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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review
Volume 1, Number 2 (1990) ISSN 1048-6542
Editor-In-Chief: Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
University of Houston
Associate Editor: Mike Ridley, McMaster University
Editorial Board: Walt Crawford, Research Libraries Group
Nancy Evans, Library and Information
Technology Association
David R. McDonald, Tufts University
R. Bruce Miller, University of California,
San Diego
Paul Evan Peters, Coalition for Networked
Information
Peter Stone, University of Sussex
Published three times a year (Winter, Summer, and Fall) by
the University Libraries, University of Houston. Technical
support is provided by the Information Technology Division,
University of Houston.
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DEADLINE for the next issue is September 3, 1990.
Editor's Address: Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
University Libraries
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-2091
(713) 749-4241
LIB3@UHUPVM1
Articles are stored as files at LISTSERV@UHUPVM1. To retrieve a
file, send the e-mail message given after the article abstract to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1. The file will be sent to your account.
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CONTENTS
COMMUNICATIONS
Zen and the Art of CD-ROM Network License Negotiation
Thomas C. Wilson (pp. 4-14)
Based on negotiations with a number of CD-ROM
database vendors and producers, Wilson categorizes
the use restrictions and pricing schemes commonly
found in network licenses for these products.
To retrieve this file: GET WILSON PRV1N2
Symposium on Staffing Issues and Public-Access Computer
Systems
Edited by Mike Ridley and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. (pp. 15-49)
Carolyn Gray, David Lewis, Howard Pasternak,
Cynthia Rhine, and Elizabeth Wood answer five
questions about staff support for public-access
computer systems. Their diverse perspectives
illuminate this increasingly critical problem.
To retrieve this file: GET RIDLEY PRV1N2
A CD-ROM LAN Utilizing the CBIS CD Connection System
Steve Smith (pp. 50-61)
Smith describes the experiences of staff at the
the Rasmuson Library of the University of the
Alaska at Fairbanks with the CBIS CD Connection
CD-ROM network system.
To retrieve this file: GET SMITH PRV1N2
Z39.50: Where is It and Who Cares?
Mark Hinnebusch (pp. 62-66)
Z39.50 is an important OSI protocol that will
permit library systems to communicate with each
other for retrieval purposes. Hinnebusch
provides a brief status report on Z39.50
implementation activities in libraries.
To retrieve this file: GET HINNEBUS PRV1N2
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DEPARTMENTS
Public-Access Provocations: An Informal Column
"Help!"
Walt Crawford (pp. 67-70)
Crawford address the issue of what libraries should
do to help patrons with using public-access computer
systems.
To retrieve this file: GET CRAWFORD PRV1N2
Recursive Reviews
"Public-Access Computer Systems and the Internet"
Martin Halbert (pp. 71-80)
Halbert discusses eight articles and books that
will help you understand the Internet and its
implications for libraries.
To retrieve this file: GET HALBERT PRV1N2
EndNote at Dartmouth: A Double Review
Gregory A. Finnegan and Katharina E. Klemperer (pp. 81-90)
Finnegan and Klemperer evaluate the EndNote software
and describe its use at Dartmouth College, where it
provides freshmen and other users with a way to manage
bibliographic citations on their Macintosh computers.
To retrieve this file: GET FINNEGAN PRV1N2
Editorial
"Libraries with Glass Walls"
Charles W. Bailey, Jr. (pp. 91-93)
Bailey examines Internet access to library systems.
To retrieve this file: GET BAILEY PRV1N2
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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collection at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 91 +
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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2 (1990): 91-93.
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Editorial
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"Libraries with Glass Walls"
By Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
As an increasing number of academic libraries provide Internet
access to their online catalogs and other databases, the nature
of library services is changing.
Dial-access to library systems was primarily a convenience to
local faculty, staff, and students. Typically, no effort to
publicize dial-access service was made beyond the library's
primary clientele. If geographically remote users could obtain
dial-access instructions, they were generally welcome to access
the catalog, but long distance costs limited this type of use.
On the other hand, Internet links provide remote users with
significantly increased access to library systems. Costs are
determined by the user's institution. Some users are charged-
back for computer time, others are not. From the Internet user's
point of view, access barriers certainly exist; however, these
barriers mainly relate to having adequate instructions and
appropriate terminal emulation software. Various projects, such
as Dr. Art St. George's list of Internet library systems, are
addressing the documentation issue.
From the library perspective, troubling issues arise about
Internet access. What is the library's obligation to provide
technical support to remote users? How does Internet use impact
on the library's limited system resources, which are needed to
support the library's primary clientele? How does Internet
access affect system security? What effect does Internet access
have on license agreements for locally mounted databases?
Accustomed to the free flow of information on Internet, faculty
members and academic administrators are likely to have little
patience for foot dragging by librarians when it comes to network
access to library systems. Computer center directors may also
find resistance from librarians puzzling and unacceptable. On
the other hand, a proactive, positive response by librarians to
Internet access is likely to be warmly welcomed by the scholarly
community.
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Computer networks won't go away, and scholars will become
increasingly dependent upon their services. As computer network
interconnections and capabilities increase, the "global village"
may become a much more immediate day-to-day reality in libraries.
Government-funded networks for businesses and general citizens
may also develop over time, and these networks may be linked to
scholarly networks. Both of these potential developments could
greatly increase the size and heterogeneity of the network user
population.
The long-term issue is not whether library systems will be
available on computer networks like Internet. They are likely to
be linked to these networks. The real questions involve deeper
issues about the nature of library services in an era of computer
networking.
Libraries have developed an intricate web of interlibrary loan
agreements in the context of national and international copyright
law. Prior to the current era of increased electronic access to
information, scholars' inability to easily identify needed
materials has shielded the interlibrary loan system from the full
brunt of potential demand. Now, users can employ Internet to
search remote online catalogs as easily as they can search their
local catalogs, and, in the future, similar access may be
available on NREN and other networks. The interlibrary loan
system has been recently stressed by libraries' declining
purchasing power combined with the advent of public access to CD-
ROM databases, locally mounted databases, and bibliographic
utility databases (e.g., EPIC). How will it react to the
increased demands created by network access?
It is possible to imagine a future interlibrary loan environment
where increased loan restrictions will significantly limit the
flow of information. It is also possible to imagine an
environment where end-users will electronically place their own
interlibrary loan requests at libraries world-wide, indifferent
to the source of the needed item. In between these two poles is
the large grey area where the probable future of remote access to
library collections lies.
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Fantasies of "virtual libraries," where users transparently
access needed information regardless of location, depend on no-
cost, unrestricted access to electronic information. In the real
world, ownership and access are interwoven, library materials are
usually in print form, and libraries are not usually high funding
priorities for their parent institutions. If electronic
information is obtained from commercial sources, libraries may
need to restrict remote access to it. Ironically, print
information in remote libraries may be more accessible than
electronic information.
Jane D. Segal, User Education Coordinator of Rice University's
Fondren Library, coined the phrase "libraries with glass walls"
to describe the phenomenon where users can rapidly retrieve
information about needed materials in remote libraries, but they
cannot access these materials easily or quickly. For a variety
of reasons, the interlibrary loan system cannot provide access to
all of the materials identified by a remote library's online
catalog and, since it is bound by physical processing and
delivery constraints, the interlibrary loan system is much slower
than electronic access to the online catalog. Until we grapple
with the difficult issues associated with remote access to
library systems via Internet and other computer networks, there
are going to be an increasing number of hand and nose prints on
the glass.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. All
rights reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collection at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2 (1990):
67-70.
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Public-Access Provocations: An Informal Column
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"Help!"
By Walt Crawford
Your patron access systems probably have help screens available
at the touch of a key. There are dozens--maybe even hundreds--of
carefully-worded context-sensitive messages to help the
frustrated patron. Some systems even incorporate the patron's
problematic command into the help text.
How often do those help screens get used? If you're typical, not
very often. From what I've heard informally, systems with
logging facilities show that help functions are so rarely used
that, if they were indexes, they would be prime candidates for
removal from the system. Not only in patron access systems, but
in most interactive software, even the most superbly-crafted help
facilities go unused--even while they could solve most problems
that users face.
