OCLC has been of great interest to Russian librarians and library and information specialists for a long time. A number of articles in Russian publications on librarianship have dealt with various aspects of OCLC activities. However, acquaintance with OCLC resources was limited to these and foreign publications, and only a few Russian specialists had the opportunity to become acquainted with the OCLC real-mode services while attending international conferences.
The invitation from OCLC officials for four Russian experts to take part in the 13th Annual Conference of Research Library Directors in March 1995 was a real springboard for implementing the OCLC experience into Russian library practice. Owing to this kind offer, a delegation consisting of Eugeny Kuzmin, head of the Library Department of the Russian Ministry of Culture; Yakov Shraiberg, first deputy director of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology; Boris Loginov, director of the Russian State Central Scientific Medical Library; and Eduard Sukiasyan, deputy director of the Russian State Library, visited the OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio.
After the conference, the delegation was given an opportunity to become acquainted with OCLC information services, resources and major technologies and to consult on the problems of using OCLC resources in Russian libraries.
The visit concluded with the establishment of a set of agreements on mutually beneficial cooperation between OCLC and Russian libraries.
As a result of talks with Phyllis Spies, OCLC vice president, member services, sales and international, and David Buckle, OCLC Europe managing director, the agreement was signed providing the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology (NPLS&T) with three months, free-of-charge access to the PRISM service to master the access technology and to train library staff. Five sets of CAT CD450, OCLC's compact disc cataloging system, were received for testing in major Russian libraries. Moreover, the agreement between OCLC and NPLS&T allows for the translation and distribution in Russian of the OCLC Newsletter.
In fact, this visit has become the first active introduction of Russian specialists to OCLC resources and has brought the first results of cooperation.
During the same period, two NPLS&T specialists were invited to the OCLC Europe office in Birmingham, United Kingdom, to take a training course with the aim of becoming familiar with the office's activities, products and services, as well as to analyze the possibility of connecting NPLS&T to the OCLC global information system. In the framework of the training course, the Russian specialists had an opportunity to become familiar with the OCLC PRISM and FirstSearch services.
On successful completion of the training at OCLC Europe, the Russian specialists received certificates as introductory course lecturers for OCLC services users. This enabled the NPLS&T to organize a number of special training courses and workshops on OCLC resources. Among them are continuing courses for improvement of the professional skills of library specialists; a permanent workshop, "Perspective Information Technologies," conducted monthly for librarians from all over Russia; and a special students program included in the Moscow State University of Culture curriculum. Moscow State University of Culture is the oldest and the largest higher school training staff for Russian and the former Soviet Union libraries.
In May 1995, in accordance with the agreement and in the framework of a three-month testing period, active work with OCLC information resources began.
During this period, the system of access to PRISM resources--PASSPORT software--was adapted by NPLS&T to local conditions. The system has been installed to provide interested NPLS&T users with access to OCLC information from the library's local area network (LAN) workstations. This required developing a special access system from the NPLS&T LAN to the Internet with special parameters necessary to work with OCLC.
Catalogers, indexers, specialists in library formats and specialists from the User Services Department worked with PRISM resources. Having gained the first practical experience in OCLC, NPLS&T specialists conducted experimental access sessions for other library users and readers.
Besides mastering the technology of the online interaction, NPLS&T installed CAT CD450, and the librarians started to work intensively with it.
As a result of these activities, the library specialists and higher officials became confident in the absolute necessity of using the above-mentioned OCLC resources. The decision was taken to negotiate and enter into a full-value agreement to use OCLC products and services.
Simultaneously, activities were carried out to analyze OCLC information resources in relation to the library's automated system to determine compatibilities for exchanging information products and providing shared cataloging and retrospective conversion.
The following conclusions were made:
The analysis reveals the difference in the representation of bibliographic record data elements in these two systems: The OCLC format is USMARC based, while the NPLS&T format has been developed by the library specifically under the CDS/ISIS/M software package and is closer to the UNIMARC. Nevertheless, formats differ in logic and structure patterns, so the elements can be brought in concordance only by means of complex algorithms and programming.
The problem of the document subject fields is considered to be the most complicated task, as different classification systems are used in the databases being converted. NPLS&T uses the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) in the NPLS&T database while the Dewey Decimal Classification, accepted by OCLC, is not used in our country.
Different verbal classification languages are also used for subject heading entering, which requires the preliminary translation and additional subject headings processing.
To solve the problem of semantic concordance of these two languages, a Russian version of UDC-Dewey tables in the automated environment has to be developed, as well as machine translation programs for subject headings.
