservation records more readily
available to OCLC and RLG users, and enable
them to avoid costly redundant preservation
microfilining.
Richard W. McCoy, RLG President, said he
was pleased that these exchanges had been
made, for, as he noted, "these records repre­sent
expensive and time-consuming efforts of
major research libraries to provide cataloging
as well as to undertake preservation filming
that will be valuahle far beyond their own in­stitutioru;.
It is in everyone's interest that these
records be widely shared."
"In time, the Linked Systems Project [LSP]
will enable such exchanges to be made
directly between the host computers of our
DBMIST will rotate placement of two termi~
nals in various academic and research librar-ies
in the Paris area including libraries of the (-
13 universities of Paris and region, the Cen~
ter for Sociological Studies, and the National ,
Museum of Natural History.
DBMIST is the agency of the French Minis­try
of Education responsible for academic li­braries,
museums and scientific and technical
infonnation. DLL is the agency of the French
Ministry of Culture responsible for public li­braries.
The Bibliotheque Nationale is the na­tional
library of France and one of the world's
premier research libraries.
Over 6,000 libraries in the U.S. and nine
other countries contribute and use informa~
lion in the OCLC Online Catalog, the world's
largest database of bibliographic information.
Similar to descriptions of books and library
materials traditionally found in card catalogs,
bibliographic information in the OCLC data­base
also includes location infonnation. There
are over 13 million bibliographic records in
this database and well over 200 million loca~
tion listings. Approximately 2.5 million rec­ords
are in 244 non-English languages. There
are about 700,000 titles in French in the
OCLC database; this figure could grow signif­icantly
as the result of.future cooperation. li~
braries in the OCLC network borrow elec~
tronically about 7,000 titles dally from each
other.
respective databases." (
The LSP supports online communications -
between bibliographic computing systems.
OCLC and RLG are LSP participants together
with the Library of Congress and the Western
Library Network. The project has been sup­ported
by the Council on Library Resources.
Mary Ellen Jacob, OCLC Vice President, Li­brary
Planning, said the project will benefit
each organiZation's individual memberships
by improving access to preservation masters
and to major microform sets.
"library users can, with major microform
records, now access the individual titles in a
set; this significantly improves access to and
use of these valuable resources,'' she said.
OCLC's development of its Major Micro~
form Program was initiated by its Research U~
braries Advisory Committee. Tbirty-three sets
totaling more than 150,000 titles are now
available through this program.
Arrangements are being completed for
computer tenninals to access each system.
RLG, at its expense, will install an RLIN ter­minal
at OCLL Likewise, OCLC, at its ex­pense,
will install a terminal at RLG offices.
The Research Libraries Group Inc. is a part­nership
of major universities and research in­stitutions
in the United States. Together, mem~
bers engage in problem solving, participate in
a set of ongoing programs, and develop new (
initiatives to enhance access to research infor­mation.
Through its programs and technical "
resources, RLG enables libraries to meet their
commitments to collect, organize, preserve
and provide information necessary to educa­tion,
research and scholarship.
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Users Council discusses
networking and the
national database
(continued from page I)
OCLC's corporate action resource plan,
which provides a programmatic way of
examining both current and planned
OCLC services in terms of develop­ment,
operations, support and training;
development of prototype systems for
cataloging and reference employing op­tical
disk technology that will be dem­onstrated
at the Annual Conference of
the American Library Association in
New York City in June;
an accord between the French adminis­tration
and OCLC that will test access
to the OCLC database by French librar­ies
(see article on page 1);
the OCLC Higher Education Policy Ad­visory
Conunittee, which is holding a
conference on information resources
for the campus of the future in June to
bring together a select group of aca­demic
administrators, including the
presidents and provosts, of eight
universities, to examine the informa­tion
resources that will be necessary to
serve the university community; and
status of network contract negotiations,
in which the boards of OCLC and net­works
are now examining issues still
separating OCLC and the networks in
arriving at agreement on core contract
provisions.
Mr. Brown noted that the contract negoti­ations
have been constructive and amicable.
Forum on Networking and the
National Database
Monday morning, Feb. 17, Ms. Taylor
moderated a ''Forum on Networking and the
National Database." Forum speakers were:
Richard McCoy, President of the Research Li­braries
Group, Inc.; Frank Grisham, Executive
Director of SOLINET; and Rowland Brown,
President of OCLC.
RLIN and the National Database
Richard McCoy, President of the Research
Libraries Group (RLG), began his talk with a
description of RLG's organization and pro­grams.
RLG currently has 36 full members. In­stitutions
which are candidates for member­ship
must be members of the American
Association of Universities (AAU), and their li­braries
members of the Association of Re­search
Libraries (ARL); or they must belong to
the Independent Research Libraries Associa­tion.
A similar number of special or associate
members participates in one or more RLG
programs.
OCLC Users Council met at the
Sheraton Atlanta Airport Hotel.
RLG's core programs consist of Collection
Management and Development, Resource
Shating, Bibliographic Control, and Preserva­tion.
Additionally, there are special interest
programs in: archives, manuscripts and spe­cial
collections; art and architecture; East
Asian studies; law; medical and health
sciences; and music.
In support of these programs RLG operates
the Research Libraries Information Network
(RLIN) which presently has approximately
1 ,000 terminals linked to a database of about
19 million bibliographic records, half of
which are unique. RLIN also provides access
to some two million name- authority records.
Dr. McCoy noted that RLG has a policy
limiting RLIN services outside the membership
provided through CLASS (Cooperative Libcaty
Agency for Systems and Services) to 20 per­cent
of system activity.
Competition and Cooperation
''The juxtaposition of RUN and OCLC has
sometimes been divisive among research li­braries,''
Dr. McCoy said, ''but we also hope
it has been beneficial." He said that OCLC and
RLG cooperate as well as compete and noted
cooperation in such areas as standards, the
Unked Systems Project, and exchanges of rec­ords.
Recently, OCLC and RLG also agreed to
exchange terminals so that each organization's
staff can have access to the other's database.
A Logical National Database
Dr. McCoy said that RLG does not view the
RLIN database as ''a national database of
record" but rather as part of a "logical na­tional
database." He said the RLIN database
is designed and built to support the interests
and needs of RLG members and particularly
to support RLG's programmatic objectives.
''We are not interested in loading large
volumes of records of non-member institu­tions,''
he stated. ''We do wish, however, to
contribute to a national logical database which
can be built by linking various databases."
Amidst rapidly changing technology, the
value of library cooperation remains constant,
Dr. McCoy said.
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 3
Linked Systems Project
The results of the Linked Systems Project
are now becoming visible to the library com­munity,
Dr. McCoy said. File updates are be­ing
received electronically via the LSP link,
and NACO participants are now sending au­thorities
information to the Library of Con­gress
electronically rather than through the
mails.
By the end of 1987 LSP participants will
have limited intersystem searching and a more
general capability for transferring records elec­tronically
from system to system. "This is an
important step toward building a logical na­tional
database," said Dr. McCoy.
He cautioned that an "electronic Tower of
Babel" has evolved and must be surmounted
through intersystem access in the terms, tech­niques
and with the equipment each user sees
every day. Establishment of a standard infor­mation
retrieval protocol offers exciting
prospects for other kinds of linkages, such as
that of local library system to local system in
support of state or regional networking. In­ternational
linking will also be possible if the
libraries involved make a commitment to a
standard protocol.
''We are pleased to be associated in the
Linked Systems Project with OCLC, Western
Libcaty Network and the Libcaty of Congress
as we plan a future networking environ­ment."
OCLC and the National Database
"To what Dick McCoy has said, we at
OCLC say 'amen'," began Rowland Brown,
President of OCLC. He said that the OCLC
Board and management are giving high pri­ority
to the building of a logical na­tional/
international database through a myriad
of joint ventures involving multiple sources
and access methods, a "network of net­works.''
Because of the importance of the ex­tensive
holdings data in the vast OCLC data­base
to resource sharing throughout the
nation and abroad, OCLC does have a greater
interest than RLG in loading records of non­members
as well as members.
(continued on page 4)
4 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
Users Council discusses
networking and the
national database
(continued from page 3)
Mr. Brown said that OCLC's involvement
with the Linked Systems Project is multi­phased.
In order to implement the first phase,
authorities, as quickly as possible, OCLC is us­ing
the LS/2000 software and a minicomputer
configuration with limited capacity. In the
longer term, the LSP will become part of
OCLC's Oxford environment-the modern­ized,
open telecommunications network and
the redesigned and reimplemented OCLC
system-to permit computer-to-computer in­terfacing
with local systems and other bibli­ographic
networks such as RLG.
He noted that the complex economic, po­litical
and technical issues arising from librar­ies'
searching other networks' databases were
such that universal access wasn't going to hap­pen
all at once but" would be gradually im­plemented
over a number of years.
"OCLC is the richest source of bibliographic
information for current cataloging, acquisi­tions,
and retrospective conversion, and the
most useful resource for interlibrary loan," he
said. ''OCLC will remain willing and eager to
share records with other resource-producing
systems. We have just begun to use the data­base
more fully.''
Distribution
''OCLC is the most effective distributor of
records online, by tape, and in the future, by
optical disk, both here and abroad,'' he said.
"We do not view the database as separate
from the distribution method.''
OCLC Mission
Mr. Brown stated that while the RLIN data­base
was a support mechanism for the pro­gcams
ofRLG, the OCLC database and the dis­tribution
mechanism are part of the OCLC
mission itself. "Our differences, though, do
not prevent us from exchanging records and
coqperating in other ways.''
''The OCLC membership has every eco­nomic
reason for building rather than
diminishing the database," he said. "It is a
unique international resource."
He noted that the OCLC membership con­tributes
two-thirds of the records in the OCLC
database, which contains more than thirteen
million unique bibliographic records with
more than 220 million location listings.
"Shared cataloging has and will continue to
be the key to the value of the OCLC database
for the library world, and this is being recog­nized
abroad as well.''
International Resource
Mr. Brown said that the OCLC database is
becoming increasingly important for interli­brary
lending, both nationally and internation­ally.
State libraries, consortia, and other
groups of libraries Whose shared cataloging
has been facilitated by OCLC and its members
are facing the question of how to bring back
to the OCLC database the records and hold­ings
from the new databases they are creating.
Enrichment
According to Mr. Brown, OCLC has made
the database more accessible while at the same
time enriching it through such national pro­grams
as the U. S. Newspaper Program,
CONSER, the ARL Recon Project, tapeloading
ofRLG members' records, and the Group Ac­cess
Capability. OCLC is also studying ways
to make specialized subsets of the database
available offline.
"We are a long way from having universal
access,'' he said, ''but we are working on it.''
