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Public-Access Computer Systems News Volume 4 Number 07
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Public-Access Computer Systems News
Volume 4, Number 7 (1993) ISSN 1050-6004
Editors: Dana Rooks (LIBL@UHUPVM1) and Linda Thompson
(LIB1J@UHUPVM1).
Issued on an irregular basis by University Libraries, University
of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-2091.
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CONTENTS
RLG RECEIVES $62,000 AWARD FROM NEH FOR AMERICAN LITERARY
MATERIALS PROJECT, 1
RLG PROJECT ADDS 7,000 RECORDS FOR OLDER PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL
TO RLIN AMC FILE, 2
UCSB TO CREATE FIRST Z39.50 LINK TO MELVYL, 3
28 NEW CAMBRIDGE DATABASES ON MAGNETIC TAPE, 3
PAIS INTERNATIONAL: 1993 JOURNALS INDEXED LIST AVAILABLE, 4
DYNIX PRESENTS "EXCELLENCE IN INFORMATION" AWARD, 5
KSU EXPANDS ACCESS WITH INFOSHARE, 5
BIOSIS PREVIEWS AND BIP AVAILABLE WITH NOTIS, 5
AIDSLINE NOW AVAILABLE VIA PAPERCHASE, 6
BIBLIOFILE PAC/DRA INTERFACE AVAILABLE, 7
RLG RECEIVES $62,000 AWARD FROM NEH FOR AMERICAN LITERARY
MATERIALS PROJECT
The Research Libraries Group (RLG) has been awarded $62,000 by
the National Endowment for the Humanities to begin developing a
national database on RLIN of information about primary literary
materials in American literature--correspondence, manuscripts,
typescripts, and ephemera--often critical to research but
difficult or impossible to locate.
Dubbed Research Resources in American Literature (RRAL), the
one-year pilot project began on March 1, 1993, and involves four
RLG members: the Beinecke Library at Yale University, Dartmouth
College Library, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at
the University of Texas at Austin, and the Houghton Library at
Harvard College where the RRAL project's editorial office is
located.
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The four participants will first identify research materials
relating to an initial list of 125 American authors and develop
methodologies to survey, describe, and catalog them in RLIN.
Later in the year, some 25 institutions with important
collections related to American literature will be surveyed on
the materials they hold for these authors. The pilot project
will allow a more accurate estimate of the effort that would be
required to expand into a nationwide project.
The RRAL project will have a liaison with both the National Union
Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) and the Modern
Language Association (MLA) to avoid duplication of effort and
ensure the project is responsive to the needs of scholars.
For more information, contact La Vonne Galle,
bl.lfg@rlg.stanford.edu.
RLG PROJECT ADDS 7,000 RECORDS FOR OLDER PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL
TO RLIN AMC FILE
Approximately 7,000 cataloging records have been added to the
RLIN Archives and Manuscripts Control (AMC) file as the result of
a two-year cooperative retrospective conversion project organized
by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and funded by a $200,000
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The
project brings to over 380,000 the number of records in the RLIN
AMC file describing unique, primary source materials.
The records, converted into machine-readable form from older
printed cataloging records, were added by ten RLG member
institutions participating in the project. The ten were chosen
for their important collections in humanistic and scholarly
research. Subjects of interest include the antebellum South and
the Civil War, the rise of industrialism and trade unions, the
settlement of the Old West, immigrants and immigration, the
evolution of modern computing, Shakespeare, and French history.
The other participating institutions were the American
Antiquarian Society, Cornell University, the Hagley Museum and
Library, Louisiana State University, the State Historical Society
of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota, the University of
Pennsylvania, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at
Yale University, and the Virginia State Library and Archives.
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All the participants followed national standards in the creation
of the records, conforming to the MARC AMC format; following
cataloging rules set out in Archives, Personal Papers, and
Manuscripts; and forming headings according to the 1988 revision
of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition (AACR 2) or
the Library of Congress Name and Subject authority files.