Only after solving these problems and developing the NPLS&T/OCLC bibliographic data import/export converters, will the library be able to intensively use the OCLC information products and supply the international system with bibliographic records on domestic literature.
The special OCLC workshop held in the framework of the international Crimea-95 conference became the next stage in OCLC/NPLS&T cooperation development. For the first time in the history of Crimean and Ukrainian librarianship in general, real online access sessions to OCLC resources were conducted to introduce the great number of library specialists to the above-mentioned OCLC services as well as OCLC CAT CD450. Significant contributions to this special seminar were made by Ms. Spies, Mr. Buckle, and Liljana Berat, ITS (United Kingdom) company specialist. A special working team was formed by the library. It made joint efforts to organize the workshop and provide reliable high-speed access to the OCLC resources. It should be mentioned, however, that due to the general underdevelopment of telecommunications infrastructure in the Ukraine and in the Crimea in particular, a considerable sum of money was spent to ensure a dedicated channel between the conference venue and the global Internet. This became possible due to the assistance of the Eupatory Remote Space Communications Center specialists.
In the future, Russian libraries and institutions are planning to cooperate with OCLC directly (like NPLS&T does) and to use OCLC CD-ROM databases. Moreover, new Russian projects will be based on OCLC's experience and technologies. At the governmental level, the decision has been made to establish a Russian Center of Shared Cataloging (the provisional title of the project is "Russian OCLC"). Its primary objectives will be to develop a technology of centralized and shared domestic primary sources processing and to use OCLC resources for foreign literature cataloging and retrospective conversion.
The interdepartmental working group chaired by Dr. Shraiberg, project manager, has already started to develop the Russian OCLC Project.
The major Russian libraries have been demonstrating growing interest in OCLC services. For example, at the end of September 1995, special courses were conducted on CAT CD450 for specialists from the Russian National Library and other regional and research libraries.
The OCLC resources have proved to be of great interest and use to Russian libraries both from the point of view of information supplied by OCLC and approaching the current level of library technologies.
Today, NPLS&T is playing a leadership role in promoting OCLC technologies. A special OCLC team has been set up in the library to study the challenges of using OCLC as well as developing the Russian OCLC project. --Yakov Shraiberg is first deputy director and Mikhail Goncharov is head of the Department of Research and Expertise in Modern Information Technology, Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology, Moscow.
OCLC and the State and University Library of Göttingen, seat of the Regional Library Network for Central and Northern Germany (GBV), have agreed to join in the project REUSE that should make it easier for German libraries to use OCLC data for shared cataloging and retrospective conversion.
German academic libraries currently acquire more than 60 percent of their material abroad. Out of this material, nearly 90 percent is provided by Anglo-American publishers. It is easy to imagine how important Anglo-American catalog records are for German catalogers, especially if we consider how many million foreign publications still await cataloging in machine-readable form in the various regional union catalogs in Germany.
Although bibliographic data based on the MARC format and AACR rules have been on the market in Germany for some time, the actual reuse of these sources is appallingly low. Currently, differences between MARC/AACR2 and the German standard for data exchange (MAB2) and the German cataloging rules (RAK) result in considerable manual and intellectual modification of the data received from the Library of Congress, British National Bibliography or OCLC. The basic differences between the two systems seem to be less in the exchange formats than in the representation of bibliographic hierarchies and the generating and handling of authority information.
The REUSE project will now address these problems to enhance international bibliographic compatibility. It will address two fundamental issues in context with the German problems mentioned above:
Positive results from routines prototyped in WP2 should lead to the implementation of operational methods that should substantially raise the attractiveness of such data as provided by OCLC for the German library market. Negative results from WP2 should lead library authorities to question seriously the national approach to cataloging rules, and finally result in an alignment and change toward compatibility with international standards. --Elmar Mittler is director of the University of Göttingen Library.
The agreement between the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (EUR-OP), one of the world's largest multilingual publishers, and OCLC will launch a one-year pilot project in 1996. This project is in response to a proposal from EUROLIB, the cooperative group of European institutional libraries.
Following a technical assessment by OCLC of EUR-OP catalog records, a date will be agreed upon for the creation of a EUROLIB/EUR-OP resource file that will be accessible via the OCLC PRISM service. EUROLIB catalogers will upgrade the records in the resource file to full OCLC records. During the first-year pilot, 2,500 EUR-OP records are expected to be added to the Online Union Catalog. At the end of the one-year pilot, EUR-OP, EUROLIB and OCLC will assess the impact of the project.