LC's Network Advisory Committee
Frank Grisham, Executive Director of SOU­NET
summarized discussions held at the De­cember
1985 meeting of the Network Advi­sory
Committee to the Library of Congress
(NAC) and provided an analysis of the current
library scene based on responses to question­naires
mailed to libraries asking the basic ques­tion,
"What is the common vision of the na­tional
network?''
The questiOIUlaires were received from
more than 100 librarians at NAC institutions
or Association of Research Libraries members
as well as other selected representatives from
the information industry.
''Because of the diversity among libraries,
no single network is possible or desirable,"
Mr. Grisham said, citing as possible reasons
the absence of a national plan, doubts as to the
desirability of a national plan, and changing
purposes and missions in the library cornrt_lu­nity.
"The queStion becomes, can we arnve
at a consensus on our goals?"
Control Yields to Access
According to Mr. Grisham, attendees at the
NAC meeting concluded that technology has
had a significant impact on networking.
''Problems of governance have been replaced
with problems of function and relationships,"
he said. "Local systems appear to be the way
to gain local control. There is a decline in the
cooperative spirit, and decentralization con­tinues."
He noted that there is confusion over
copyrights and contracts, and a fear that in­formation
will be available only to the elite.
''Bibliographic control has given way to ac­cess
as a major goal.''
Barriers to Access
Mr. Grisham said that responses to the
questionnaires indicated that networks sho~d
provide citizens with the widest range of m­formation
possible, wherever and whenever
needed at a reasonable cost. Barriers to that
mission include:
lack of perceived value in cooperation
redundancy of efforts
decreased access from decentralization
only 7,000 out of I 00,000 U.S. libraries are
now served by networking -
lack of integration of the end user into (
network activities
economic issues
lack of understanding of the value that
society places on information
uneven access to information
ego and power
politics and territoriality
lack of sensitivity to interdependence.
Trends in Networking
Respondents identified these trends in li­brary
networking,
more linkages, local and other
a shift from bibliographic to textual
databases
online publishing and transmission
increasingly distributed networking
avoidance of the concept of a national
network
motivation by fmancial incentives
wider range of alternatives as a result of
technology
emergence of the workstation as the
center of networking
the nationwide network (is) becoming a
network of networks
ln conclusion, Mr. Grisham quoted what he
called "a rather ominous statement" from one (
of the questioill1aire respondents: "If the li­brary
world does not fmd a way to overcome
its internal differences, it will be overtaken by
the march of events and relegated to ir­relevance.''
Planning Committee Report
George Grant (Head of Library Network
SuppQrt, Bell Telephone Laboratories; PALl­NET
delegate), Chair of the Users Council
Planning Committee, reported on areas of
consensus in delegates' responses to the stra­tegic
planning consensus statements that were
gathered at the 1985 Fall Users Council meet­ing.
Responses indicated that the Users Coun­cil
should have a strong role in OC:LC strategic
planning and should serve as a sounding
board for such efforts. Delegates concurred
that more information on library strategic
planning would be useful to OCLC. The Plan­ning
Conunittee is developing a strategic plan­ning
orientation program for new delegates,
documenting the OCLC strategic planning
process, and developing a strategic planning
model for libraries.
Oxford Project Report
Kate Nevins, Manager, Network and Library
Services Department at OCLC, reported on (
the status of the Oxford Project, the redesign _
and reimplememation of the OCLC system.
She noted that a conunittee of six network
coordinators and OCLC staff are working to
(continued on page 5)
(
(
(__
Users Council discusses
networking and the
national database
(continued from page 4)
develop training plans for the new systems en­vironment.
Training methods will include in­teractive
video, computer-based training (both
micro-based and at the online system level),
and traditional classroom settings. (Note:
OCLC Newsletter No. 161 provided an over­view
of the Oxford Project; copies are avail­able
upon request from the OCLC Public Re­lations
Office.)
Oxford Advisory Committee
Drew Racine, Delegate-at-Large (Assistant
Director for Technical Senrices, University of
Missouri-Columbia, reported on his participa­tion
in the OCLC Oxford Advisory Conunit­tee.
The Conunittee has 22 members, includ­ing
two Users Council members (Mr. Racine
and Ms. Taylor). The Committee's charge is
to act as the chief advisory and reactor panel
for the user interface and to address issues in
terrru of their relevancey to an integrated, un­tied
system. Mr. Racine conunented that he
felt the Conunittee's role should include
policy considerations and broader concerns
about the impact of the Oxford Project on li­traries,
and that OCLC has since modified the
Commitee's involvement toward those ends.
He urged delegates to use every communica­tion
tool available to learn about and com­ment
on the redesign and reimplementation
of the OCLC System.
Small Group Discussions
Delegates met in small groups for 75 min­utes
to discuss the concepts of networking
and the national database. OCLC Board mem­bers
and staff members also partidpated in the
groups. On Feb. 18 each group presented five
statements relative to networking and the na­tional
database that were generated in the dis­cussion.
Online Audiovisual Catalogers
Sheila Intner, visiting Assistant Professor,
UCLA Graduate School of Library and Infor­mation
Science, and inunediate past Chair of
the Online Audiovisual Catalogers Group
(OLAC), spoke to the Council about the pur­poses,
goals and activities of that group.
"A V catalogers lacked a support system,"
said Dr. Intner, and OLAC was founded in
1980 in response to a felt need for collegial
advice, answers to questions, professional dis­cussion
and debate, and a focus for activities
of mutual interest and benefit.
OLAC's scope is international and includes
cataloging of audiovisual formats and
machine-readable data ftles (MRDFs). Its pur­poses
are education, activism and standardi­zation.
OLAC educates audiovisual and MRDF
catalogers through its newsletter, biennial
meetings, cataloging clinics and workshops,
programs at ALA, and through informal dis­cussions.
OLAC also brings the needs and po­sitions
of its constituency to the attention of
bibliographic networks and standards organi­zations
such as MARBI and CC:DA.
Dr. Intner noted that OLAC membership
has grown from 50 persons since its found­ing
in 1980 to over 500 current members.
Responsibilities of Board Members
On Tuesday, Feb. 18, D. Kaye Gapen,
Director, General Library Systems, University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of the
OCLC Board of Trustees, spoke to the Coun­cil
about the duties and responsibilities of
Board members. The Users Council will elect
two persons to the OCLC Board of Trustees
in May, terms to begin in December.
The major responsibility of a Board mem­ber,
according to Ms. Gapen, is to ensure the
existence of OCLC as it is defmed in its
Charter and other regulations. She said it is not
the Board's responsibility to manage OCLC,
but rather to monitor and consider the affairs
of OCLC such as budgets, finandal reports,
audits, compensation packages, basic organi­zational
polides, transfer and use of biblio­graphic
records and network contracts. The
Board also assesses OCLC's direction and ac­complishments.
Basic responsibilities of Users Council­elected
board members, said Ms. Gapen, are
"to believe in OCLC and what it does; to be­lieve
in libraries and what they do; to speak
and act as a librarian not representing a net­work,
a region, a type of library, or the Users
Council; and to act in the best interests of the
members of the community.''
Strategic Planning Report
Ronald L. Wigington, Chairman of the
OCLC Board of Trustees, and Director, Chem­ical
Abstracts Service, presented a summary
of the Board's views on strategic issues and
plans that evolved from a planning retreat
Dec. 15-17. Dr. Wigington described conclu­sions
the Board reached in addressing the fol­lowing
topics: mission and service trends;
membership in a changing environment; net­works;
international relationships; gover­nance;
staffmg and fadlities; research and de­velopment;
and technology. (Editor's note: a
copy of Dr. Wigington's presentation, entitled
''Report to the Membership from the Board
of Trustees" and dated March 31, 1986, is be­ing
mailed to the OCLC Membership. Addi­tional
copies are available upon request from
the Office of Membership and Corporate Re­lations.)
Third-Party Use Guidelines
Marilyn Gell Mason, Director, Atlanta­Fulton
County Public Library, a member of
the OCLC Board of Trustees, and Chair of the
Board's Principles and Guidelines Advisory
Committee, reported on that group's work in
studying issues and problems arising from the
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 5
interpretation of OCLC's published guidelines
on third-party use, "Transfer of OCLC­Derived
Machine-Readable Records to Third
Parties: Principles and Guidelines.'' Commit­tee
members are: Nancy Marshall, Associate
Director for Public Services, Memorial Library,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, and mem­ber
of the OCLC Board of Trustees; James Es­trada,
Head of Automated Systems, University
of Cotulecticut Health Center Library, and
Users Council delegate; Mary Ann Mercante,
Executive Director, Missouri Library Network
Corporation; Tom Sanville, Director, Market­ing
and User Services Division, OCLC; and Ms.
Mason.
Telecom.mwtications Pricing
Tom Sanville, Director, Marketing and User
Services Division, reported on OCLC's ongo­ing
study of telecommunications pricing to
determine equitable ways to recover costs in
the new telecommunications network that
OCLC will install with the Advanced Commu­nications
Processor (Please see ACP article on
page 6.). He noted that any changes in OCLC's
telecommunications pricing would be in­stituted
gradually.
Resolutions
Users Council delegates adopted resolu-tions:
urging OCLC to bring proposed
replacement policies for Models 100
and 105 terminals to the Users Coun­cil
before their public annovncement;
establishing an ad hoc committee to in­vestigate
situations in which networks
provide less than full service to li­braries;
urging OCLC to make provision of
library-specific holdings a first priority
in the Phase I implementation of the
new OCLC System;
creating a task force to investigate the
problems member libraries face in in­corporating
new technology in­troduced
by OCLC; and
requesting OCLC to review its policies
regarding the loading of records from
national libraries outside the United
States so that these records will co-exist
with member records rather than re­place
them, and to provide documen­tation
informing U. S. member librar­ies
of British Library cataloging
practices vis a vis AACR 2 and MARC.
Bylaws
Delegates also amended the Users Council
Bylaws, creating a standing Bylaws Com­mittee.
The next OCLC Users Council meeting will
be in Columbus, Ohio, May 28-30, 1986.
-Leslie Pearse is Users Council Coordina­tor
and Phil Schieber is Editor of the OCLC
Newsletter.
6 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
OCLC to modernize its
telecommunications network
by Sharon Knowlton
This summer OCLC will install a new sys­Installation
Plan
tem component, the Advanced Communica­tions
Processor (ACP), which controls the
transmission of messages throughout the
OCLC network. The installation of the ACP,
which replaces the "front-end" Communica­tions
Processors that have been in use for 13
years, will modernize the OCLC telecommu­nications
network and significantly alter the
system configuration.
ACP installation will be accomplished in ·~--~
two stages. Stage one is presently scheduled Q
When the ACP is in place, connecting with
the OCLC Online System will include an ad­ded
step during log-on and log-off for
dedicated-terminal users and a slightly differ­ent
connect -discoiUlect procedure for direct
dial access users.