Help in Other Contexts
The problem seems to be general, although I've never seen a good
explanation as to why this is so. Think about your own
experiences--say, with microcomputer software. Quite a few
contemporary programs have superb online help, in some cases even
first-rate tutorials that can be reached from within the program.
I'm writing this using Microsoft Word, which has both. Quattro
Pro has context-sensitive help that is not only well-written but
includes a coherent hypertext system to expand on selected
topics. Even inexpensive programs such as PC-File and PC Tools
Deluxe have excellent context-sensitive help facilities, and in
each case the way to get help is clearly labeled.
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But I'm no different than the rest of you; I fail to go for help
when I'm a little unclear on a concept. That was brought home
when I was giving a workshop on PC Tools Deluxe, and one of the
people asked about the four choices for type of backup in PC-
Backup: while we all understood "Full" and "Archive"
(incremental), what were "Full continual" and "Continual"? I
mumbled for a minute and was about to open the manual, when
another person said "Why not ask for help?" A press of F1, and I
had a concise answer to that precise question.
People tend not to ask for help when it would be most convenient,
but wait until they are in serious trouble. That's true for more
than computers, to be sure--how many people get seriously lost
when driving in strange territory before they'll stop and ask for
directions? But at least in those cases, they have the feeble
excuse that they don't want to look ignorant. Why are we so
afraid to "look ignorant" to a computer? It's certainly stupider
than we are, and that help was put there for a reason. (Are we
really afraid to admit ignorance, even to ourselves? Perhaps.
Do you know how all the functions on your VCR work--and, if the
manufacturer had tucked a $10 bill somewhere in the manual, would
you have it in your wallet by now?)
If Not Help, Then What?
What provisions can you make to ease people over the rough spots
in direct-access systems? While first-rate online help will not
get used nearly as often as it should be, that's no reason to
ignore it, any more than a library should ignore the needs of ten
percent of its users. And maybe someday we'll lose enough of our
pride so that we start using help more readily. It's possible
that labeled HELP keys get used more than unlabeled F1 or help
achieved through a command, but I'd be surprised if they solved
the problem entirely.
Some patron-access systems make a point of offering help when
something goes wrong, or if the same incorrect or ineffective
action occurs two or three times in a row. In the latter case, a
system might even pop up a help screen unasked. These options
can be useful--although some study of patron reactions might be
worthwhile.
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What else can you do? While good bibliographic instruction
classes in college can be enormously valuable for other reasons,
very few college or university libraries can possibly train all
their students and faculty in using direct access systems--and,
of course, universal formal training is impossible in public
libraries.
Manuals? Forget it. Yes, you should have them--for staff use,
so that the staff understands the system properly. You might
even have a copy available for the incredibly small fraction of
users who would have any interest in reading them. Most people
who spend good money for software won't take the time to read the
manuals; why should library users spend time with manuals?
The real resource for patron access problems should be the
librarians, but that's problematic as well. Some libraries do
make a point of having librarians cruising the terminal areas for
the first few weeks after a new system is introduced, looking for
people who may need assistance.
That's a nice touch; where I've seen it done, it has been good
public relations and quite useful in improving initial
acceptance. But how many libraries can afford to have
professionals wandering around the terminals and PCs
permanently--and how will that help the fraction of troubled
users who really don't want to admit that they have problems? In
any case, librarians on the alert for patrons who need help can't
do much for patrons dialing up from home or with the increasing
use of terminal clusters throughout the stacks and in locations
all around campus.
Cheat Sheets
Once again, I don't have any pat answers. The closest I can come
is the cheat sheet or reference card: a card or single (possibly
folded) sheet that offers a tight summary of commands, with just
enough explanation to get people going. The cheat sheet should
also emphasize that online help is always available and show how
to get it. These inexpensively-produced items should be readily
available, in stacks so that people feel free to take them away.
(If they cost more than a nickel each to produce, you may not be
doing them correctly.)
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Cheat sheets don't solve all the problems, by any means. Flip
charts at terminal stations can be useful, although they can also
get in the way and take up usually-inadequate working space. A
combination of help screens, cheat sheets, and moderately alert
librarians is probably the best solution you can provide,
although it will always be incomplete.
About the Author
Walt Crawford
The Research Libraries Group, Inc.
1200 Villa Street
Mountain View, CA 94041-1100
BR.WCC@RLG
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Walt Crawford. All rights
reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. This message must appear on copied material. All
commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 81 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Finnegan, Gregory A., and Katharina E. Klemperer. "EndNote at
Dartmouth: A Double Review." The Public-Access Computer Systems
Review 1, no. 2 (1990): 81-90.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I. Why EndNote? (Gregory A. Finnegan)
EndNote is a Macintosh program designed to insert citations into
a word-processing document, format these citations correctly
according to whatever standard (or user-customized) stylesheet is
selected, and build a bibliography for the document from the
cited references according to the stylesheet selected. EndNote
was selected for the freshman software package at Dartmouth
because it was easy to use, compatible with our OPAC, and
inexpensive. For all of these reasons, it is suitable as a low-
end "DFM" ("Download-File-Manage") program for Dartmouth
undergraduate students. For a campus that attempts to innovate
in delivering computing services and electronic information to
students, faculty, and administrators, EndNote allows us to
respond to Timothy Weiskel's challenge to libraries to do what
none has done: to make their most important intellectual
resource--their catalogs--available as a DFM resource. [1]
At Dartmouth, the first five freshman classes in the Macintosh
era all had 85% of their members purchase Macintosh computers.
At the beginning of the school year, over 70% of this year's
freshmen had purchased Macintoshes. Adoption of the Macintosh
and its software continues a 25-year emphasis at Dartmouth on
computing as a means to an end--greater and easier student
productivity--rather than as an end in itself. Computing power
must be accessible to all Dartmouth students; the ease of use and
the short learning curve of the Macintosh are major factors in
its being adopted here. There are some 6,000 Macs on the campus
network, which also provides access to the library's OPAC. [2,3]
EndNote was adopted as a campus standard application both because
it is useful and because it is easy to use. Indeed, EndNote is
easy to use, but, unless it is used under MultiFinder, it
involves a certain amount of 'ping-pong' back and forth between
EndNote and the word processing package. Both a full and a desk
accessory version of End-Note are needed to make use of the
package.
+ Page 82 +
What EndNote Does
Using either EndNote or the desk accessory software, the user
creates a "library" of citations. Then, while in the word
processor (WORD 4.0, MacWrite, WriteNow, and WordPerfect are all
supported), a "library" is opened via the desk-accessory version
of EndNote and references are selected by copying and pasting.
Pasting at the desired point in the paper inserts a citation
marker. Exiting the word processor and entering the full version
of EndNote allows the user to open the "library," select the word
processing document that uses the citations, choose a stylesheet,
and format the document accordingly. Re-entering the word
processing program, the user can view and edit the document,
which now includes correctly formatted references. This sequence
is necessary because EndNote always works from the viewpoint of
the citations. The word processing document that contains
citation markers is incomplete until a style sheet is chosen and
the paper is formatted accordingly. EndNote allows easy re-
formatting of the same document according to different
stylesheets. It never overwrites a document. Instead, it always
creates a new version, which can be named whatever one wants (the
default name is the existing filename suffixed with the style
chosen).
Because building a bibliography from the cited references doesn't
happen until the formatting step, only one "library" of
references can be used. Otherwise, the desired record won't be
there or, equally important, it won't have the internal number
used by EndNote to link citations to records. In practice, this
isn't a major problem. Records from one "library" are easily and
quickly imported and exported to and from other "libraries." One
can keep libraries on given topics but combine them when writing
a paper that contains citations for several topics.
What EndNote Won't Do
When we adopted EndNote at Dartmouth, we discovered that many
library users, including (or especially!) librarians, have a
lifetime of bibliographic fantasies that await easy computer
fulfillment. And not all the desired capabilities are best
handled (or handled at all) by EndNote. EndNote was the first
really accessible DFM package most people had encountered. (A
pocket of Pro-Cite users exists around and about our bio-medical
library, but the complexity and cost of that program had deterred
many potential users.) The flood of "will it do . . ." questions
we heard made us realize that DFM software is needed, but it is
so new to so many that users can have unrealistic expectations.