Additional access points were also derived from standardized
thesauri.
For more information, contact La Vonne Galle,
bl.lfg@rlg.stanford.edu.
UCSB TO CREATE FIRST Z39.50 LINK TO MELVYL
One of the first Z39.50 links between different library systems
will be implemented at the University of California-Santa Barbara
by the fall of 1993 with the installation of PACLink from NOTIS
Systems Inc. Patrons currently use two different terminals, one
to access UCSB's catalog and one to access MELVYL. After PACLink
is installed, patrons will need to use only one terminal and the
NOTIS interface to access both catalogs. NOTIS screens and
commands will be used to access resources available at UCSB as
well as throughout the UC system via MELVYL.
PACLink, together with PACLoan, form a complete collection
sharing system. PACLink is a client/server application using the
Z39.50 protocol to seamlessly search remote online catalogs using
the same user interface as the home catalog. PACLoan allows
patrons to initiate interlibrary loan requests, and enables ILL
staff at both libraries to track the request and gather
statistics. These products can be used together or separately.
For additional information, contact Linda Sullivan, NOTIS, 708-
866-4917.
28 NEW CAMBRIDGE DATABASES ON MAGNETIC TAPE
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts has introduced a new line of
affordable magnetic tape databases for users of local area
networks. The new Cambridge databases offer libraries unlimited
access to vast amounts of data, along with faster search results-
-all at a fixed cost and using the customer's existing hardware
and software.
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Cambridge has expanded and restructured its database library to
create 28 new, discipline-specific magnetic tape options. The
new choices are grouped by subject area: Environment & Pollution
(six databases), Engineering & Computer Science (eight databases
published jointly with Engineering Information Inc.), Aquatic
Sciences, Marine Biology & Oceanography (three databases), and
Biomedical Sciences (nine databases). To create this new series
of magnetic tape offerings, Cambridge has drawn on over 2.5
million abstracts and citations from its 41 abstract journals,
often combining these resources to create new configurations of
greater value to researchers. For example, the Cambridge
Pollution Database (one of the six databases in the area of
environment and pollution) includes not only the Pollution
Abstracts database available online from several vendors, but
also CSA's Toxicology Abstracts and Environmental Impact
Statements databases. Cambridge regularly scans more than 6,500
print journals, conference proceedings, reports, books, patents,
and other sources to collect citations for its databases.
Sample tapes are available for no-obligation trials. For a
catalog or other information, contact Tina Long, Magnetic Tape
Services Dept., Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, 7200 Wisconsin
Ave., Bethesda MD 20814-4823; 301-961-6737; or e-mail: MCI Mail
ID# CAMSCI.
PAIS INTERNATIONAL: 1993 JOURNALS INDEXED LIST AVAILABLE
PAIS has available a new free publication PAIS International:
1993 Journals Indexed List. This publication is a listing of all
journals from which material was taken for indexing in 1992 PAIS
International publications and services including: PAIS
International in Print; PAIS International Online with Data-Star,
DIALOG, and OCLC; PAIS on CD-ROM, and PAIS International on
SilverPlatter. For journals cited, this list includes:
abbreviated journal name, full journal name, publication
frequency, subscription rate, ISSN, publisher address,
distributor address, and informative notes such as title changes
or publication cessation information. Current subscribers to
PAIS International in Print will find this list printed in the
front of the 1992 annual volume mailed in March 1993.
This publication will be distributed at conferences at which PAIS
exhibits. Copies can be requested by writing to PAIS--Public
Affairs Information Service, 521 West 43rd St., New York NY
10036-4396, Attention: Mrs. Saladin.