Oxford Project
The installation of ACP paves the way for
the implementation of the comprehensive
redesign of the OCLC Online System, which
is known interoaliy as the Oxford Project. The
Oxford Project will have wide-ranging effects
on the delivery of online services and will be
implemented in phases over the next three
years.
The purpose of the Oxford Project is
twofold: to effectively increase the comput­ing
resources and types of information avail­able
to users of the OCLC network and to cre­ate
a flexible environment that will allow
OCLC to develop and implement new func­tions
and services quickly.
New Network
The new ACP network is different from the
previous system in four major ways:
• The ACP network provides CCITT stan­dardized
X.25 interfaces. X.25 interface is
a standard communications protocol for
terminal to computer or terminal to termi­nal
communication. 1bis capability means
that data is transmitted over a network in
standard units, called packets, that conform
to international standards and can be eas­ily
stored and rapidly transmitted.
• The new network allows for the future ca­pability
of a variety of transmission tech­nologies
such as fiber-optic cable, wire,
satellite, or microwave.
for the summer of 1986.
The ACP is composed of data switching
centers, called nodes. In the first stage, all of
the ACP nodes will be installed at OCLC. In
the second stage, six of the nodes will be
placed in major population areas across the
United States.
Documentation
A technical bulletin describing the new sys­tem
configuration with emphasis on the ACP
network will be distributed to all users in
April. The technical bulletin explains the new
log-on procedures for all users, the new
connect-disconnect procedure for dial-access
users, and the system status messages under
the new network.
Dedicated-line Users
When the OCLC dedicated terminal is
turned on, it is instantly connected to the
OCLC network. A welcome screen displays
immediately explaining how to log-on to the
OCLC Online System.
Logging on requires two steps:
• Request the OCLC host system ("log in")
by entering "LI OCLC" and pressing the
SEND key.
• Enter an authorization number in the usual
manner and press the SEND key.
Logging off likewise requires two steps:
• Enter "END" and press the SEND key in
the usual manner to log off the OCLC sub­system.
• Enter "BYE" and press the SEND key to log
off the OCLC host.
Direct Dial Access
Direct dial communication with the OCLC
system is accomplished by placing a telephone
call directly to the nearest OCLC node. Direct
dial access to the OCLC Online System is avail­able
at 300, 1200, and 2400 bits per second
(bps).
Connecting to the OCLC system using di­rect
dial requires three steps:
Disconnecting from the system using direct
dial requires two steps:
• Enter "END" and send the command in the
usual manner.
• Enter "BYE" and send the command.
New Software
Since log-on to OCLC will change, new
Micro Enhancer (ME) software will be dis­tributed
to all Micro Enhancers users at no ad­ditional
charge.
Version 2.1 of the M300 Cataloging and In­terlibrary
Loan Micro Enhancer software
packages include changes which enable them
to access the OCLC Online System via the
(
• The new network permits message traffic
to be controlled at several distributed
switching centers, instead of at a single cen­tral
location.
• Request the OCLC host system by dialing
the OCLC direct dial number.
• When your call is completed, enter two
carriage returns, a period, and two more
carriage returns.
ACP Network. (
M300 synchronous and direct dial access
users of the CAT and ILL ME software pack­ages
will receive new Version 2.1 of the M300
CAT and ILL Micro Enhancers. -Sharon
Knowlton is User Contact Desk Coordinator
at OCLC.
• The new network is an open, rather than
closed, network that gives users access not
just to the OCLC Online System but even­tually
to other host systems.
• Enter an authorization number in the usual
manner.
(
\.
(
(
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 7
New York Public Library's
bibliographic records to become
available internationally via
the OCLC database
NEW YORK, Feb. 10-Bibliographic infor­mation
about the resources of one of the
world's foremost research libraries will be­come
available to more than 6,000 libraries
throughout the United States and nine other
countries this spring as OCLC begins to add
to its database machine-readable files of the
Research Libraries of the New York Public Li­brary
(NYPL).
NYPL has made available for tapeloading
into OCLC nearly a million records cataloged
since 1981 on the Research Libraries Informa­tion
Network (RLIN). NYPL has also agreed
to become a tapeloading member of OCLC on
an ongoing basis through the SUNY /OCLC
network.
NYPL records have been available to the 35
other members of the Research Libraries
Group (RLG) and to other users of RLIN for
several years. While NYPL will continue to be
a full member of RLG and to use RUN, its
tapeloading membership in OCLC makes its
records available to a much broader segment
of the scholarly community.
Paul Fasana, NYPL acting Director of Re­search
Libraries, stated, "The New York Pub­lic
Library recognizes the great scholarly value
of its collections and the very substantial in­vestment
of both private and public funds that
have made these collections possible. We also
recognize our obligation to make the broad
community of scholars aware of the rich re­sources
we hold. We are pleased that our
membership in OCLC and the entry of these
recqrds into the OCLC database will help us
to meet that obligation."
Glyn T. Evans, Executive Director of
SUNY /OCLC and Assistant Vice Chancellor
for Library Services for the State University of
New York, said, "This is a generous and
statesmanlike move on the part of the New
York Public Library. It is an important con­tribution
to the nation's libraries. New York
state libraries and their users have great re­spect
and admiration for the NYPL Research
Libraries and are appreciative of the oppor­tunity
to improve their knowledge of the
holdings in its fine collections. SUNY /OCLC
is pleased to be associated with them in this
cooperative venture."
OCLC President Rowland C. W. Brown
said, "Scholars in the United States and, in­creasingly,
in other countries, as well, rely on
the OCLC database to support their efforts.
The addition of these records to the OCLC
system will be a benefit that they will wei-
. come wannly. The New York Public Library
is much to be applauded for this very signifi­cant
contribution to scholarship.''
The New York Public Library system is the
largest public library in the world. NYPL Re­search
libraries are among the top five of pub­licly
supported research libraries in the world
with upwards of 29 million items organized
for use.
NYPL closed its card catalog in January
1972. Researchers are currently using a
bound, 800-book catalog, or NYPL's 50-
terminal online public access catalog,
CATNYP.
SUNY /OCLC is the OCLC regional network
in the state of New York. It has 260 libraries
of all types. SUNY /OCLC is administered by
the Office of Academic Program, Policy, and
Planning within the State University of New
York Central Administration. SUNY is the
public higher education institution in New
York (excluding the City University) and is the
largest multicampus university in the United
States. Its educational mission is best described
by its motto: "To learn, To Search, To Serve."
The work of SUNY /OCLC is a contribution to
the mission of the State University of New
York.
LC music cataloging
now online
by Jay Weitz
On Dec. 16, 1985, OCLC loaded 8,321
machine-readable records for scores and
sound recordings into the Online Union
Catalog-just in time for the 215th anniver­sary
of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven.
These records had been created by the Library
of Congress beginning in March 1984 as a
result of its Music Online Project, which au­tomated
the Library of Congress (LC) Music
Section's cataloging of scores and recordings.
When OCLC made available its two music
cataloging formats in September 1976, no
machine-readable records for such items were
emanating from LC. OCLC members alone
have been responsible for the input of some
600,000 records for scores and sound record­ings,
comprising just short of 5 percent of the
Online Union Catalog.
Matching algorithms
Once LC completed its lengthy process of
creating and distributing these records, OCLC
had to develop a means by which they could
be run against the Online Union Catalog and
loaded with a minimum of duplication and er­rors.
The various matching algorithms in use
for LC Books, Maps, and Audiovisual records
were inadequate to handle the complexities
of the two music formats.
For Sound Recordings, such aspects as
physical format (sound tape reels, cassettes,
cartridges, traditional discs, compact digital
discs), speed, size, and stereo versus mono
had to be taken into consideration. In addi­tion,
differences such as cataloging an entire
item as a unit and cataloging the same item as
its individual works (using ''With'' notes to
link the separate records), which result from
different cataloging rules, had to be taken into
account.
For Scores, a major problem is differentiat­ing
between various score formats (full scores,
miniature scores, piano reductions), parts, and
scores and parts published together.
The process of refining the four necessary
matching algorithms (national and non­national
scores and sound recordings) in order
to reduce the number of missed matches as
much as possible and to eliminate the possi­bility
of erroneous matches, took the better
part of 1985. As it happened, 28.4 precent of
the LC records replaced member-input rec­ords
(2,363 out of the 8,321), although many
known shortcomings of the algoritluns have
caused a certain amount of duplication.
OCLC expects to receive and load these
monthly music records from LC on a regular
basis. -Jay Weitz is Quality Control Librar­ian
at OCLC.
8 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
OCLC gains license for
iNet 2000 software (
OCLC Online Computer Library Center has
acquired a license for the software for Tele­com
Canada's "iNet 2000"TM intelligent data
network
OCLC will use the iNet 2000 software in its
telecommunications network to provide in­telligent
gateway features to its member librar­ies.
A date for the implementation of those
features will be announced in mid-1986.
iNet 2000 has been available since 1982 and
was implemented by Telecom Canada to pro­vide
user-friendly aid and guidance in select­ing
databases that address the user's need from
among hundreds of databases available. The
service was in trial stages from 1982 to 1985
and became a full service offering in Novem­ber
1985.
Additionally, iNet 2000 helps the user in ac­cessing
online databases and in communi cat­ing
that information through electronic mes­saging
and data conferencing.
More than 6,300 users are served by 46 in­formation
service providers on the Canadian
network.
AI Solosky, Director, Business Develop­ment,
Bell Canada, said the OCLC application
represents the ftrst use of iNet 2000 software
by an organization other than Telecom
Canada. "We're confident that iNet 2000 will
do as much for OCLC as it has for us in auto­mating
information management for our
thousands of subscribers across Canada.''
Martin Sellers, Director of OCLC's Sys­tems
Engineering Division said, "The iNet
2000 software will help OCLC fulfill its com­mitment
to its membership to make telecom­munications
among libraries more versatile.''
Features
OCLC will incorporate iNet 2000 features
such as:
• A single point of access to diverse sources
of electronic-based information, including
those not traditionally available through the
large, centralized distributors;
• Assistance in identifying appropriate
sources of electronic-based information for
a particular need;
• The ability to manipulate and communicate
acquired information for further dissemi­nation;
• Ease of implementation of services such as
electronic mail, linkages to private net­works,
private networks configured using
the OCLC network, and a single bill for all
use of information sources on the network.
iNet 2000 is marketed in the United States
by BCI Inc., of McLean, Va., a subsidiary of
Bell Canada International, the international
telecommunications consulting and opera­tions
subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterptises Inc.
(BCE). iNet 2000 software was developed by
Bell Canada, BCE's telecommunications op-erating
subsidiary and the largest member of
Telecom Canada, an association of 10 major
telecommunications companies across
Canada.