+ Page 83 +
EndNote is a citation manager, not a personal online catalog.
Its focus is on inserting citations into written documents.
Bibliographies exist as adjuncts to papers; to get one by itself
requires work-arounds. The easiest work-around is to select all
records in a "library" and use the "Copy Formatted. . ." command
to place the whole bibliography onto the Clipboard, from there it
can be pasted into a word processing document.
EndNote finds records extremely quickly, even in large
"libraries," but isn't meant to be a catalog. (Comparative tests
of three DFM programs on a 2964-citation, 803 KB database showed
EndNote capable of finding records in less than 2 seconds, versus
160 seconds for Pro-Cite. [4]) Bibliographies can be sorted by
author, title and year. There is an add-on, extra-cost module
called EndLink that formats downloaded searches from the major
bibliographic databases (e.g., DIALOG, BRS, and MEDLINE) into
EndNote, but there is as yet no support for downloading MARC
records.
The limitations of EndNote, such as only supporting 15 "reference
types," are really only limitations from the point of view of a
"scholar's workstation." Few, if any, undergraduates will need
to work with more than 15 types of references in one project. As
librarians, we'd be happy if they could recognize fifteen types!
Similarly, the fact that the companion EndLink module is an
extra-cost add-on (even though it merges seamlessly into EndNote)
and the fact that it is projected by Niles to remain an add-on in
future EndNote releases is not an issue for undergraduates. They
aren't end-users of bibliographic utilities, and any databases
that Dartmouth mounts locally as part of its OPAC will have the
catalog's "Display EndNote" feature, which is described later.
Because EndNote files can be exported to Pro-Cite (and vice-
versa), the transition from the low-end EndNote program to the
more powerful Pro-Cite program is easy one, when this transition
is appropriate. We see the two major Mac citation management
programs as complementing each other: Pro-Cite for "power users"
who have a need for its capabilities and the time to invest in
mastering it and EndNote for users who need an entry-level
program. Unfortunately, both Niles and PBS see each other as
direct competitors, and Niles talks of adding features that will
possibly create an upward spiral of new features and increased
program complexity.
+ Page 84 +
Why EndNote is a Good Thing
EndNote is properly praised as being an exemplary Macintosh
application; anyone familiar with a standard Mac application can
easily and quickly pick up EndNote. [5,6] As a bonus, the
documentation is unusually well-written and easy to use. (This
is in contrast to Pro-Cite.) As an application, EndNote will
free students from keying citations more than once or, when OPAC
searches are downloaded, at all. It will also allow them to re-
format references painlessly for all the standard style sheets.
Who Uses Endnote?
Why is undergraduate use of EndNote still limited at Dartmouth?
There are several factors of varying importance that explain
this. We're just beginning the third term of the first year of
EndNote use. The program was distributed to all freshmen, but it
wasn't automatically distributed to anyone else. EndNote is
available at a deep discount, but it has to be individually
purchased. All students must write papers, but upper-division
students are the ones who are most likely to write major research
papers. It's from graduating seniors that we get panicked style-
sheet and citation questions. Seniors haven't automatically
received, or even heard of, EndNote. EndNote instruction
sessions are given to any class whose professor requests them,
but they are targeted at freshman seminars. Most important,
faculty have learned of EndNote chiefly from the library's
newsletter and/or the computer center's newsletter, but students
don't receive the library newsletter and they must ask for a
subscription to the computer center newsletter. So, although the
program is widely available, the vast majority of EndNote users
(i.e., freshmen) are the least sophisticated group of potential
users in terms of writing skills, library use, and Macintosh use.
This last point is important. An easy journey is still a journey
with a beginning step. We tried to build in instruction about
EndNote, the OPAC, and the college's e-mail system into the
beginning-of-the-year "Mac survival workshops" for freshmen. The
sessions were not as well attended as sessions for setting up and
running the Mac and for using the WORD program. This was
partially a result of scheduling and publicity problems, but it
was mostly the result of student overload. We tried to give new
students too much instruction too fast.
+ Page 85 +
Also, the value of a DFM package like EndNote is most apparent to
a student who is aware of the range of bibliographic works to be
used and cited. When even an Ivy League faculty can validly
complain that freshmen literally can't read a citation and can't
differentiate an article title from a journal title, it's
unreasonable to expect such students to leap into using EndNote
or any other DFM package.
And even the easy and short Mac/EndNote learning curve is a
learning curve that has costs and benefits. A faculty member who
promoted EndNote in a freshman seminar reported that students
didn't use the program because the effort to create "libraries"
(citation files) and to key in entries was greater than the
payoff, especially when most students felt that they would never
write another paper on that subject and would be making one-time
use of the citations. This response contrasted with the
students' reaction to the same assignment requesting that papers
be "handed in" by e-mail; they all did it. Someone writing a
senior thesis or even a major paper with lots of sources would
feel differently about the costs and benefits of EndNote. We
started at the bottom with freshman, but we hope to see greater
use over time. Science graduate students are beginning to use
End Note. Graduate students have more sophistication about
sources, use more citations in their papers, and save citation
files for future use.
EndNote can only process what it's given, which means that manual
inspection and some cleaning-up are necessary when records are
downloaded. (See the example in Part II.) Our BRS/Search OPAC
has a database that was built from OCLC and RLIN tapes, with
records that were created at Dartmouth, and from OCLC
retrospective conversion tapes. This has resulted in some
punctuation inconsistencies in the records. For example, an
occasional citation will double the colon between place and
publisher. Resolving this problem is a trivial concern for a
large project, and it is certainly less work than manually
creating citations and bibliographies. But, for a 5 or 10
citation freshman paper, it adds a relatively large step to the
process of creating a bibliography.
+ Page 86 +
To sum up, Dartmouth has found EndNote to be fully capable of
doing what we want: helping to shift student energy from the
mechanics of citation and bibliography construction to the
substance of writing research papers. The limitations we've
encountered are not grounded in EndNote itself. Instead, they
are a reflection of the problem of introducing yet another piece
of software (and one of a new sort) into a complex and time-
strapped academic community. (Dartmouth has 4 ten-week terms per
year and the pace is not relaxed!) The word processor bundled
with EndNote for freshmen is WORD 4.0, which has a much more
limited footnote and bibliographic capacity than EndNote.
EndNote is better than WORD and it is better, at least at the
undergraduate level, than other DFM applications. But it isn't
effortless and it does have to be promoted and supported by
library and computer center staff.
II. How EndNote? (Katharina E. Klemperer)
One of the more useful features of EndNote is its ability to
import formatted references from other databases.
By storing output from search sessions on disk as text files and
using an ancillary program called EndLink, users can import
citations from a number of commercial online databases. EndLink
is simply a separate file that is kept in the same folder as your
EndNote program. When you try to import a file by choosing the
"EndLink" format, the EndLink program automatically parses the
text file that you saved and converts it into EndNote citations
in your EndNote reference library.
Just as simple to use, and cheaper, is EndNote's built-in import
feature, which recognizes text files that have been formatted
using one of two conventional formats: Unix Refer (or BibIX)
format, and Pro-Cite format. What this means is that you can
import into EndNote any citation collections that have been
created using the UNIX reference database "Refer" (or BibIX) or
the Macintosh version of Pro-Cite.
This also means that you can import references from any database
program that is capable of producing Refer or Pro-Cite formatted
files. If you have control over the displays produced by your
online catalog or your locally-mounted bibliographic databases,
then you can create files that are easily imported into EndNote.
+ Page 87 +
At the Dartmouth College Library, it was possible to do this,
because we have written our own user interface our online catalog
and, therefore, we can program displays to our own
specifications. The Dartmouth Online Catalog includes the usual
files of monographic, serial, and on-order records as well as
DARTMED, a subset of the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE
database. Citations from all these files are candidates for
import into EndNote.
Dartmouth elected to use the Refer citation format rather than
the Pro-Cite format because it was easier to generate Refer
citations and they were more legible on the screen. In a Refer-
formatted citation, each field is prefaced with a two-character
label, which identifies the kind of data that follows. These
codes all begin with a percent sign (%). For example, the author
code is %A, the title code is %T, and the journal-name code is
%J. The codes are all listed in the Endnote Manual.
