From the Print Media to the Internet by Marie Lebert (mobile ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Library 2000 gives the historical record of a project held by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology) between Fall 1995 and February 1998. Library 2000 was a computer systems research project that explored the implications of large-scale on-line storage using the future electronic library as an example. The project was pragmatic, developing a prototype using the technology and system configurations expected to be economically feasible in the year 2000.

Based at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), the D-Lib Program supports the community of people with research interests in digital libraries and electronic publishing. D-Lib Magazine, the magazine of digital library research, is a monthly compilation of contributed stories, commentary, and briefings.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) provides a very interesting section Electronic Collections and Services.

[In this chapter:]

[8.1. Library Catalogs / 8.2. International Bibliographic Databases / 8.3. Future Trends for On-line Catalogs]

Why a whole chapter on catalogs? Because, even if most of them are not yet user-friendly and are still in the domain of information specialists, they are essential to students, researchers, and anybody who needs a particular document or wants to know more about a specific topic.

Until now, the catalogs could easily be reproached as being complicated to deal with, and above all for giving the references of the documents but never giving access to their contents and full-text. All this is now changing. Catalogs on the Web have become more attractive and user-friendly. And, in an emerging trend, catalogs have begun to give instant access to some documents, for example, the works listed in The Universal Library which can be accessed through the Experimental Search System (ESS) of the Library of Congress.

8.1. Library Catalogs

Two catalogs, those of The British Library and the Library of Congress, are impressive bibliographic tools, freely available to all Internet users. They include many documents published in non-English languages.

In May 1997, The British Library launched OPAC 97, which provides free access via the World Wide Web to the catalogs of the major British Library collections in London and Boston Spa. For a wider range of databases and many additional facilities, the British Library offers Blaise, an on-line bibliographic information service (which you must pay for), and Inside, article title records from 20,000 journals and 16,000 conferences. As explained on the website:

"The Library's services are based on its outstanding collections, developed over 250 years, of over one hundred and fifty million items representing every age of written civilisation, every written language and every aspect of human thought. At present individual collections have their own separate catalogues, often built up around specific subject areas. Many of the Library's plans for its collections, and for meeting its users' needs, require the development of a single catalogue database. This is being pursued in the Library's Corporate Bibliographic Programme which seeks to address this issue."

The reference collections represented on OPAC 97 comprise:

a) Modern books and periodicals from Britain and overseas;

b) Humanities and Social Sciences collection (from 1975), which include: humanities and social sciences information; popular science and psychology holdings; modern oriental holdings; rich resources relating to Africa; Hispanic materials relating to Spain, Portugal, Portuguese North Africa and Latin America; one of Europe's largest collection relating to Slavonic, East European and Soviet studies;

c) Science, Technology and Business collection (from 1975);

d) Music collection (1980- ), one of the world's finest collections of printed music;

e) Older books and periodicals from Britain and overseas;

f) Older reference material collection (to 1975 only), incomparable holdings of early printing from Britain and overseas Western and Oriental materials from the beginning of writing, including: archives and materials assembled by the former India Office; rich resources relating to Africa; Hispanic materials relating to Spain, Portugal, Portuguese North Africa and Latin America (one of Europe's largest collections relating to Slavonic, East European and Soviet studies); historical resources for scientific, technological and business information; and musical works.

The Document Supply collections represented on OPAC 97 are comprised of:

a) Books and reports collection (from 1980), which covers millions of British and overseas books, reports and UK theses;

b) Journals/Serials collection (from 1700), including half a million British and overseas periodicals (journals and serials);

c) Conference collection (from 1800), which is the world's largest collection of conference proceedings.

Parts of the current systems are now 20 years old. The basic design of the systems is no longer in line with current business needs and the fact that the British Library's software is out of date is often a hindrance, particularly as concerns cooperation with other organizations. The British Library has therefore decided to replace these systems, and the Corporate Bibliographic Programme is charged with implementing this decision.

The key objectives of the Programme, as summarized on their website, are:

"- To ensure the continuation of essential processes and services, i.e. creating, maintaining and providing access to catalogue data;

- to make these processes and services more efficient and effective; and

- to provide a basis for future developments which will support the Library's strategic objectives and be in line with the Library's information systems strategy."

The Library of Congress Catalogs can be searched using four different methods: a) Word Search; b) Browse Search; c) Command Search; and d) Experimental Search System (ESS).

a) The Word Search's Z39.50 Gateway provides a simple search form for authors and title queries and an advanced search form allowing the use of Boolean operators (and, or, and not), with searches for subjects, names, titles, series, notes, and various numbers. Some of these records have direct links to digitized materials.

b) The Browse Search allows the user to browse and then select from alphabetical indexes for the Library's catalogs, including subject cross references. One can browse by subject, author (personal, corporate), conference, title, series, Library of Congress Classification (partial call number), Dewey Decimal Number, and standard numbers like the ISBN (international standard book number), the ISSN (international standard serial number), and the LCCN (Library of Congress control number).

c) The Command Search allows the use of commands which can be typed to search for words and to browse indexes for the Library's catalogs, and for additional non-catalog files. This method provides access to LOCIS (the Library of Congress Information System, which is the original mainframe-based retrieval system), with browsable indexes, word searches, Boolean combinations, various display options, set creation, and advanced features for limiting and refining search results. This method requires the Internet Telnet function (either Telnet or tn3270) in order to connect to LOCIS. The Telnet capability comes with most WWW browsers, but must be configured.

d) The Experimental Search System (ESS), currently located in the LC Web research and development area, supports relevancy-ranked searching of catalog records, as well as sorting and e-mailing search results. Special search features include analyzing results by subject heading and "browsing" the shelf for items with similar LC call numbers. Some of these records have direct links to digitized materials, including selected full-text, image, video and audio files, at the Library of Congress and elsewhere. This is a test system and results may not be all inclusive.