University of Illinois at Chicago
inputs 13 Millionth record
into the OCLC database
Thirteen was a lucky nwnber for the Uni­versity
of Illinois at Chicago Library, where
a staff member input the 13 Millionth record
into the OCLC database at approximately
I2,15 p.m. EST on Jan. 10.
''There were four of us inputting theses and
knew we were close (to the millionth
mark)," said Ms. Huwald. "1 used an M300
Workstation and I was able to input things
much faster, so that probably helped us a lit­tle.
I'm very surprised."
The University of Illinois at Chicago be­came
an OCLC Member library in 1976. It was
one of the first Enhance institutions chosen by
OCLC in 1984.
The item was a 1985 chemistry doctoral
thesis entitled "Time-Resolved and Time­Integrated
Fluorescence Studies of the Physi­cal
Binding of the Metabolite Analogs of 7,12-
Dimethylbenz(a)antracene to DNA" by Irene
S. Zegar. It was prepared for cataloging by Li­brary
Technical Assistant II Dolores Barber
and input by Library Technical Assistant II Ka­ren
Huwald.
The 12 Millionth record was input on May (
6, 1985, by the University of Illinois­Champaign.
University of Illinois at Chicago librarians Dolores Barber (left) and Karen Huwald
each had a hand in inputing the 13 Millionth record into the OCLC database. The
cataloging was prepared by Ms. Barber while the record was actually input by Ms.
Howald.
(
I
\
c
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OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 9
Three university ·libraries
acquire LS/2000
Three university libraries have acquired
LS/2000, OCLC's standalone, microcomputer­based
local library system. The libraries are,
• The University of Arizona Health Sciences
Center (AHSC) Library at the University of
Arizona in Tucson.
• The Maryland Health Sciences Library at
the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
• The Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Li­brary
at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
City.
Single Medical Library
The University of Arizona Health Sciences
Center Library will use a Data General S/280
minicomputer with 24 terminals initially.
OCLC will supply hardware, software, termi­nals,
printers, training and documentation, as
well as hardware and software maintenance.
Installation is scheduled for April.
The library opened in 1967 when the first
University of Arizona College of Medicine
class began studies. The library currently
houses 145,000 volumes, 3,000 media pro­grams,
and receives 3,500 current subscrip­tions.
It is a key facility in the Health Sciences
Center with users from all segments of the
University and the local and state conununi­ties.
As the only academic medical library in
Arizona, the Library is a unique health infor­mation
resource in the state, and Arizona's
continued growth is expected to increase the
already heavy demand for the library's senr­ices.
Consequently, maximum efficiency in
managing library resources is critical to the
provision of current information essential for
ftrst -rate teaching, research, and health prac­tice.
The installation of an automated inte­grated
library system will assure inunediate ac­cess
to the AHSC Library collection and
related records.
Tom Higdon, Director of the Arizona
Health Sciences Center Library, said, "LS/2000
was chosen because, among other attributes,
it offers the integrity of the full MARC record
which is important to future linkages with
other library systems. Also, OCLC is welles­tablished
as a provider of local systems, and
its organization has the depth and stability to
support the system on a long-term basis.''
Easy Conversion
The Maryland Health Sciences Library cur­rently
uses a version of the Integrated Library
System (ILS"'). The agreement with OCLC
calls for the conversion of the library's cur­rent
system to LS/2000 by this summer.
Cyril Feng, Director at the Maryland Health
Sciences Library said the library is converting
to LS/2000 because "we will be gaining ad­ditional
modules such as Resenre Room and
Serials, plus OCLC support and senrice. Our
close working relationship with OCLC staff
should make the conversion an easy process."
Critical Component
The Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Li­brary
will take delivery of LS/2000 by this
summer.
The library will operate LS/2000 on a Data
General MV8000 Processor already owned by
the university. OCLC will supply software,
training and profiling, as well as software
maintenance.
Library Director Wayne ]. Peay said
LS/2000 was chosen because of the quality of
the system and OCLC's commitment to inno­vation.
''The LS/2000 is a critical component
in the development of the Integrated Aca­demic
Information System (!AIMS) at the Uni­versity
of Utah Health Sciences Center,'' he
said.
According to Mr. Peay, IAIMS will include
a high speed data conununications network
cmmecting major information resources.
The installation of LS/2000 adds a signifr-cant
resource to this network, he said. Addi­tionally,
an investigation h~ begun into de­veloping
a link between the LS/2000 system
and the HELP hospital information system.
This link will focus on the identification and
maintenance of bibliographic documentation
for the expert components of the HELP
system.
The Eccles Health Sciences Library has a
collection of 135,000 volumes and provides
information senrices to health professionals
throughout the intermountain area.
The library's participation in the IAIMS
project began in 1983 with the university's re­sponse
to the IAIMS Request for Proposal is­sued
by the National Library of Medicine.
In the fall of 1983, the University of Utah
was awarded one of four IAIMS Planning
Contracts which resulted in a strategic plan for
IAIMS implementation. The development of
the plan was a significant factor in the award
of a three-year IAIMS development grant in
July that included the exploration of the link
between LS/2000 and the HELP hospital in­formation
system.
Local
Systems
Federal agencies acquire LS/2000
Five federal agency libraries have acquired
LS/2000, OCLC's standalone, minicomputer­based
local library system. The addition of the
contracts means OCLC now supports 63
LS/2000 computer installations serving 120 li­braries
throughout the United States and the
United Kingdom.
The new libraries are:
• The Scientific Information Center at the U.
S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory
(USAARL) at Fort Rucker, Ala.
• The Naval Ordnance Station Technical Li­brary
at Indian Head, Md.
• The CECOM R & D Technical Library
(formerly the Eradcom Technical Library)
at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
• The United States Army War College Li­brary
at the U.S. Army War College at
Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
• The Ruth H. Hooker Technical Library at
the Naval Research Laboratory at Washing­ton,
D.C.
The Scientific Information Center at
USAARL in Fort Rucker initially will use a Data
General S/120 minicomputer with four termi­nals.
The Naval Ordnance Station Technical Li-brary
will use the micro series version of
LS/2000 that operates on a DEC 11/73 com­patible
processor.
The CECOM R & D Technical Library at
Fort Monmouth will1oad LS/2000 on a Data
General S/140 minicomputer already owned
by the library. LS/2000 delivery is scheduled
for this sununer.
The U.S. Army War College Library initially
will operate LS/2000 on a Dara General S/280
minicomputer with 21 terminals. Including
the Army War College Library, the system will
be shared with the Military History Institute
Library, and the post library, both separate fa­cilities.
Delivery is scheduled for this summer.
The Ruth H. Hooker Technical Library, cur­rently
using a version of the Integrated Library
System (ILS"'), is converting to LS/2000 be­cause
because it has now become the com­mercial
standard version of ILS variants. De­livery
is scheduled for this sununer.
OCLC will supply hardware, software, ter­minals,
printers, training and docwnentation,
as well as hardware and software maintenance
for all of the libraries except at Fort Mon
mouth where all of the hardware was ac·
quired separately.
10 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
OCLC Founder receives
Ohio Governor's Award
OCLC Founder Frederick G. Kilgour was
among eight persons receiving the 1986 Ohio
Governor's Award, the state's highest honor,
on Feb. 21.
Presented by Gov. Ricbard Fe Celeste at the
Ohio Newspaper Association banquet in Co­lumbus,
the awards are given to Ohio natives
and residents whose contributions have
benefited Ohio life and brought honor to the
state.
In announcing the names at the 37th annual
ceremony, Gov. Celeste said: ''The outstand­ing
men and women we honor represent
many Ohioans who have put our state at the
heart of America's achievements in all walks
of life."
A letter of commendation from Gov.
Celeste to Mr. Kilgour said: ''you are being
honored for your outstanding contributions
in the field of education."
Mr. Kilgour, of Upper Arlington, Ohio,
served as Chief Executive Officer of OCLC
from its founding in 1967 until December
1980. He is Founder Trustee on the OCLC
Board of Trustees.
Other 1986 Governor's Award recipients
were: Pearl Bailey, entertainer; Dr. John
Baker, President Emeritus of Ohio University;
Simon Dinitz, Ohio State University professor
and criminologist; Bob Greene, syndicated
newspaper columnist; Richard Trott,
Columbus~based architect; Paul Warfield, re~
tired professional football player; and Leslie
Wexner, founder, President and Chainnan of
the Board of The Limited Inc.
(
Frederick G. Kilgour
Optical Disk Technology at OCLC
video now available
The latest release in the OCLC Video Com­munications
Program, Optical Disk Technol­ogy
at OCLC is now available. In this video,
six OCLC staff members describe their re­search
activities in optical disk technology and
explore the features, advantages, and disad­vantages
of the three types of optical disks:
read-only; write-once; and updateable.
The following is a summary of what the
OCLC staff members who appear in this 23-
minute program have to say about optical disk
technology:
Howard Turtle, Director, Office of Tech­nical
Planning, briefly describes the three
classes of optical disks; discusses their density
and practical applications; addresses specific
optical disk-related research activities under­taken
by OCLC staff, including performance
and reliability tests on disk drives and soft­ware
retrieval packages; and mentions the de­velopment
of high-level standards to ensure
the widespread use of compact disks in library
applications.
Terry Noreault, Senior Research Scientist,
addresses some of the unique challenges op­tical
disk technology presents software de­velopers;
describes major differences between
optical and magnetic disks; and discusses the
importance of working with the National In­formation
Standards Organization (NISO) to
establish necessary standards.
Thomas Hickey, Senior Research Scientist,
describes GraphText, an OCLC research proj­ect
to develop a prototype electronic docu­ment
delivery system, and identifies the basic
equipment a user will need for the Graph Text
system.
Mary Marshall, Manager, New Services, re­views
two special projects designed to make
available to libraries optical disk-related prod­ucts
and services:
• Reference applications. This project will
concentrate OCLC developmental efforts
on reference applications of optical disk
storage for library patrons and reference li­brarians.
Of particular interest to OCLC is
the production of local reference databases
on compact disks.
• Cataloging applications. This project ad­dresses
the use of optical disks in catalog­ing
applications. Optical disk technology
may be an effective means of reducing or
eliminating telecommunications costs and
enabling libraries to exercise greater local
control of cataloging workflows.
Mark Crook, Manager, Operations Techni- (
cal Support, discusses using write-once opti-cal
disk drives for archival and mass storage;
describes various aspects of write-once drives,
including equipment, costs, and performance
characteristics; and addresses the application
of write-once drives for archival storage at
OCLC.
Mike Oskins, Associate Research Scientist,
discusses the two types of updateable optical
disk units under development -phase-change
and magneto-optic-describing how they
work in brief detail.
OCLC libraries may view Optical Disk
Technology at OCLC. free of charge for ten
days via the OCLC Interlibrary Loan Sub­system.
To request this tape from the OCLC
Library (holding symbol, OCC), please use the
OCLC control no. 13196641 or send a writ­ten
request to' OCLC, P.O. Box 7777, Dub­lin,
Ohio 43017.