A "normal" medium-length display from the Dartmouth Online
Catalog looks like this:
Author: Magasi, L. P.
Title: Acid rain national early warning system : manual on plot
establishment and monitoring / L.P. Magasi.
Imprint: Ottawa : Canadian Forestry Service, Government of
Canada, 1988.
Series: Information report (Canadian Forestry Service), DPC-X-25.
Location: Bus-Engr TD/196/A25/M18/1988.
If the online catalog user types DISPLAY ENDNOTE, the following
display will appear:
%A Magasi, L. P.
%T Acid rain national early warning system : manual on plot
establishment and monitoring /
%C Ottawa :
%D 1988
%I Canadian Forestry Service, Government of Canada,
%S Information report (Canadian Forestry Service), DPC-X-25.
Now, if the user is using a Macintosh terminal emulation program,
he or she can use the mouse to "select" the EndNote-formatted
display on the screen and save it to disk. The user then opens
an EndNote Reference Library and chooses to import the file in
Refer format. EndNote translates the Refer format into its own
internal format and adds the reference (or references, if the
user has saved a number of them) to the current EndNote Reference
Library.
+ Page 88 +
The user may now format the citation into whatever footnote or
endnote style is desired. The above citation, formatted in
"Nature" style, will look like this:
1. Magasi, L.P. Acid rain national early warning system : manual
on plot establishment and monitoring / (Canadian Forestry
Service, Government of Canada,, Ottawa :, 1988).
Electronic distribution of The Public-Access Computer Systems
Review doesn't show off all the typefaces that are available on
the Macintosh (in this case, the title should be italicized), but
the layout is evident. Also evident are some of the problems of
downloading from an online catalog into a reference manager.
Nearly all of these problems involve ISBD punctuation. What was
designed to improve the beauty of a catalog card doesn't enhance
a footnote. Some of these quirks can be corrected by adjusting
the EndNote style specifications. For example, the double comma
following the publisher is caused by a comma embedded in the
data, which is followed by a comma inserted by EndNote. If we
tell EndNote not to add a comma following the publisher, then
this problem is solved. Removing data that came originally from
the online catalog record, such as the slash following the title
or the colon following the place of publication, can only be
accomplished by actually editing the EndNote citation.
The ability to download from the online catalog into EndNote has
been received warmly, if not with wild enthusiasm, on the
Dartmouth campus. The feature has been used most frequently by
bibliographers preparing lists of recent publications and by
medical researchers preparing subject bibliographies. With a
little more exposure we feel that faculty and even students will
begin to use this feature regularly.
Notes
1. Timothy Weiskel, "The Electronic Library and the Challenge of
Information Planning," Academe 75, no. 4 (1989): 8-12.
2. Gregory A. Finnegan, "Wiring Information to a Campus: A Port
to Every Pillow," Online 14, no. 2 (1990): 37-40.
3. Katharina Klemperer, "New Dimensions for the Online Catalog:
The Dartmouth College Library Experience," Information
Technology and Libraries 8, no. 2 (1989): 138-145.
+ Page 89 +
4. Glenn D. Rosen, "What a Beautiful Cite: Reference Manager,
Pro-Cite, EndNote Rated," The Active Window: BCS Mac Magazine
5, no. 12 (1988): 22, 24-26.
5. Ibid.
6. Franklin Tessler, "EndNote 1.0," Macworld 6, no. 2 (1989):
261.
About the Authors:
Gregory A. Finnegan
Humanities and Social Sciences Reference-Bibliographer
and Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology
104 Baker Library
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
greg.finnegan@dartmouth.edu
603-646-2868
Katharina E. Klemperer
Director of Library Automation
Dartmouth College Library
Hanover, NH 03755
kathy.klemperer@dartmouth.edu
603-646-2574
+ Page 90 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Gregory A. Finnegan and
Katharina E. Klemperer. All rights reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collections at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 71 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2 (1990):
71-80.
----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
Recursive Reviews
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Public-Access Computer Systems and the Internet"
by Martin Halbert
Recursive Reviews is a new column that will identify and briefly
describe articles that deal with public-access computer systems
(PACS) and related topics in both library and computer science
literature. The "recursive" in the name of the column emphasizes
the idea that the discussion of information technology in
libraries changes the underlying precepts of the discussion. The
dialogue concerning uses of library technology redefines itself
in this way, and can therefore be seen as recursive. Enough
introduction, let's go on to the reviews.
All followers of the PACS-L forum are aware by now that a great
many library catalog systems are accessible via the Internet.
The availability of these resources raises a great many questions
and possibilities in the library and network user communities.
What can be accomplished with this new communications channel?
Exactly what is the Internet? What is its extent, and how does
it differ from other computer networks? The articles and books
reviewed in this column will be of use to anyone having questions
about library systems and the Internet, from those unfamiliar
with networking technology to those very conversant with it.
+ Page 72 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Engle, Mary. "Library Systems on the Internet." DLA Bulletin 9,
no. 2 (Fall 1989): 1, 3-4. (ISSN 0272-037X)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Engle's article "Library Systems on the Internet" is a good
basic introduction to the recent phenomena of PACS on the
Internet. She concisely places the phenomena in the context of
advances in library information technology, and she mentions some
of the more notable Internet resource experiments that university
libraries are undertaking. Basically, libraries have discovered
that they can make their catalogs available over the existing
Internet computer network, and some libraries are now making many
other types of databases and services available. For example,
Engle describes how patrons on the MELVYL system can now directly
access the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL)
collection of library systems. Plans are for the MELVYL catalog
to provide access to the RLIN and OCLC bibliographic utilities.
Other libraries are mounting periodical indexes. Engle briefly
mentions the main problems associated with Internet access to a
library's catalog or other resources: incompatibilities between
systems accessed via the network, variations in systems' user
interfaces and data structures, and increased demands by patrons
resulting from the new services.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Larsen, Ronald L. "The Colibratory: The Network as Testbed for a
Distributed Electronic Library." Academic Computing 4, no. 5
(February 1990): 22-23, 35-37. (ISSN 0892-4694)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ronald Larsen speculates in his article "The Colibratory: The
Network as Testbed for a Distributed Electronic Library" on the
possibilities of experimenting with new library related services
on the Internet. He first recounts the history of the national
research network from its beginning as the Defense Department's
ARPANET in 1969 to the legislation now in progress for the
creation of a National Research and Education Network (NREN) for
the 1990s. Larsen then outlines EDUCOM president Kenneth King's
vision of a world scholarly community that uses the network to
communicate electronically and to access collaborative databases
via a standardized, intuitive electronic interface. This
standard interface would most likely use a network query protocol
(a specified format for relaying information) such as NISO Z39.50
to access the many library online public access catalogs and
other databases that would be made available (for a criticism of
Z39.50 in this role, see Schoffstall's article below, which
maintains that Z39.50 requires significant overhaul before it
will be useable).
+ Page 73+
Library OPACS are just one of the collaborative information
utilities that Larsen envisions as being central to scholarly
work of the nineties. Federally produced full-text serials such
as the Congressional Record, statistical data like the national
census, and other depository information are logical resources
for the NREN, since they are public information already. This
kind of information can be provided free or for minimal fees, but
what about commercially produced databases?
Larsen maintains that the real benefit of the research network
vision is in making resources available at little or no direct
cost to the user, as books are made available in libraries. This
requirement is what has made the realization of an electronic
network library so difficult in Larsen's view, and restricted
actual experiments to "a small number of pilot projects."
Another significant barrier to users wishing to use the network
as a means of accessing information resources is the esoteric
nature of today's Internet. Fundamental facts about the network,
such as its organization or available information services, are
unavailable or hard to find (see the reviews of Comer and
Quarterman for the best two tools in this area). Knowledge about
how to use the Internet has always been an arcane lore, and
network access must become more friendly and understandable
before it can be used as a major channel of communication.
Despite these barriers to use, Larsen maintains that the
information community must not hesitate to experiment with the
Internet as an enabling technological infrastructure. He
summarizes: "The concept of a colibratory treats the Internet as
a prime environment for collaborative experimentation on high
performance distributed information services involving network
developers, information resource providers, and network-based
consumers."