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DYNIX PRESENTS "EXCELLENCE IN INFORMATION" AWARD
The recipient of the 1993 Dynix "Excellence in Information" award
is the Portland Public School District's Educational Media
Department for its creation of "PL Super Service: Topical
Bibliographies", a program to develop and distribute topical
bibliographies from its professional library. Developed by
Samuel R. Skopp and Connie Stanton, the program generates on-
demand bibliographies by searching the Dynix Scholar system and
ERIC. The bibliographies are created using Pro-Cite and Biblio-
Link software.
Dynix's "Excellence in Information" award was initiated to
acknowledge efforts by Dynix clients to keep their patrons
educated and informed.
KSU EXPANDS ACCESS WITH INFOSHARE
Kansas State University will install NOTIS System's InfoShare,
the first commercially available database server to fully
integrate the Z39.50 communication protocol, in its central
library and four branches. InfoShare uses the Z39.50 information
retrieval protocol and runs under the TCP/IP standard on the
Internet.
After the KSU libraries implement InfoShare, patrons will be able
to perform multiple searches through a single terminal interface
that can access the OPAC and other databases. Faculty and
students will be able to access these resources via the campus
network from a variety of locations.
For additional information, contact Linda Sullivan, NOTIS, 708-
866-4917.
BIOSIS PREVIEWS AND BIP AVAILABLE WITH NOTIS
Libraries can expand patron searches with two additional
databases now supported by the NOTIS Systems database access
systems. Access to BIOSIS Previews, the world's most
comprehensive bibliographic database for the life science
community, and Books in Print, an online source of available
books, is now available with NOTIS InfoShare and Multiple
Database Access System (MDAS).
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InfoShare is a Z39.50-compliant server that allows NOTIS and non-
NOTIS sites to load databases, including full-text, on a UNIX-
based platform. Databases are delivered pre-indexed, making the
loading process simple. MDAS, which is also designed according
to the client/server architecture, enables libraries to load
abstract and citation databases on the same hardware platform as
the NOTIS OPAC.
For additional information, contact Linda Sullivan, NOTIS, 708-
866-4917.
AIDSLINE NOW AVAILABLE VIA PAPERCHASE
AIDSLINE, the National Library of Medicine's database of
clinical, research, and health care policy information on AIDS,
is now available via PaperChase. AIDSLINE contains 77,000
references selected from 4,000 sources. References found in
AIDSLINE are taken from a variety of NLM databases, including
MEDLINE, Health Planning and Administration (HEALTH), CANCERLIT,
CATLINE, and AVLINE. Also included are meeting abstracts from
the Fifth through the Eighth International Conferences on AIDS,
the 90th and the 91st Symposia on Nonhuman Primate Models for
AIDS, and, when appropriate, the 1990 and 1991 annual meetings of
the American Society for Microbiology.
PaperChase combines all references from all years of MEDLINE,
HEALTH, and AIDSLINE into a single database. Duplicate
references are shown to the searcher only once. Searching the
three databases simultaneously offers savings in both time and
costs. The search may be limited to a single database if needed.
PaperChase is a service of Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, a major
teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School. Designed by
physicians, PaperChase allows the searcher access to MEDLINE,
HEALTH, and AIDSLINE without the need to know either Medical
Subject Headings or a search language. PaperChase offers a
variety of options to hospitals, departments, and individuals who
wish to set up accounts. There is no subscription fee or minimum
monthly charge.
For additional information, contact Rick Lawson, Director of User
Services, PaperChase, 800-722-2075 or 617-278-3900.
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BIBLIOFILE PAC/DRA INTERFACE AVAILABLE
The Library Corporation has installed an interface that links its
BiblioFile Public Access Catalog with Data Research Associates'
circulation system. The new interface allows patrons to view an
item's circulation status from within the BiblioFile PAC. The
Beta test site is a branch of the Queens Borough Public Library
in Jamaica NY.
For additional information, contact Thomas Loy, 800-624-0559.
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Systems Review.
Public-Access Computer Systems News is Copyright (C) 1993 by the
University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights
Reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by academic computer
centers, computer conferences, individual scholars, and
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