To purchase this tape, send a check for S 17
(California, Ohio, Oregon, and state of Wash­ington
orders add applicable sales tax) made
out to OCLC Online Computer Library Cen-ter
to' Department 630, P.O. Box ONB, Co­lumbus,
Ohio 43265. OCLC members who
wish to be billed through their networks
should send their orders to: OCLC Documen­tation
Department, MC 134, 6565 Frantz Rd.,
Dublin, Ohio 43017-0702. Be sure to specify (.
OCLC Product Code 874 when purchasing
this tape.
(
(
l
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 11
OCLC participates in ARL RECON Program
OCLC is pleased to announce its participa­tion
in the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL) Recon Program, a cooperative effort to
enrich North America's online bibliographic
resources by coordinating the retrospective
conversion of approximately six to seven mil­lion
titles held in significant collections in
United States and Canadian research libraries.
OCLC will facilitate this program for projects
that have met the requirements of the ARL Re­con
Project: establishing a unique, project­specific
three-letter symbol to identify these
records; waiving specific Online System
charges; exchanging project tapes with other
bibliographic networks on a reciprocal, no­charge
basis; and making tapes from the
projects available to the Library of Congress.
At the completion of a project the institution's
symbol will be set on all records in addition
to the unique project code.
First Libraries
Although Jan. I of this year was the official
beginning date for OCLC's ARL Recon Pro­gram,
the first libraries to be included in this
cooperative venture initiated their projects in
the last quarter of 1985. These libraries are
participants in the Associated Music Libraries
Group (AMLG) pilot project for the retrospec­tive
conversion of research materials in the
field of music. The Sibley Music Library, East~
man School of Music, University of Rochester
and the Indiana University Music Library be~
gan their projects in October using the OCLC
Online Union Catalog. Both libraries are au~
thorized for the Enhance capability and have
been upgrading records found in the Online
Union Catalog when necessary. Indiana Uni~
versity is enhancing records in both the Scores
and Sound Recordings Fonnats while Eastman
is enhancing in the Scores Format. The Music
Library, University of California, Berkeley is
using the RUN database of the Research Li~
braries Group (RLG) for its conversion. The
three libraries expect to add approximately
50,000 unique records to the databases and
add an additional40,000 holding locations to
existing bibliographic records. Tapes of all
three projects are being produced on a quart­erly
basis and will be exchanged by OCLC and
RLG. Berkeley's project tapes will be loaded
into the OCLC Online Union Catalog soon af­ter
they are received.
Major Achievements
In May of 1985, the ARL membership voted
to fund the ARL Recon Program for an initial
two~year period. ARL intends to coordinate
the retrospective conversion of these impor~
tant collections with participation from
groups of libraries and individual institutions
to avoid duplication of effort. The project will
ensure that newly created records meet mini~
mwn quality standards and that all records are
by Donna Struthers
universally available. Major achievements of
this project include improving access to scho­larly
resources in North America, providing
a basis for resource sharing and cooperative
preservation efforts, and increasing the nwn­ber
of records available for local conversions.
Advisory Committee
The ARL Conunittee on Bibliographic Con­trol
will serve as the advisory conunittee for
the project and will assist in establishing pri~
orities and criteria for retrospective conver~
sion projects and in identifying potential par­ticipants
in various subject areas. The Project
Coordinator,Jutta Reed~Scott, will be respon­sible
for working with the Committee in es~
tablishing priorities and criteria for the pro~
gram. Ms. Reed-Scott's main responsibilities
will include identifying potential projects and
participants, assisting in the planning of
projects as well as locating funding sources,
and making arrangements with the biblio­graphic
networks and national libraries
regarding the availability of records.
Subject Areas
In addition to the AMLG music conversion,
the ARL Project Coordinator and the ARL
Committee have initially targeted five subject
areas for conversion. They are philosophy and
religion, Slavic Studies, agriculture, Latin
American Studies, and technology. ARL does
not intend to limit the program to ARL librar~
ies only and will seek active participation by
other libraries with significant holdings. At this
time OCLC will be able to support only those
projects that have met the requirements of
ARL. Institutions needing more information
should contact Jutta Reed~Scott, Project Co~
ordinator, c/o ARL Recon Project, Brandeis
University Library, Waltham, Mass. 02254,
(617) 647-2511; or Donna Struthers, Market­ing
and Users Services Division, OCLC. -
Donna Struthers is Liaison Officer and ARL
Recon Product Manager in the Network and
Library Services Department at OCLC.
Final acceptance of LS/2000
completed at 3 libraries
Three library systems have completed fmal
system acceptance of LS/2000, OCLC's stand­alone,
minicomputer-based local library sys~
tern. The libraries are:
• The Grove City (Ohio) Public Library,
which is operating LS/2000 on a Data Gen­eral
S/280 CPU with 37 terminals.
• The Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
which operates LS/2000 on the Data Gen~
era! S/140 CPU with 13 tenninals.
• The Center Library at the Mitre Corpora~
tion's Washington Center in McLean, Va.,
which also operates LS/2000 on the S/140
processor, with 9 terminals.
George Lowy, of the Pratt Institute, stated:
"We are extremely happy with the system. In­stallation
and training were done profession~
ally. It's fully accepted by the staff and stu­dents."
All three libraries concluded extensive ac~
ceptance testing in January 1986 which in­cluded
equipment and functional testing.
OCLC opens gateway to BRS
OCLC announces availability of the OCLC
Gateway Service to BRS which enables OCLC
members to access BRS databases using dedi~
cated OCLC tenninals. A cost-effective means
of improving patron service by increasing a
library's access to information, the Gateway
Service provides those OCLC members who
are also BRS subscribers with a single point of
access from which library staff can effectively
use both BRS databases and the OCLC Online
System. From a single OCLC dedicated-line
terminal (Models 100, 105, 110 or M300
Workstation), users can access the OCLC On­line
Union Catalog with more than 13 million
bibliographic records and 220 million hold­ings
symbols, as well as over 100 BRS data~
bases containing information on a wide vari~
ety of subjects.
Once logged on to BRS, users can use BRS
system commands to search the BRS databases
and select paragraphs that correspond to pa­tron
needs. The BRS COST command enables
users to estimate the cost of each search, thus
controlling online charges.
The power of BRS' free text and key word
search system is available to users (except for
terminal configuration commands) to search
and retrieve data for library patrons. OCLC
members who are currently BRS subscribers
will not require additional training to use the
Gateway Service. Billing for BRS services used
over the OCLC Gateway Service is done by
BRS, or through participating Network Offices
if appropriate.
Networks can provide details about obtain~
ing a Gateway Service authorization number
or subscribing to BRS.
12 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
OCLC to convert 3.5 million
records for California State
University institutions
(
OCLC has entered into a multiyear Retro­spective
Conversion Agreement with Califor­nia
State University (CSU) to process approx­imately
3.5 million records for the fmal nine
of its 19 campuses. Records so converted will
be loaded into CSU's system-wide database.
The processing began with CSU's North­ridge
campus in 1983, and will be completed
in 1987 when OCLC finishes the conversion
for CSU's Fullerton and San Jose campuses.
In 1985, OCLC RETROCON Service com­pleted
conversion for CSU campuses at: Long
Beach (331,081 records, September); Los An­geles
(440,847 records, January); San Fran­cisco
(330,247 records, November); San Luis
Obispo (213,635 records, April); and Sonoma
(195,598 records, November). Processing at
the Northridge campus (417,928 records) was
completed in June 1984.
Conversion of records for CSU's Fullerton,
San Diego, and San jose campuses is under
way, with the San Diego project scheduled to
be completed in 1986. The oldest and most
experienced service of its kind, OCLC has
offered RETROCON Service since September
1976. Since then, OCLC has provided
RETROCON Service to 140 institutions and
has converted more than 14 million records.
OCLC RETROCON Service is a customized
service tailored to accommodate each individ­ual
library's specifications. Contracting librar­ies
ship their shelf-list cards to OCLC where
conversion is done by OCLC's experienced
148-member RETROCON staff.
Benefits
Benefits of OCLC RETROCON Service to
the contracting libraries include the following:
• The OCLC Online Union Catalog contains
over 13 million bibliographic records, the
largest database of its kind in the world. A
larger database results in a higher hit rate.
by Andrew H. Wang
By using OCLC's database, contracting li­braries
can get more records converted
than by using any other database.
• The OCLC Online Union Catalog contains­records
in the following eight formats:
Books; Serials; Audiovisual Media; Machine­Readable
Data Files; Manuscripts; Maps;
Scores; and Sound Recordings. By compar­ison,
other databases may contain records
in Books Format only.
The oldest and most ex­perienced
service of its kind,
OCLC bas offered RETROCON
Service since 1976. Since then,
OCLC bas provided RETROCON
Service to 140 institutions and
bas converted more than 14 mil­lion
records.
• OCLC converts directly from the contract­ing
library's card files. Library staff do not
have to compile long lists of search keys in
machine-readable form before records can
be converted.
• OCLC does not require contracting librar­ies
to pre-search the titles. Some vendors
require libraries to pre-search titles in the
National Union Catalog before the titles can
be converted.
• OCLC will search and identify matching
records in the Online Union Catalog. Some
retrospective conversion vendors require
contracting libraries to identify matching
records if the search key retrieves multiple
possible matches. OCLC RETROCON Serv­ice
makes certain that records converted
are a "match," not just a "hit." A "hit" may
or may not be a "match."
• OCLC enters the contracting library's local
call number, holdings information, and
other local data into the records directly
from the card files. Some vendors require
the contracting library to enter this infor­mation
into the records, or to compile this
information in machine-readable form be­fore
it can be entered.
• OCLC edits subject headings or other bib­liographic
information in the converted
records to match the contracting library's
catalog cards if the contracting library so
desires.
• Because OCLC has converted headings in
the Online Union Catalog to AACR2 form,
the majority, if not all, of the name head­ings
in the records converted by OCLC will
be in AACR2 or AACR2-compatible form.
There is no additional charge for this
benefit.
• OCLC creates new records for contracting
libraries without additional charge if
matching records are not found in the On­line
Union Catalog. Some vendors do not
create new records.
• OCLC sets the contracting library's OCLC
symbol in the Online Union Catalog with­out
additional charge for each record con­verted.
Titis fosters resource sharing among
libraries regionally, nationally, and interna­tionally.
• OCLC generates full OCLC-MARC records
whereas some vendors generate ab­breviated
records.
• It usually takes OCLC less than one tenth c·-·
of the time library staff would need to com­plete
a retrospective conversion project in­house.
• OCLC offers expertise, experience, and an
excellent track record.
In addition to the RETROCON Service,
OCLC also offers MICROCON Service.