+ Page 74 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Kibbey, Mark, and Nancy H. Evans. "The Network is the Library."
EDUCOM Review 24, no.3 (Fall 1989): 15-20. (ISSN 1045-9146)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Kibbey and Nancy Evans have a vision of the future very
similar to Larsen's, but focus more on the details of
implementation in "The Network is the Library." The frustrations
of incompatible systems have undoubtedly been encountered by
everyone reading this column. Without standard information
formats, retrieval methods, and hardware platforms there can be
no economies of scale or common user proficiency in using
information systems. Incompatibility of software and hardware is
one of the major problems that plague all people who use computer
systems, from basic tasks like word processing to the most
complex programming. Many libraries are now struggling with the
problems of idiosyncratic CD-ROM databases which all have
different technical requirements and search interfaces. Kibbey
and Evans identify the standards issues that will need to be
addressed to avoid similar incompatibility problems when
developing information resources on the Internet, echoing many of
Larsen's points like the importance of the Z39.50 protocol.
They also discuss the importance of document format standards for
bibliographic control and indexing. This is an essential point
for the future. We must begin to settle on document formats
today for the full text databases that will be built in the
future. Formats like the Standardized General Markup Language
(SGML) which specify bibliographic information such as author and
title should be favored over pure display formats like
Postscript, which simply contain page layout formatting. This
distinction is important because without labeling bibliographic
elements within the text the retrospective process of
reformatting an electronic document for a database becomes much
more difficult.
Kibbey and Evans go on to describe Project Mercury, a prototype
system that demonstrates all the strengths of the electronic
library based on networking standards. Mercury is a full-text
indexed electronic library of journal articles, reports, and
other current technical literature on artificial intelligence.
The project was jointly formed by Carnegie-Mellon University and
OCLC to study the possibilities of the new technology. The
document format that they used was a proprietary format developed
by DEC (also involved in the project) based on the principles
emerging from the still-incomplete Office Document Architecture
(ODA). ODA is an attempt at achieving the best of both worlds,
including both bibliographic element specification like SGML and
page layout like Postscript.
+ Page 75 +
Kibbey and Evans conclude, like Larsen, by saying that parties
with a "stake in the next generation of academic information
services," most particularly librarians, need to aggressively
experiment with the new technology and expand their concept of
publishing beyond the traditional print view.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lynch, Clifford A. "Linking Library Automation Systems in the
Internet: Functional Requirements, Planning, and Policy Issues."
Library Hi Tech 7, no.4 (1989): 7-18. (ISSN 0737-8831)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Clifford Lynch's article could serve as any library
administrator's guide to implementation issues when considering
involvement with PACS on the Internet. In "Linking Library
Automation Systems in the Internet: Functional Requirements,
Planning, and Policy Issues" he thoroughly analyzes the practical
policy decisions and problems that come up when library systems
are accessed over typical network setups. Basic elements such as
the operating system one is using on the library system and the
types of terminals that one decides to support have significant
impacts on how well a system can be used on the network.
Probably the central realization that Lynch offers is that one
should study the nitty gritty functional details before getting
involved in the network, not after. Ask yourself questions like:
Is my system capacity really sufficient to support an indefinite
number of users coming in over the network? If I want the system
resources prioritized, is my system capable of this? How good is
the terminal support on my system? Can it handle a reasonable
subset of the constellation of different terminal types out
there? Are my security and authentication measures up to keeping
out network intrusions? Until one has good answers to all of
Lynch's questions, one should stay away from the Internet.
Lynch concludes with a cogent question about integrated library
system vendors. Will these vendors develop complex Internet
application features when a relatively small part of their client
base is heavily involved with the network? If the vendors do not
pursue this technology, will research libraries who wish to move
ahead into the networked arena be forced once again into the
expensive route of in-house application development?
Have you reached the stage where you are tired of being confused
by all the unfamiliar jargon and cryptic acronyms that come up
when discussing the Internet? Are you interested in finding out
the exact extent of this amorphous creeping electronic vine?
Then read on, the next two books are for you.
+ Page 76 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Comer, Douglas. Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles,
Protocols, and Architecture. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
1988. (ISBN 0-13-470154-2)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas Comer's book "Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles,
Protocols, and Architecture" is the basic text for anyone seeking
to understand the Internet. TCP/IP stands for "Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol." TCP/IP is the fundamental
protocol set on which the Internet is built. DARPA converted its
ARPANET to this set of protocols between 1980 and 1983, and, in a
far-sighted move, funded the implementation of TCP/IP in the UNIX
environment, the premiere university computer science operating
system. In coordination with the National Science Foundation's
new NSFNET and other major government agency networks, the modern
day TCP/IP Internet, or just Internet, came into being.
The evolution of the Internet in the last decade has paralleled
the general explosion in computer technologies. It was no small
feat. In one essentially seamless network, the vast archipelagos
of government and research computers are linked, from the largest
supercomputers to microcomputers that can sit on our desks. The
three core services that make Internet so useful are electronic
mail, remote login, and file transfer. Followers of the PACS-L
electronic forum are no doubt aware of the advantages of the
first two, and may have used FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
facilities to retrieve files from the data archives of Internet
sites.
The Internet is not yet a commercial product, although some
portion of its services will probably become commercial at some
future date. Until that time, the Internet will remain an arena
for research projects of all kinds (for future technical
developments of the Internet, see Mills, et al. below), and it
should be investigated by librarians. Comer's book can walk you
through all the specifics of the network.
+ Page 77 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and
Conferencing Systems Worldwide. Bedford, MA: Digital Press, 1990.
(ISBN 1-55558-033-5)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Once you understand the principles behind the Internet, you may
want to study the physical layout of the system, and for that you
need John Quarterman's book "The Matrix: Computer Networks and
Conferencing Systems Worldwide." Quarterman shows how the many
world networks interconnect, where their main sites are, and the
overall geographic layout of the systems. If I have been overly
biased toward the Internet in this column, I apologize. There are
many other networks that exist in various degrees of
interconnection with Internet, notably BITNET (Because It's Time
Network, an academic network similar to Internet, but with lower
transmission speeds and no remote login facilities) and UUCP (the
name comes from the network's main protocol, Unix to Unix Copy
Program, which allows almost anyone with a Unix system and a
phone to join the network). There are literally hundreds of
networks connecting computer sites worldwide, and if you want to
get an overview of them, you have to study Quarterman's book at
length (or be a networking guru yourself).
The title Quarterman chose for his book is interesting, and seems
to be a case of non-fiction following fiction. Popular science
fiction books such as William Gibson's "Neuromancer" were calling
the world network system "The Matrix" in the early eighties. It
is also interesting to note that Autodesk has chosen to try to
implement the interface to the Matrix that Gibson described using
the same name, "Cyberspace". How far behind science fiction is
today's technology anyway?
+ Page 78 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mills, David L., Paul Schragger, and Michael Davis. "Internet
Architecture Workshop: Future of the Internet System
Architecture and TCP/IP Protocols." Computer Communication
Review 20, no.1 (January 1990): 6-17. (ISSN 0146-4833)
----------------------------------------------------------------
We may not have caught up with science fiction, but the Internet
is certainly progressing technologically, as described in
"Internet Architecture Workshop: Future of the Internet System
Architecture and TCP/IP Protocols." There are many exciting new
developments coming to the Internet within the time frame of
NREN, such as gigabit speeds and millions of additional users.
The report of the workshop shows that the people who maintain and
develop the Internet are very concerned about the problems
involved in keeping the network in good working order as it
changes and expands dramatically. David Mills, Chair of the
Internet Architecture Task Force, posed a serious question in his
session on "Navigation Aids for the Future Internet," saying "We
occasionally see cases of Internet routing bobbles, meltdowns and
black holes, even with only 700 nets and uncoordinated back door
paths which invite sinister routing loops. Are the Internet
addressing and routing algorithms adequate for very large
networks with millions of subscribers?" (p. 6)
Some workshop participants questioned the need for a gigabit
network (meaning a speed increase of roughly 100 times for the
Internet), but were reminded that many scientists needed the high
speeds for data transfer. For example, during future space
missions researchers hope to engage in global collaboration on
the returned data, which will consist of multiple megabyte-size
files. At the same time, researchers are concerned that the
development of the technical infrastructure of the network not
drain critical funding for basic science.