Lucien Emringer, director-general of EUR-OP, said he welcomes this initiative as a creative partnership that will help to advance the global information society. "It is particularly significant that the project was conceived by European libraries working on an interinstitutional basis within EUROLIB," he said.
Neville Keery, president of EUROLIB and head of the European Commission's Library Services, congratulated both EUR-OP and OCLC on a partnership that should help to lighten the task of cataloging European Union material, not just within Europe but worldwide. Mr. Keery said EUROLIB hopes the project will help to promote the prospects of more shared cataloging and international library networking.
Phyllis B. Spies, OCLC vice president, member services, sales and international, said she sees the agreement as strengthening the European Union's presence in the global online union catalog. "EUR-OP publications will become more widely known, and European research backed by libraries throughout the world will have better bibliographic support," she said.
EUR-OP, the Office for Official publications of the European Communities, is based in Luxembourg.
Information seekers in Thailand can now access the OCLC FirstSearch service from the following six libraries: Asian Institute of Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, National Institute of Development Administration Library and Information Center, Rajabhat Institute Ban Somdej Chaophraya, and Rajabhat Institute Surthani.
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Robert Stueart, executive director, Center for Library and Information Resources, Asian Institute of Technology, also an International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Executive Board member, rates the FirstSearch service highly. He previously served as dean at Simmons College in Boston and has worked in Asia for the past 15 years.
"As a dean and educator, I was aware of and taught the benefits of FirstSearch to my students," said Mr. Stueart. "Now as an administrator of one of the most respected institutes of science and technology in Asia, I am on the other end, benefiting directly from the excellent services of OCLC, including the CAT CD450 system (recent books collection), as well as the FirstSearch service. We are extremely pleased with FirstSearch and are proud to be listed among the OCLC family."
Chantana Chanpanich, professor, Rajabhat Institute Ban Somdej Chaophraya, also expressed her appreciation of the online reference service. "I like FirstSearch. I'm always telling everyone how good it is. You don't need to spend your time searching many databases, the OCLC Online Union Catalog is the largest database in the world. It gives the date of publication, too, so you can choose the most current document." Miss Chanpanich concedes, however, that one limitation for users in the Asia Pacific region--who are half a day ahead of users in the Americas--is the one hour downtime, which occurs during busy middayhours.
FirstSearch is used in the Asia Pacific region by people in the following countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Thailand. --Eliza Sproat is Asia Pacific marketing communications specialist.
What changes have the computer and telecommunications network brought the library and librarianship? What does an electronic library look like today and in the year 2000? How does the electronic library appropriate its budget for various types of information? Will there be a job for librarians in the 21st century? If there is one, what will they do? These are the issues Mr. Wang addressed in his speech.
The seminar attracted speakers from the following electronic information providers: AT&T Solutions, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, IBM Corporation, OCLC Asia Pacific services, Television Corporation of Singapore, Tampines Regional Library, McGraw-Hill, Singapore Press Holdings, Allen & Gledhill, University of Hong Kong, Macquarie University Library, Institute of Systems Science, Nanyang Technological University, Data Research Associates, IME Systems, McDonnell Information Systems, Sanderson Computers, Dow Jones & Company, Dun & Bradstreet Information Services, Knight-Ridder Information International, and Lexis-Nexis.
Mr. Wang also chaired the second day of the seminar and moderated a panel discussion.
Perth, Western Australia, is about as far from Ohio as you can get. Often described as the most isolated capital city in the world, Perth is 1,200 miles from the nearest state capital and 11,000 miles from the United States across the Pacific. Not surprisingly, interlibrary loans are a major challenge, and libraries in Perth are always on the lookout for better and quicker ways of obtaining material.
The library at the University of Western Australia, Perth's oldest university, uses a variety of sources, on at least four continents, for interlibrary loan and document delivery services. In the library's recently established Scholars' Centre, this is particularly necessary. The centre serves faculty and postgraduate students in the arts and social sciences, from a purpose-built facility featuring a large study area with desks and study carrels linked to the campus network.
The University of Western Australia's Winthrop Hall
As well as managing the library's Microform and Rare Book Collection, the centre specializes in electronic texts and Internet training. Its Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery service obtains 4,500 items per year, much of it older, foreign-language material.
Since August, the Scholars' Centre has been using OCLC's PRISM ILL service to send requests to North American libraries via the Internet--the first Australian library to make use of this service. We have found PRISM ILL very easy to use, and are very pleased with the quick response we get. --Toby Burrows is principal librarian, Scholars' Centre, the University of Western Australia.