MICROCON Service is a standardized, batch­mode
microcomputer-based retrospective
conversion service. OCLC will lend contract­ing
libraries microcomputers for library staff
to key in search keys and local data onto disk­ettes.
OCLC then converts diskettes into tapes,
and runs tapes against the Online Union Cat­alog
for conversion.
The unit charge of MICROCON Service is
lower than that of RETROCON Service be­cause
the contracting library's staff does all the
keying. -Andrew Wang is Manager, Online
Systems Products & Services Department.
(
(
(
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 13
j
OCLC User Contact Desk staff (from left, clockwise): Ellen Baumbusch, Sharon Knowlton, Melodie Rowland, Caroline Bowers,
Nancy Sloan and Myrtle Myers.
User Contact Desk answers the call for help
"An area in which diverse things interact."
That is how Webster's Dictionary defines ''in­terface.''
Another definition could well be the OCLC
User Contact Desk, where library users call in
for human interfacing when they are having
difficulties interfacing with the OCLC Online
System.
"We're here to make sure the users get the
support they need when they need it," User
Contact Desk Coordinator Sharon Knowlton
said. Ms. Knowlton and the five-member staff
of the User Contact Desk provide toll-free
telephone support for Online System users in
the United States and nine other countries.
Primary Point
Operational since March 1981, the User
Contact Desk is the primary point of contact
within OCLC for user reports of problems
with the Online System, telecommunications
network and terminal performance. The User
Contact Desk assistants also respond to ques·
tions regarding Online System status, sub·
system use (at a general level), and provide
support for dial·access users.
Other services include making and distrib·
uting Online System Condition Reports and
by Page Lewis
up·to-date daily news reports as well as ad·
ministering the Online System Response Time
Monitoring Program. In regard to the latter,
the User Contact Desk is working to develop
a response time monitor for the M300 Work­station.
Backup Support
Every second from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern
Standard Time, 62 OCLC users somewhere in
the network press the SEND key and send a
message to OCLC. In comparison to this
heavy system message traffic, calls for help
trickle in to the Contact Desk at a rate of one
call every three minutes.
Of the more than 6,000 calls coming to the
User Contact Desk every month, its staff han­dle
about 60 percent, referring other calls to
other areas of OCLC-a billing question to Fi·
nance, a terminal service check to Network
Operations, or OCLC publication questions to
Documentation.
Ms. Knowlton, who has headed the User
Contact Desk since 1983, said she sees the
desk as helping networks communicate with
OCLC members as well as providing backup
network support. "If the system is not work­ing,
this is where you call-and not working
can mean anything.''
A sampling of a typical day's calls include:
Q• What is my logical number and how
do I f"lnd it?
A: It is part of a terminal identification num·
ber that includes a telecommunications
line number. The number speeds up han·
dling of terminal maintenance. The num­ber
is displayed on the tenninal screen by
entering a "Send" command.
Q: On dial·access, which key equivalent
will delete a character?
A: It depends on the type of terminal being
used.
Q: When is "prime time?"
A: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, Monday through
Friday.
With wider use of the M300 Workstation,
Ms. Knowlton said the majority of questions
crossing the desk have narrowed to those in­volving
printers, dial-access modems, and
Micro Enhancer software setups. A number of
calls in the evening hours and on weekends
concern the Interlibrary Loan Subsystem. ''It
appears that cataloging departments tend to
work normal daytime hours,'' said Ms.
(continued on page 14)
14 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
User Contact Desk
answers the call for help
(continued from page 13)
Knowlton, ''while ILL librarians may be cov­ering
the reference desks at night and also
working on their interlibrary loans.''
When network offices are closed, OCLC is
often the only help available to a user.
Uninterrupted Power System
User Contact Desk staff have had some ex­citing
telephone conversations with the li­brary
staff seeking advice on equipment safety
procedures in the midst of hurricanes and ris­ing
flood waters, Ms. Knowlton said. One of
the more frustrating problems over the years
has been disruptions of online senrice due to
power outages. That problem was alleviated
in the spring of 1984 with the installation of
OCLC's uninterrupted power system (UPS)
which provides backup power for the entire
Online System at OCLC's computer facility.
The UPS has saved users phone calls and
headaches," Ms. Knowlton said. "Now if
there is a power outage at OCLC, the users are
usually not aware of it ... and we don't clutch
our hearts anymore when the lights blink."
Ms. Knowlton pointed out that questions
vary greatly with the experience of the user.
For a new user, she said, advice is usually a
matter of helping to fmd an answer in docu­mentation.
The same goes for an occasional
user who may have OCLC experience, but has
forgotten some of the basics. An experienced
user's question is likely to be complicated and
may be referred directly to a specialist.
Calls are monitored for one month once a
year to spot any developing trends or prob­lems.
The User Contact Desk calculates aver­age
Online System response time and posts it
on the System Peformance Report Board in
the atrium at OCLC where it serves as a visi­ble
reminder to employees and visitors that
the status of the Online System is of vital con­cern
to tert11inal operators, library administra­tors,
and library users across the country.
User Rapport
Ms. Knowlton acknowledged a rapport
with some of the users and libraries that call
in regularly for advice, saying "we work
through a lot of the same problems together.''
One special relationship crossed the Pacific
Ocean.
Ms. Knowlton explained that the OCLC
Online System link-up (at the time, conven­tional
telephone line service) to the Univer­sity
of Hawaii at Manoa was particularly
trouble-prone at the beginning. Until the new
telecommunications link-up was made by
satellite, there were frequent calls from "Win­nie
from Hawaii." ("That's all we knew her
by,'' said Ms. Knowlton.) Her familiar voice
became an unseen friend to members of the
User Contact Desk, Switchboard and Systems
Operation staffs.
When "Winnie" retired last Christmas, she
sent the Contact Desk boxes of chocolate­covered
macadamia nuts.
Impact of System Redesign
With the advent of ftrst -phase implemen­tation
of the redesigned OCLC Online System
(the Oxford Project) later this year, Ms.
Knowlton said the User Contact Desk will be
involved in helping users adapt to the new
system. Her staff face two main challenges
with the reimplementation.
The first challenge will be for the User Con­tact
Desk staff to familiarize themselves with
new tenninal software as well as learn new
subject searcbing and editing tecbniques (such
as those used by Boolean operators). The sec­ond
challenge will be to alert users to the ( -
many new options available on the Oxford \
System.
"The users will be surprised at how much
easier their lives will be under the Oxford Sys­tem,"
she said. "Like eyerything else, it will
take some getting used to, but it will make
quite a bit of difference in what they will be
able to do."
In any event, Ms. Knowlton added: "We'll
be here ready to answer any questions, just
in case ... " -Page Lewis is Public Relations
Writer at OCLC.
Conference reviews study on use of
classification in online catalogs
Thirty experts attended an invitational con­ference
jan. 27-28 at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio
to review the results of a research study on
the use of classification in online catalogs.
The two-year study, conducted by OCLC
Research Scientist Karen Markey, was jointly
sponsored by the Council on Library Re­sources,
OCLC, and Forest Press. The study
examined the use of information from the
schedules and index of the Dewey Decimal
Classification as a tool for subject access,
browsing, and display in an online catalog.
Peter J. Paulson, Executive Director of
Forest Press (publisher of the Dewey Decimal
Classification), told the conference par­ticipants:
"Early efforts to develop online cat­alogs
emphasized the replication of the func­tion
of the traditional card catalog; this study
breaks new ground in the use of classification
and computer technology to enhance subject
access in libraries."
Key Conclusion
The study compared an online catalog
which had traditional subject-heading, title,
and keyword search capabilities, with a cata­log
enbanced by subject keywords from and
browsing displays of the Dewey Decimal Clas­sification.
A key conclusion of the study: While the
two methods of searching were relatively
equal in precision (relevance of the items re­trieved),
recall (the number of relevant items
retrieved), and search time, each method re­trieved
different relevant bibliographic items
from the same database. The conclusions and
recorrunendations of the study were based on
patron and staff searches at four library test
sites: the Library of Congress, the New York
State Library, the Public Library of Columbus
and Franklin County (Ohio), and the Mathe­matics
Library of the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
More Research Needed
Speakers at the conference included Profes­sor
Lois Mai Chan (College oflibrary and In-
Karen Markey
formation Science, University of Kentucky)
who spoke on "Library of Congress Classifi­cation
as an Online Retrieval Tool," and Wil­liam
H. Mischo (Engineering Library, Univer­sity
of Illinois) who presented a paper on
"Options for Subject Search Enhancement in
Online Catalogs." Both speakers emphasized
the value of a variety of subject search options
in online catalogs.
Participants at the conference generally
agreed that further research and follow-up to
Dr. Markey's pioneering work were needed,
(
a point echoed by C. Lee Jones (Council on
Library Resources) who observed that on pur­pose
of Dr. Markey's research was "to stimu- ,
late further studies, a goal that will certainly (,
be attained in the next few years."
The ftnal report on the project may be pur­chased
from, OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dub­lin,
Ohio 43017-0702. The price of the ap­proximately
500-page report is $25.
(
(
OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 15
Version 2 of Cataloging Micro Enhancer
now available for M300 Workstations
In December 1985, Version 2 of the OCLC
Cataloging Micro Enhancer became available.
With this OCLC-developed software package
Cataloging Subsystem users with M300 Work­stations
may batch searching and produce or
update activity and edit bibliographic records
locally. The timed processing feature allows
users to take advantage of nonprime-time
charges in a convenient way. The Cataloging
Micro Enhancer uses a program diskette and
data diskettes. In addition to the software
package, purchasers receive the user manual
and reference guide.
Fnnctions
Version 2 enhancements reflect the sugges­tions
from the first group of evaluating librar­ies
that participated in the test for Version 1.
As other OCLC member libraries bave ordered
and used the package more suggestions were
received. The basic design of the Cataloging
Micro Enhancer has not changed. It may be
used to enter up to 125 search keys per data
diskette. Searching is done automatically by
the Micro Enhancer. When a single record is
found it is downloaded to a diskette ftle where
it may be edited locally. Automatic Process­ing
of search keys or bibliographic records
may take place immediately or may be set for
a later time. Use of the software for automatic
processing in nonprime time is popular.
New features included in Version 2 are:
• When more than one record is found for
a search key, users may log on with M300
software, choose the correct record and
SaveScreen the record. A file of records
saved in this way may be transferred to the
Cataloging Micro Enbancer data diskette for
local editing and batch processing.
• When edited records are produced or up­dated
in Automatic Processing spine label
displays may be downloaded to a file for
batch printing later.
• All or some of the records in the Local Bib
File may be printed in batch mode.
• Search key entry is no longer limited to nu­meric
search keys. Any search key for bib­liographic
records may be entered. Derived
search keys may be qualified by date, type,
or microform as in the Online System.
• Workforms for Original Input Cataloging
may be downloaded for local editing and
batch processing.