Sound like a familiar library dilemma of trading off automation
budgets against other library budget items? There are actually
many issues of common interest between Internet workers and
librarians. We are both faced with the same dilemma of being
pushed toward charging for some services in the future where we
did not charge for any in the past. The networking people don't
have any magic answers either, but it's instructive to see the
same dilemma from another perspective.
+ Page 79 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Schoffstall, Martin L., and Wengyik Yeong. "A Critique of Z39.50
Based on Implementation Experience." Computer Communication
Review 20, no.2 (April 1990): 22-29. (ISSN 0146-4833)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, Martin Schoffstall and Wengyik Yeong give us the benefit
of their practical experience in working with the Z39.50 standard
in their testbed project on NYSERNet in conjunction with OCLC.
The purpose of the Z39.50 Information Retrieval Protocol is
standardization of bibliographic queries across networks. Unless
a standard of this kind can be agreed upon, we will be facing a
chaos of different access methods. Schoffstall and Yeong
identify many shortcomings in the current Z39.50, but their
points are called into question by their own comments. They
complain that the drafters of Z39.50 did not understand the
importance of maintaining full compatibility with pre-existing
protocols such as the Remote Operations Service (ROS) standard.
On the next page they admit that they don't understand the
distinctions of the MARC format and actually propose discarding
it in favor of a yet-to-be-developed "systematic cataloging
method free of redundant specification" (p. 24). Hopefully, the
catalogers out there will give these authors the benefit of the
developmental history of MARC. They helpfully include their
network IDs in their paper: schoff@psi.com and
yeongw@nisc.nyser.net
The articles reviewed here are a small subset of the literature
on the Internet, but hopefully they will benefit you in studying
the issues involved in implementing library services over the
network.
+ Page 80 +
About the Author
Martin Halbert is Automation and Reference Librarian at the
Fondren Library of Rice University. He has worked as a corporate
librarian and consultant for the IBM corporation. His phone
number is (713) 527-8101, extension 2577 and his e-mail address
is HALBERT@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Martin Halbert. All rights
reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collections at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 62 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Hinnebusch, Mark. "Z39.50: Where is It and Who Cares?" The
Public Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2 (1990): 62-66.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol
Specifications for Library Applications, published by the
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 1988,
defines a mechanism to be used by a computer system to search for
and retrieve information from another computer system, not
necessarily made by the same vendor. While the standard is
geared to the manipulation of bibliographic data, it is general
enough to support a large range of information types. The
standard was written to be an application level protocol of the
ISO Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI) and as such appeared
to be inextricably intertwined with the evolution of the entire
OSI suite of protocols. Recently, there has been interest in
building OSI applications on top of the well-established
Department of Defense TCP/IP protocols running in the Internet.
In addition, at least two major vendors (DEC and IBM) have
released full OSI protocol stack support. These two trends have
combined to make Z39.50 implementation feasible in the immediate
future.
Z39.50 Implementation Meeting
On March 12, 1990, representatives of fourteen institutions that
were either implementing or on the verge of implementing Z39.50
met at the Library of Congress to discuss the various questions
that needed to be resolved to ensure that their implementations
would "interoperate." Interoperability is an OSI term that is
stronger than intercommunication or interconnectability.
Interoperability assures that both ends of the connection operate
in a well-defined manner that ensures that the purpose of the
connection, i.e., the transmission of a search request and the
results of the search, will be performed as expected.
Interconnection only ensures that they will talk at some lower
layer in the protocol suite, perhaps only at the lowest level,
the physical level.
+ Page 63 +
While one might think that by following the directions in the
Z39.50 standard interoperability would be ensured, this is not
the case. OSI standards are formed in a political environment,
and it is often impossible to gain consensus. In these
situations, the standard will usually offer options. Two systems
choosing different options may not be able to interoperate even
though both are correct and conform to the standard. This
situation exists at all layers of the OSI protocol suite.
Therefore, interoperability requires agreement on the choices of
options. These agreements are often known as Profiles or Stable
Implementation Agreements.
The situation with Z39.50 is further complicated by the existence
of the Internet, which uses the TCP/IP protocol. Use of the
Internet as the underlying protocol stack is attractive for two
reasons. The Internet is currently seen as a free service to the
end user. While the government is talking privatization, this
has not yet happened. The Internet and its underlying protocols
are mature. There are thousands of nodes running a large number
of products. OSI, on the other hand, is in its inf
ancy in the
U.S., although it has been used extensively in Europe.
The institutional representatives who met in Washington were
divided about the best protocol stack to use, with roughly half
being in favor or OSI and the other half being in favor of
TCP/IP. For these institutions, interoperability takes on the
additional aspect of working over disparate protocol stacks.
So, where is Z39.50? At the meeting, we agreed to what services
will be offered at the session and presentation layers. We also
agreed on the use of query types and elements. We did not agree
on what types of information should be returned as the result of
a query, but we did establish a subcommittee to work on this
issue. We also established a subcommittee to discuss and
hopefully resolve the question of whether or not an Abstract
Syntax Notation is necessary for MARC records that are to be
transmitted via Z39.50.
+ Page 64 +
Institutional Plans for Implementing Protocol Stacks
Table 1 shows the protocol stack implementation plans of the
institutions that attended the March meeting. In the long run,
many of the organizations plan to implement both protocol stacks.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 1. Protocol Stack Implementation Plans
INSTITUTION STACK
University of California at Berkeley TCP/IP
University of California TCP/IP
(Division of Library Automation)
Carnegie-Mellon University TCP/IP
Dartmouth College TCP/IP
Data Research Associates, Inc. TCP/IP
Florida Center for Library Automation OSI
Library of Congress OSI
National Library of Canada OSI
OCLC Online Computer Library Corporation, Inc. OSI
Pennsylvania State University TCP/IP
Research Libraries Group OSI
State University of New York (SUNY) TCP/IP
Thinking Machines Corporation TCP/IP
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State TCP/IP
University
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 65 +
Although several of the institutions are running a version of
Z39.50 in a prototype mode, all agreed to migrate to the planned
new version of the protocol, which will bring Z39.50 very close
to the OSI Search and Retrieval Protocol (DP 10162/10163). The
institutions that are running different stacks will test
interoperability amongst themselves, and then we will tackle the
much more difficult issue of crossing protocol stacks. The time
table for all of this is relatively short. Some of the
institutions plan to use Z39.50 in production systems by early
autumn of 1990. Others plan to use it within the next year.
Z39.50 Computer Conference
To facilitate the work of the group, a computer conference has
been established. If you are interested in implementing Z39.50,
you may subscribe to the list, Z3950IW@NERVM. Since this is an
older version of LISTSERV, the SUBSCRIBE command does not work.
If you are on BITNET, send the following command in an e-mail
message to LISTSERV@NERVM: ADD First_Name Last_Name. If you are
on Internet, you can subscribe by sending me a request at
FCLMTH@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU.
About the Author
Mark Hinnebusch
Florida Center for Library Automation
Suite 320
2002 NW 13th Street
Gainsville, FL 32609
+ Page 66 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Mark Hinnebusch. All
rights reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collections at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 15 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2 (1990): 15-
49.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Symposium on Staffing Issues and Public-Access Computer Systems
Edited by Mike Ridley and Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
The introduction and proliferation of public-access computer
systems has had a significant impact on staffing in libraries.
In an attempt to address staffing issues, The Public-Access
Computer Systems Review asked a panel prominent commentators to
respond to five questions. The comments of the symposium
participants form a detailed assessment of the current issues and
provide a diverse set of approaches and recommendations.
Clearly, the central message is that libraries cannot ignore the
problem of providing adequate staffing to support public-access
computer systems activities. The solution to this problem in
each library will reflect its mission, fiscal situation,
automation priorities and activities, organizational structure,
and managerial philosophy.