The catalog records relate to books (9,543,910 as of December 10, 1998), maps (171,756), serials (825,664), prints and photographs (68,135), manuscripts (10,698), music (209,142), visual materials (278,771) and software (6,318). As explained on the website:

"The Experimental Search System (ESS) is one of the Library of Congress' first efforts to make selected cataloging and digital library resources available over the World Wide Web by means of a single, point-and-click interface. The interface consists of several search query pages (Basic, Advanced, Number, and a Browse screen) and several search results pages (an item list of brief displays and an item full display), together with brief help files which link directly from significant words on those pages. By exploiting the powerful synergies of hyperlinking and a relevancy-ranked search engine (InQuery from Sovereign Hill Software), we hope the ESS will provide a new and more intuitive way of searching the traditional OPAC (on-line public access catalog). […]

Besides the cataloging records for over 4 million books (including JACKPHY records not currently available through SCORPIO); 263,000 motion pictures, videos, filmstrips and other visual work; 200,000 sound recordings and musical scores; more than 150,000 maps; and 4,300 computer files - i.e., LC cataloging records created since 1968 - ESS also contains the cataloging for almost 140,000 photographs and manuscripts in the National Digital Library Program's American Memory, linking to more than 70,000 digital photographs and images available on-line. By indexing the works selected and organized by The On-Line Books Page at Carnegie Mellon University, links are also provided to the full-text of over 2,500 on-line books from sites across the Internet. Even early motion pictures are available for searching and viewing once the proper viewer is installed. (Hint: try searching on the subject heading 'shorts' in the Photographs, Manuscripts, Movies collection.)"

Except for their prohibitive costs, the commercial databases give us an idea of what the catalogs could be in the future: for the past several years the Dialog Corporation, Lexis-Nexis or UnCover have been using their catalogs to provide on-line documents.

Based in London, United Kingdom, with regional headquarters in Mountain View, California, and Hong Kong, the Dialog Corporation is a major on-line information company, with 900 main databases (the most well-known being Dialog and Profound) serving over 20,000 corporate clients in 120 countries. Content areas include: news and media; medicine; pharmaceuticals; chemicals; reference; social sciences; business and finance; food and agriculture; intellectual property; government and regulations; science and technology; and energy and environment.

LEXIS-NEXIS is an international provider of enhanced information services and management tools using on-line, Internet, CD-ROM and hardcopy formats for a variety of professionals. It serves customers in more than 60 countries. The 25-year old company has introduced Web products for business, legal and academic research, current awareness, and both standard and customizable tracking of competitive and business subjects and companies on a daily basis.

A service of CARL Corporation, UnCover is both a fax reprint service and the world's largest database of magazine and journal articles, with current article information taken from well over 17,000 multidisciplinary journals. UnCover contains brief descriptive information for over 7,000,000 articles which have appeared since Fall 1988. Any Internet surfer can use the free keyword access to article titles and summaries.

8.2. International Bibliographic Databases

Two organizations, the OCLC Online Computer Library Center and the Research Library Information Network (RLIN), run international databases of bibliographic information through the Internet.

The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, library computer service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. More than 27,000 libraries in 65 countries use OCLC services to manage their collections and to provide on-line reference services. The site is available in English, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

OCLC Services include: access services; collections and technical services;
reference services; resource sharing; Dewey Decimal Classification (published in
OCLC Forest Press); and preservation resources. From its headquarters in Dublin,
Ohio, OCLC operates one of the world's largest library information networks.
Libraries in the United States join OCLC through their OCLC-affiliated Regional
Networks. Libraries outside the United States receive OCLC services through OCLC
Asia Pacific, OCLC Canada, OCLC Europe, OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean, or
via international distributors.

OCLC also runs WorldCat, name of the OCLC Online Union Catalog, which is a merged electronic catalog of libraries around the world, and probably the world's largest bibliographic database with its 38 million records (at the beginning of 1998) in 400 languages (with transliteration for non-Roman languages), and an annual increase of 2 million bibliographic records.

WorldCat is derived from a concept which is the same for all union catalogs: earn time to avoid the cataloguing of the same document by many catalogers worldwide. When they are about to catalog a publication, the catalogers of the member libraries search the OCLC catalog. If they find the corresponding record, they copy it in their own catalog and add some local information. If they don't find the record, they create it in the OCLC catalog, and this new record will immediately be available to all the catalogers of the member libraries worldwide.

Unlike RLIN, another international bibliographic database (see below) which accepts several records for the same document, the OCLC Online Union Catalog takes into consideration only one