Testing
Version 2 supports 2400 baud dial access
to OCLC via TYMNET or Telenet using a
Hayes Smartmodem 2400 in addition to dedi­cated
access (2400) baud or dial access (300
by Frances McNamara
or 1200 baud) via direct dial, TYMNET or Tel­enet.
Version 2 of the Cataloging Micro Enhancer
was tested from Sept. 16 to Nov. 13 by 15 li­braries
and the OCLC Europe office in Birntin­gham,
United Kingdom. The participation of
these volunteer libraries helps OCLC to cor­rect
any problems with the software before
general distribution and to identify features
that could be modified or expanded in future
versions for more efficient use in the many
types and sizes of OCLC libraties. The time
and effort contributed by these libraries is
greatly appreciated.
Reactions Positive
The formal evaluation after completion of
the test identified off-line editing and
nonprime-time processing as useful features,
according to those who have tried them.
Susan Hartman of Pathfinder library Sys­tem,
Grand Junction, Colo., reported that it
is ''fast and easy to make changes in a record
off-line-! love it!"
Linda Williams at the University of Texas
at Austin summarized the comments of many
of the participants: "Off-line editing reduces
dependence on response time or downtime''
and "after a user becomes well trained on the
system, the time it takes to edit is decreased."
Comments on the new features in Version
2 included the following from Robert
Michalske at San Francisco State University:
''Addition of label production is a wonderful
improvement and can be used for 95 out of
100 books, average."
Linda Shaw at California State Polytech­nic
Institute, Pomona, reported a "significant
decrease in time spent inputting original rec­ords
on a workform.''
Susan Yoon at Glen Ellyn (111.) Public li­brary
commented that "Version 2 of the
Micro Enhancer removed some limitations
and inconveniences orthe original version
which still is the most efficient and cost-saving
tool in cataloging. We just love. it!"
Hardware
Hardware requirements for Version 2 of the
Cataloging Micro Enhancer are a standard
M300 Workstation configuration. OCLC ter­minal
software, IBM DOS 2.0 or 2.1, and with
dial access, one of the following modems:
Hayes Smartmodem 300, 1200, 1200B or
2400; U.S. Robotics AD212A or Password;
Multi-Tech MT212AH or MT212HC.
For further information, prices and order
forms for Version 2 of the Cataloging Micro
Enhancer, contact OCLC affiliated network
offices or OCLC. -Frances McNamara is
MicroSystems Support & Training Specialist
at OCLC.
Cataloging Micro Enhancer
field test participants
California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona
University of California, San Diego
DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.
Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C.
Glen Ellyn Public library,
Glen Ellyn, ill.
Heidelberg College, Tiffm, Ohio
Honeywell Information Systems Inc.,
Waltham, Mass. (dial access)
Iowa State University, Ames
Manitowoc Public Library,
Manitowoc, Wis.
Northeast Missouri State University,
Kirksville
OCLC Europe, Binningbarn,
Unlted Kingdom
Pathfinder Library System,
Grand Junction, Colo.
San Francisco State University
·University of Texas at Austin
University of Utab, Salt Lake City
Wilson Hospital, Johnson City, N.Y.
(dial access)
Corrections
In OCLC Newsletter No. 160 (December
1985), an article on page 14entitled "Ad­ditional
Enhance libraries chosen" mis­identified
the locations of two institutions
participating in the Enhance Program
(Book Format). The correct locations are:
The Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madi­son;
and Stockton State College, Pomona,
N.J. Under the Maps Format, the lilinois
State Library, Springfield, was misidenti­fied
as the Illinois State University.
In the same issue, an article on page 4
entitled "Strategic planning an ongoing
process, says University of Illinois expert''
incorrectly identified Dr. David Gardner
as Dr. ]obn Gardener.
The Editor regrets the errors.
Amplification
Also in Newsletter No. 160 an article on
page 12 entitled "SUNY/OCLC recognizes
network veterans," omitted two "NET­VET"
libraties, SUNY at Stony Brook and
SUNY College at Purchase.
16 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
OCLC MICROCON Service
observes itrst anniversary (
MICROCON, OCLC's microcomputer­based
retrospective conversion service,
celebrated its one-year anniversary in March
1986. During the first year of availability, 95
libraries contracted to process 7. 7 million rec­ords
using the MICROCON Service.
Througb the MICROCON Service, OCLC
lends M300 Workstations, MICROCON soft­ware
and all data diskettes to contracting li­braries
for the duration of the retrospective
conversion project. Library staff (often stu­dents
or volunteers), enter one search key and
by Maureen D. Finn and Linda Morgan Davis
optional local data onto data diskettes for eacb
title to be converted.
These diskettes are sent to OCLC where the
data is macbine-matched to the OCLC Online
Union Catalog. One-for-one matches are con­verted
to magnetic tape with the library's lo­cal
data merged into the full OCLC MARC
record. Multiple matches and no hits are sent
via paper listings to the libraty for futther
processing. This processing can be done by li­braty
staff or the libraty may wish to contract
with OCLC's customized retrospective· con-
New ·editions of OCLC Format
documents made available
by Lois Yoakam
The OCLC Documentation Department is
publishing new editions of the eigbt OCLC
Focmat documents (Archives and Manuscript
Control Fonnat, Audiovisual Media Fonnat,
Books Format, Machine-readable Data Files
Format, Maps Format, Scores Format,
Serials Format, and Sound Recordings
Format).
Audiovisual Media Format (second edi­tion)
was distributed to OCLC members in late
January of this year. Books Fonnat (third edi­tion)
became available Feb. 28.
With the publication of the new editions,
!6 technical bulletins will no longer be
needed. Users will be able to find infocmation
and examples about format-specific catalog­ing
records more easily.
OCLC is replacing no-charge copies of the
Audiovisual Media Format, Books Format,
Archives and Manuscn'Jlt Control Fonnat,
Serials Format, and Machine-readable Data
File Format that members currently have.
Each member will receive the second edition
of Maps Format, Scores Format, and Sound
Recordings Format at no charge; members
may order additional no-charge copies of any
format according to the guidelines described
in Technical Bulletin No. 126, Revised Distri­bution
Policy for No-charge User Publica­tions.
Creating the new editions has involved the
cooperative efforts of many people at OCLC.
Members of the Documentation Department
staff are: Debra Bohli, Karen CaJhoun, Karen
Clioe, Sig Dierk, Dave Evans, Mick Hawk, Jane
Hugbes, Shirley Hyatt, EtikJul, Bobbi Kessler,
Carol Lauber, Rick IJmes, Mattha Morss, Paula
Sonntag, Becky Wrigbt, and Lois Yoakam.
Reviewers from Marketing and Users Serv­ice
Division are: Ellen Caplan, Carol Davis,
Rich Greene, Mary Kay Jackson, Penny Mat­tern,
RosatUla O'Neil, Glenn Patton, Joan
Schuitema, Linda Carlson Sharp, and Jay
Weitz.
Further information about these documents
is available from the OCLC Documentation
Department. -Lois Yoakam is Manager,
User Publications Section in the Documenta­tion
Department at OCLC.
OCLC database and special
collections guide to be updated
Has your library entered a special collection
in the OCLC database?
OCLC is revising 4,134 Years of Informa­tion,
a Guide to the OCLC Database and the
Special Collections Therein (OCLC No.
12135221) and would like to have your in­stitution's
information in the next edition.
To participate, please include the official
name of the collection, the number of ti-des/
volumes, and a brief description. If pos­sible,
please include black and white photos
or slides if available.
OCLC is also updating previous submittals.
Please send special collections information
by May 15, 1986 to: Special Collections
Guide, OCLC, 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, Ohio
43017.
version service, RETR.OCON.
To date, MICROCON Service users have
converted over 2 million records. On average,
94 percent of the search keys resulted in a
matcbing record. Of this 94 percent, 75 per­cent
were single hits on the first input and the
remaining 19 precent had two or more
matches.
Greater Flexibility
In March, OCLC distributed an enhanced
version of the MICROCON software. This
new version can be used with IBM PC­compatible
hardware as well as the IBM XT.
MICROCON Service users will be able to en­ter
more local data and will have greater flex­ibility
when reviewing data.
All of the hardware, data diskettes, and
MICROCON operating software are provided
without cbarge. MICROCON services include
setting holdiog symbols in the OCLC Online
Union Catalog, processing records, and
production and shipping of the resulting mag­netic
tape. For the MICROCON Service unit
charge and/or more information, OCLC mem-(
bers and non-members may contact partici-\_
paling Nerwork Offices or the OCLC Online ·
System Products and Services Department at
OCLC. MICROCON Institutions are listed on
the following page. -Maureen D. Finn is
Retrospective Conversion Marketing Specialist
at OCLC. Linda Morgan Davis is MICRO­CON
Marketing Speciailst at OCLC.
Send us your slides
OCLC needs color 35mm slides for a
spedal presentation featttting OCLC mem­ber
libraties and their patrons. In particu­lar,
OCLC is soliciting slides of,
• exteriors of member libraries.
• dramatic interior views (rotundas,
atriums, reading rooms).
• OCLC tenninals in work environments.
• libraty patrons.
• libraty special events.
• children's story hours.
• patrons using maps, records and other
non-book materials.
• rare books.
There is no limit to the number of slides
an institution may submit. Slides will be
returned upon request.
Please send only 35mm color slides with "·
the institution's name and holdiog symbol
printed on the mounting to, Slide Show,
OCLC, 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, Ohio
43017.