The symposium participants are:
Elizabeth H. Wood
Computer Services Librarian
Norris Medical Library
University of Southern California
ewood@phad.hsc.usc.edu
David W. Lewis
Head, Research and Information Services Department
Homer Babbidge Library
University of Connecticut
dlewis@uconnvm
Cynthia Rhine
Systems Librarian
Health Sciences Library
University of North Carolina
unccr1@unc
Howard Pasternack
Library Systems/Planning Officer
Brown University Library
blips15@brownvm
+ Page 16 +
Carolyn M. Gray
Associate Director
Brandeis University Libraries
gray@brandeis
QUESTION 1: Technical support for library automation
projects has traditionally been provided by library systems
offices, which may perform this work in conjunction with
institutional computer services. Systems offices usually
have responsibility for the library's integrated system (or
separate-function systems), and many systems offices are in
technical services divisions.
In recent years, stand-alone CD-ROM databases, networked CD-
ROM systems, locally-mounted databases, remote end-user
search systems (e.g., Knowledge Index), and other public-
access computer systems have become increasingly common, and
some reference departments have begun hiring computer
specialists to support these systems. In the future, what
should the respective technical support roles of systems
staff, institutional computer services staff, and public
services staff be in the planning, development,
implementation, and support of public-access computer
systems? Please consider that certain types of public-
access computer systems (e.g., expert and hypermedia
systems) usually require local software development.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Wood
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Library automation has blurred the lines between librarians and
computer experts (or "consultants"). Librarians have taken it
upon themselves to become sufficiently computer literate not only
to talk intelligently to consultants but also to help users with
new technologies. Increased knowledge on the part of librarians
becomes necessary because consultants whose offices are not in
the library are not accessible for immediate assistance to users.
An institutional Computer Services department may be available by
telephone or e-mail, but librarians at the reference desk are
called upon to help users who have tried to print 3,000
references and do not know how to cancel the print command,
whose workstation needs to be re-booted because it has "hung," or
who have put the CD-ROM in the floppy disk drive. Immediate
help with these relatively simple questions is needed. Problems
created for reference librarians by these questions include an
expectation of the librarians' expertise and time away from an
already busy reference desk.
+ Page 17 +
A solution is to have consultants hired by and housed in the
library to help with these and more advanced questions. As
library employees, these consultants are immediately available
and can be trained to understand the library's service
orientation and policies. These consultants can be supervised by
librarians; the librarians know what they want, understand users'
needs, and set library policies for the use of computers. A
mutual learning process takes place: librarians learn more about
computers and consultants learn more about libraries.
In our medium-size academic medical library (staff of 41,
including 16 librarians), the role of librarians is to be
completely familiar and comfortable with whatever computers are
provided for their use as part of their job. Every staff member
at our library has a workstation and access to software on the
LAN including electronic mail and library files such as serial
check-in, book orders, and locally-mounted databases. In
addition, Public Services librarians know how to use the CD-ROM
products and are experts in searching the databases; they teach
users to search. Learning Resources Center librarians are
sufficiently computer-literate to help users with basic questions
and problems, and they understand emerging technology
sufficiently to supervise the consultants and make
recommendations for the development of library computer
operations. All librarians are encouraged to increase their
familiarity with and understanding of microcomputers.
The role of the consultants in our library is to maintain all
library hardware (including the LAN), to provide support for
users, to help in the training and support of library staff, and
to teach classes to users. They maintain close relations with
the institutional University Computing Services (UCS). When
users want help with their own computers, they are referred to
UCS. Similarly, users trying to dial into library services from
their own workstations are helped by UCS; library consultants
take over once the connection is made.
In a very large library, full-time programmers may be needed for
the OPAC or locally-mounted databases; the programmers may report
to Technical Services or there may be a Systems division separate
from all others that oversees library operations. Our OPAC and
bibliographic databases are operated by a larger university-wide
unit that does have programmers and systems experts.
+ Page 18 +
In summary, in a library such as ours, I advocate both the on-
going training of librarians and the hiring by the library of
consultants or experts. Microcomputer consultants belong in the
library to complement and supplement the assistance given to
users by Public Services librarians. They also serve to help
librarians and staff with their own computer skills. No matter
which library division hires them, they will serve widely to keep
library systems and automation projects running and to assist
users.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Lewis
+-------------------------------------------------------------
As the manager of a public services department with a firm
commitment to public-access computing, I think we must begin with
the understanding that research and reference services are best
organized around a group of client-centered experts. Maximizing
the effectiveness of these librarians should be the primary
organizational goal. We should not let the need to apply
technology distort an otherwise appropriate organizational
structure.
Support from technically expert staff will be required, but
raising the level of computing expertise among all public service
librarians should be the prime concern. They are, and will
remain, the most important resource in building and servicing
electronic scholarly resources on our campuses.
To encourage innovation, public service librarians need to be
given equipment, software, and access to training. The materials
budgets should be opened to allow the purchase of electronic
resources. Entrepreneurial attitudes and activities should be
supported and rewarded. This is the only way to create the many
small incremental steps needed to integrate the use of electronic
resources throughout the university.
A structure designed to move small projects along and to service
existing systems will not be suited to large-scale project
development, such as OPAC or campus-wide information system
implementation. These large-scale projects have been, and will
continue to be, managed differently. Planning and development
should have input from public services staff, but these projects
will require teams from many parts of the library and the
computer center. I believe it would be a critical error to build
a public service department on the assumption that it will be
designing and creating large systems. Public service departments
will be developing small systems and encouraging the use of
computerized scholarly resources, and they will be assisting
users, teaching them, and promoting the use of large systems.
+ Page 19 +
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| Rhine
+-------------------------------------------------------------
All librarians must take on more responsibility in understanding
computers and electronic formats, be it on mainframes, micros,
or networks. Whether we like it or not, computers have become an
integral part of library services, and our level of understanding
must be raised. This is not to say that we all must be experts,
but we need to have a skill level that enables us to do some
basic, on-the-spot support of these systems.
The library's systems staff should provide technical support for
planning, developing, and implementing library systems. Some
of the specific responsibilities I see for library systems
staff in the future are:
1) Providing systems analysis services.
2) Providing awareness of institutional computing services'
short- and long-term plans.
3) Evaluating and selecting hardware and software
platforms.
4) Identifying outside support where applicable.
5) Providing disaster recovery plans.
6) Identifying commercial products vs. local development.
7) Providing local development and staff training for
locally developed systems.
I see a limited role for institutional computer services staff.
The complexity of library systems and user interface design makes
the support role of an institutional computing office very
difficult. However, library systems can't operate in a vacuum,
and the institutional computing services staff should have such
responsibilities such as:
1) Providing library systems staff with the institutional
computing services short- and long-term computing and
telecommunication plans. This would include hardware
platforms that are in use and those being considered
as well as institutional wiring plans, standards,
protocols, topologies, and operating systems that
are in use and under consideration.
+ Page 20 +
2) Making documentation and specifications of campus
computing services available to library systems staff.
3) Working with library systems staff on integration plans.
4) Providing support for remote access to and from library
systems.
The technical support responsibilities of public services staff
should be to provide the users with whatever is needed to use the
systems. Their responsibilities must include:
1) Training and supporting end users in USE of public-
access systems.
2) Assisting library systems staff in planning, developing
and implementing public-access systems. Public services
staff offer a great deal to system prototyping,
representing user needs and determining what level of
functionality is required for the success of a public-
access system.
3) Possessing an advanced level of expertise in using
application systems and a "basic" level of understanding
of the technical aspects of these systems.
4) Supporting users with working with hardware (i.e., PCs
terminals, printers, and CD-ROMs) and understanding how
hardware interfaces with the public-access system
(i.e., file transfer, CD-ROM extensions, and printer
setups).
+ Page 21 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Pasternack
+-------------------------------------------------------------
The pace of technological change in libraries and academic
institutions makes it difficult to predict what the future roles
of the library systems office, the computing center, and the
individual library departments will, or should, be in planning,
implementing, and supporting public-access systems. To a great
extent, the size of the library, the nature of the systems it
supports, and the technical expertise of the staff in the library
and the computing center will determine the relative
responsibilities of the different groups for implementing and
maintaining library systems. No theoretical model covers the
needs of the general academic library, the multi-unit system, and
the specialized health sciences center. Because I am most
familiar with academic libraries, my remarks will be almost
exclusively directed towards the general academic library.