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OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 17
Institutions that have contracted for MICROCON Service
Alabama
University of Alabama
University of North Alabama
Arizona
Fort Huachuca
University of Arizona
California
California Lutheran College
California State University-Sacramento
Libraries of the Claremont Colleges
Los Angeles Public Ubracy
Loyola Marymount University
Merced County Public Libracy
Palomar Community College
Sunnyvale Public Libraty
Colorado
Denver Public Library
District of Columbia
Georgetown University
Florida
Florida State University
lllioois
Keudall College
River Bend Ubracy System
Rosacy College
Skokie Public Libracy
Waubonsee Community College
Waukegau Public Libracy
Indiana
Bethel College
Calumet College
Cannel Public Libraty
Christian Theological Semluacy
DePauw University
Elkhart Public Libraty
Franklin College
Goshen College
Grace College
Hanover College
Huntington College
Indiana Central University
lndiaua State Libraty
Manchester College
Marion College
Purdue University
Rose-Hulmau Institute of Technology
St. Joseph's College
St. Macy-of-the-Woods College
St. Maty's College
St. Meinrad College
University of Evansville
Valparaiso University
Wabash College
Maryland
Jobns Hopkins University,
College of Medicine
University of Macyland-College Park
Massachusetts
Harvard College Libraty
Regis College
Missouri
University of Missouri-St. Louis
New Jersey
Burlington County Libracy
Free Public Ubracy of Elizabeth
Passaic Community College
Seton Hall University
St. Peter's College
Stockton State College
New York
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Capital District Library Council
City University of New York
Hudson Valley Community College
Le Moyne College
North Country Resources Council
Onondaga Community College
SUNY-Albauy
SUNY-Purchase
SUNY-Stony Brook
York College
North Carolina
Fort Bragg Post Libraty
Ohio
Sinclair Community College
Oklahoma
Fort Sill
Oregon
Jackson County Libraty System
Mount Angel Abbey Libraty
Oregon State Libracy
Pennsylvania
Carlisle Barracks Libracy
Cedar Crest/Muhlenberg Libraries
Harrisburg Area Community College
Marywood College
State Libraty of Pennsylvania
York College of Pennsylvania
Soulb Carolina
Francis Marion College
Tennessee
Rhodes College
Vauderbilt University
Vermont
Vermont Department of Libraries
VIrginia
Fort Belvoir
Virginia Militacy Institute
West VIrginia
Kauawha County Public Libracy
West Virginia Institute
Wisconsin
Maude Shunk Public Libraty
University of Wisconsin Centers
University of Wisconsin~ River Falls
Europe
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium
Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Oxford University, Engiand
University of Kent, Englaud
18 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986
85 attend ''Libraries: Learning for Life''
1986 campaign kickoff meeting at OCLC (
Promoting public awareness for Ohio's li­braries
was the subject of the "Libraries:
Learning for Life" 1986 campaign kickoff
meeting, held Jan. 31 in the OCLC Audito­rium.
Eighty-five librarians or staff members from
libraries around Ohio-each a county or
regional coordinator for the campaign­attended
the meeting. The campaign was
founded and is sponsored by the Ohio Coun­cil
of Library and Information Services
(OCLJS), an umbrella organization for 15
statewide library affiliation membership agen­cies
representing more than 5,000 individu­als,
said Nancy Wareham, President of OCLIS.
Each participant is linked by one of 88 county
coordinators who, in tum, are linked to one
of five regional coordinators.
This, the second "Libraries: Learning for
Life" campaign, will officially begin April 9.
Tentative plans call for a march through Co­lumbus,
with participants stopping at every
major library in the downtown vicinity. The
march is to cuhninate with a noon rally at the
Statehouse. Additionally, information booths
sponsored by each of the OCLIS agencies are
to be open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the
Statehouse grounds. All rally participants were
asked to wear red as a show of support for
the campaign.
The Ohio events will coincide with Na­tional
Library Week activities.
After a welcome by OCLC Vice President
for Library Plamting, Mary Ellen Jacob, and
campaign Public Relations Chairperson, Ka­thy
East of the Public Library of Columbus and
Franklin County, participants related their lo­cal
promotion success stories to the group.
Those successes include grocery bag adver­tisements
sponsored by local merchants, a
children's sidewalk art contest and display, a
''books for babies'' program, and school and
community parades, as well as conventional
public service advertising. At the end of the
session, every participant was given a pre­recorded
radio public service announcement
to be forwarded to his or her local radio sta­tion.
Participants also received advice from
Patricia Groseck, Director of Communications
for the Public Library of Columbus and Frank­lin
County, on how to make contact with and
lobby federal, state and local officials.
Discussion and strategy sessions followed
each segment of the program.
Further information about the ''Libraries:
Learning for Life" campaign is obtainable
through Nancy Wareham, Executive Director,
Cleveland Area Metropolitan Library System,
11000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
Information is also available through these
agencies:
The Academic Library Association of Ohio,
the American Society for Information Science
(three Ohio Chapters), the Ohio Educational
Library Media Association, the Ohio Friends
of the Library, the Ohio Health Information
Organization, the Ohio Library Association,
the Ohio Library Trustees Association, the
Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries,
OHIONET, the Special Libraries Association
(three Ohio chapters), and the State Library uf
Ohio.
Members of the OCLIS Public Relations Committee for the third annual "Libraries: Learning for Life'' kickoff meeting are, from
left: Susan Kroll, The Ohio State University Health Sciences Library; Larry Corbus, Geauga Cotu1ty Public Library; Jane Small,
Defiance (Ohlo) Public Library; Kathy East, Public Library of Columbus and Franklin County; Floyd Dickman, State Library
of Ohio; Susanna Swade, Columbus City Schools; Mary Grace Hune, Baker and Hostetler Attorneys-at-Law (Columbus); and
Jodi Ruhl, Greenville (Ohio) Public Library. The committee organized the campaign kickoff meeting.
c
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OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 19
OHIONET "OhioPi"
demonstrated at OCLC
A rtew online reference service offered by
OHIONET is making access to state govern­ment
information as easy as "Pi."
OHIONET Executive Director Ron Diener
demonstrated the capabilities of OhioPi (Ohio
Public Information Utility), designed and de­veloped
by OHIO NET, at OCLC in Feburary.
The demonstration was sponsored by the
OCLC Marketing and Users Services Division,
Network and Library Liaison Section.
Funded by a S 134,981 library Services and
Construction Grant from the State Library of
Ohio, OhioPi came online in September of last
year. It contains texts and facts about Ohio
which, previously, were available in only one
format (either printed or machine readable).
The system, said Dr. Diener, provides easy
and inexpensive access to timely information.
It was initiated, he said, not only to help
make Ohio's citizens as informed as possible,
but to help focus the public's attention on li­braries
as agencies of service.
Information Sources
Available only to OHIONET member librar­ies,
OhioPi information sources include:
• LexOH-recent and proposed legislation of
the Ohio General Assembly, indexed and
updated.
• ]udOH-including the judiciary calendars
and opinions of Ohio courts, indexed and
in full text.
• DirOH-directors of Ohio including
names, organizations, events, programs,
products and services. Eacb is fully indexed
by date, geographical location, and subject.
• JoumOH-newsletters of professional as­sociations
and societies, marketing reports,
, tax and fiscal bulletins, and announcements
by governmental departments and services.
• DASS-the Descriptive and Analytical
Statistics System providing coverage of
demographic infonnation, politics, finance,
health, safety, transportation, agriculture,
manufacturing, business and education.
Early Plan
The origin of OhioPi came about with the
notion that state depository laws are no longer
effective, said Dr. Diener. In theory, state and
federal legislators can designate a county dis­trict
or university library within their domaine
to hold copies of all govenunent documents.
Unfortunately, said Dr. Diener, printing
budgets are usually the first to be abandoned
during tight budget considerations. Addition­ally,
while some documents are printed, they
are not printed on a priority basis, leaving
them outdated by the time of publication.
After talking with legislators in 1981, Dr.
by Page Lewis
Diener said it was determined that no change
in depository legislation was foreseen.
Dr. Diener said the OIDONET project took
its development cue from "INDIRS" (Indiana
Information Retrieval System), a similar proj­ect
initiated at the Research Center of the In­diana
University School of Business. That sys­tem
relied on information from the U.S.
Department of Commerce, the U.S. Bureau of
the Census and local state government infor­mation
sources.
Working with the Ohio departments of Ad­ministrative
Services, Education, and Devel­opment
and the State Library of Ohio, Dr.
Diener said OIDONET spent more than 24
months and went through three rewrites on
OhioPi data development and software (using
a Data General MV 4000 computer). More
than SO percent of development time was
spent on the project's statistical package, the
remainder on the other components, he said.
There are currently three major sets of soft­ware
for OhioPi, Dr. Diener said, but that will
soon be reduced by one.
OHIONET initially relied on information
from the Encyclopedia of Ohio Associations
for its basic data. Dr. Diener said state agen­cies
have, for the most part, been very coop­erative
in supplying and updating informa­tion,
although full text of proposed legislation
before the Ohio General Assembly has yet to
be negotiated.
Libraries Online
There are currently 20 OhioPi libraries on­line.
That figure is expected to increase gradu­ally,
but significantly, as more library person­nel
are trained, Dr. Diener said.
Online hookups are available through long
distance or TELENET. Service is available for
S 16 a connect hour (minimum two hours a
month usage) by long distance. TELENET re­quires
an additional S 16 per hour usage.
Further information about OhioPi is avail­able
through OHIONET, 1500 W. Lane Ave.,
Columbus, Ohio 43221. -Page Lewis is
Public Relations Writer at OCLC.
OCLC Europe extends
participation in the
ILL Subsystem
by Janet Mitchell
Recognition by the European library com­munity
of the tremendous potential for inter­national
resource sharing available through
the OCLC telecommunications network has
led to an increase in the number of OCLC In­terlibrary
Loan Subsystem users in Europe.
The increase has also been attributed to a
number of initiatives between OCLC and na­tional
library groups in Europe.
The British Library Document Supply Cen­ter
(BRI) has been using the OCLC ILL Sub­system
since 1983.
The system is currently being evaluated by
institutions in Western Europe.
In Denmark, the Statsbiblioteket (EDA) at
Arhus, which acts as a national clearing house
for Danish ILL requests, commenced a six­month
evaluation of the OCLC ILL Subsystem
on March ftrst of this year.
In France, a similar evaluation is being un­dertaken
by the Centre de Pret at the Biblio­theque
Nationale (ZYZ) as part of a larger
evaluation of OCLC systems and services
coordinated by the Direction des Biblioteques,
des Musees et de L'information Scientific et
Technique. The French evaluation began
March 1 and will continue through June 30,
1986.
Both centers are interested in receiving re­quests
from OCLC ILL Subsystem users dur­ing
the evaluation periods.
The Technical Research Center in Finland
(TIS) has been using the OCLC ILL Subsystem
since 1980. The Center uses OCLC for ILL
items it is unable to locate within Finland (the
most common form of publication sought be­ing
conference proceedings). Now another
Finnish Library, the Helsinki University of
Technology (EFT), has become an ILL par­ticipant.
The library completed ILL training at
the end of Feburary. It will utilize the sub­system
for items it cannot trace nationally.
The American College in Paris (EIP), a
United States-accredited independent college
that has been a full OCLC Cataloging Sub­system
participant since last year, will also ex­tend
its use of the OCLC systems to include ILL
in the next few months. -Janet Mitchell
is Manager, Shared Services at OCLC Europe.
20 OCLC NEWSLETTER April 1986 ·
OCLC NEWSLETTER
Editor: Associate Editors: Editorial Assistant: Design: Typesetting:
Philip Schieber Jan Nelson Lucas, Page Lewis Marifay Makssour Martin Hawk Bobbi Kesiler
OCLC Newsletter (ISSN:Ol63-898X) is published by OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017-
0702. Contents of this Newsletter may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that credit is given. OCLC Newsletter is distributed free. Direct sub­scription
inquiries and changes of address to: Newsletter Subscriptions, OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017-0702.
II
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, Ohio 43017-0702
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PERMIT NO. 688
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