In recent years, a substantial body of publication has focused
upon library/computer center relationships, with a particular
emphasis upon whether the institutions will merge or whether one
will subsume the other. There have also been some highly
publicized mergers and theoretical justifications for
reorganizations at specific institutions. Since some of these
mergers have been largely based on local political factors,
without further research on organizational performance it seems
premature to draw any conclusions as to what constitutes an
optimum organizational structure for libraries and computing
centers.
At Brown University, the organizational structure has been
heavily influenced by the Network of Scholars' Workstations
Project, described in College and Research Libraries, January,
1987. Brown was one of the first academic institutions to
implement a campus wide-area network, and the ability to deliver
information to offices, classrooms, and dormitories has shaped
our thinking. For example, planning for our online catalog was
based on the assumption that a major portion of use would be from
terminals outside of the Library. Consequently, our online
catalog was implemented as a joint project of the Library and
Computing & Information Services (CIS), with each organization
contributing resources and personnel.
+ Page 22 +
The partnership initiated by the OPAC implementation has now been
formalized in a planning group of the senior staffs from both the
Library and CIS. The objective of the group is to define the
information resources necessary for Brown University across the
next decade, based on the shared acknowledgement that the Library
is one of the major information providers on campus and that
library resources must be accessible to users on the campus
wide-area network. The initiatives for this planning effort came
from both the University Librarian and the Vice President for
Computing & Information Services.
We hope that one of the by-products of this planning will be a
closer working relationship between staff in the Library and
staff in CIS, with a concomitant "cross fertilization" of talent
which will be beneficial for both organizations. To further
these ends, we have begun a series of smaller projects involving
the staff of the Library Systems/Planning Office, the Reference
Department, and the technical staff in CIS. For example, a
Library/CIS task force is currently investigating the technical
issues related to networking CD-ROMs. Similarly, reference
librarians will be working with their user services counterparts
in CIS to produce a publication that describes "Information
Resources at Brown University."
The partnership with CIS also extends to end-user support.
Documentation about the library OPAC is posted on the campus
academic mainframe and can be printed or displayed by anyone with
a mainframe account. OPAC user training is taught by a reference
librarian as part of the CIS computer training program. Similar
efforts are underway for support of CD-ROMs and other services.
Within the Library, the Systems/Planning Office is largely
responsible for coordinating the implementation and support of
automated systems. The Library Systems/Planning Officer serves
as Project Manager for the OPAC, and three FTE
programmer/analysts based in CIS (and funded by the Library)
report indirectly to him. This organizational structure allows
the programmers to participate fully in CIS technical planning,
but also to be responsive to Library needs.
The Systems/Planning Office staff includes two systems/planning
analysts (librarians), one of whom supports public services and
the other of whom supports technical services. Both analysts are
expected to work closely with the staff in line departments and
in CIS to plan and implement systems. The positions are
relatively new and, in some instances, the lines of
responsibility are not yet clearly drawn. However, the basic
premise is that the systems/planning analysts will provide the
technical assistance and consulting needed to enable line
departments to support existing systems and to plan and implement
new services.
+ Page 23 +
An important aspect of the systems/planning analysts' work is
liaison with CIS. Each of the analysts is responsible for
working with staff in CIS on such matters as training library
staff on mainframe and workstation software, trouble-shooting
problems with the campus wide-area network, and planning for the
integration of library information with the campus electronic
environment.
One area that has not yet been satisfactorily dealt with is
technical support for microcomputers and terminals used by
library staff. At present, the Library has over 100 of these
devices for a staff of 150 FTE. While CIS provides training in
the use of "supported" microcomputer software such as Microsoft
Word for the PC and Macintosh, there is also a need in the
Library to deal with hardware maintenance issues. The analysts
in the Systems/Planning Office currently provide hardware
support, but the arrangement is not totally satisfactory. In
about a year or so, we plan to have at least one microcomputer
support technician based in the Systems/Planning Office.
The organizational model developed at Brown is thus far working
satisfactorily, but the success of the model is highly dependent
upon the goodwill of staff, particularly at the senior levels of
the Library and CIS. Should there be major changes in personnel,
it is possible that the Library and CIS would find themselves in
competition with one another for resources. How well the model
serves us in the future will depend upon the commitment of the
individuals involved.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Gray
+-------------------------------------------------------------
The question of who will play what role in planning, developing,
implementing, and supporting public-access systems may be
more appropriately framed by asking what perspectives will
be represented. The institutional setting will often determine
where the functions will reside, thus to attempt to determine the
"best" scenario is not very fruitful. A more universal series of
questions of interest to all types of libraries are: For whom are
we designing these systems? Who will provide the best
perspectives for ensuring that the design is sound, the ideas
will be accepted in the organization, the implementation will go
smoothly, support will be continuous and responsive to user
needs, and evaluation will be iterative to ensure a constantly
evolving product? We can borrow a multiple perspectives approach
introduced in the technology assessment field to help us plan,
develop, implement, and support our next generation of
public-access systems in libraries.
+ Page 24 +
Linstone [1] presents a multiple perspective model for
problem solving in complex organizational and societal settings
where technology plays an important role. His model suggests
using a team of people each representing three perspectives:
Technology, Organizational, and Personal (T + O + P).
The technical perspective is rational and analytic. This
perspective uses terms like alternatives, trade-offs,
optimization, data, and models: "The United States as a culture
is the most strongly T-oriented culture in the world. . . We
define quality of life (QOL) in terms of numerical indicators--so
that it would be more precise to label it quantity of life." [2]
This is the perspective with which most of us working in the
field of information technology feel most comfortable.
The organizational perspective views the world from the point of
view of affected and affecting organizations. This perspective
often distrusts statistics and is concerned that a new policy or
change will threaten the organization in some way: "The world
seen from the pure O perspective in ideal form is an orderly
progression from state to state, with an occasional minor crisis
along the way, for which experience and the procedural manual
have the answers." [3]
As Linstone [4] states:
In sum, the organizational perspective helps us with
sociotechnical systems in at least the following ways:
* identification of the pressures in support of, and
opposition to, the technology;
* insight into the societal ability to absorb a
technology--organizational incrementalism is an
important bound;
* increasing ability to facilitate or retard
implementation of technology by understanding how
to gain organizational support;
* drawing forth impacts not apparent with other
perspectives, for example, based on realities
created within an organization;
* development of practical policy (for example, new
coalitions).
+ Page 25 +
The organizational perspective may be the most important
perspective in insuring that the technical vision is incorporated
into the institutional setting. The reference librarians or
collection development librarians who have spent a career
developing relationships with individual faculty and academic
departments may be in a much better position to represent the
organizational perspective than the technical expert.
The personal perspective is the hardest to explain. The "P"
perspective is that of the individual's eyes and brain. The
personal perspective relies upon intuition, leadership, and self-
interest. There are four roles played by the "P" perspective:
1) Understanding the total decision process;
2) Better understanding of the O perspective;
3) Identification of individual characteristics and
behavior; and
4) Communication of complex problems and issues. [5]
Personal perspectives are often presented by the creative
individual, who may or may not have technical expertise, who is
able to be objective, does not get bogged down in standard
operating procedures (SOPs), and who provides vision and
leadership.
It is the power of the three perspectives working in concert
that presents the most promise for future public-access library
systems. If we attempt to apply the concept of multiple
perspectives to the library environment, we could have the "T"
perspective represented by the library systems staff and the
institutional computer services staff. The "O" perspective may
best be represented by members of public services staff, union
representatives, or personnel librarians. The "P" perspective
may be best represented by end user involvement--a student, a
faculty member, a prominent member of the library user community,
or a creative and objective librarian. This model does not imply
that the team must have three members and three members only, but
rather suggests that the combination of perspectives is more
important than trying to decide where the "best" place is for
the planning, development, implementation, and support functions
to reside.
+ Page 26 +
Nolan [6] suggests that the most effective organizational
management of information systems is by committee. He suggests
using an executive steering committee to provide direction,
rationing of resources, structuring for the effective use of
computing facilities, selecting key managers of computing
facilities, advising and auditing, and evaluating. As Nolan
notes, the committee structure is cumbersome, but it seems to be
the most effective way of dealing with decentralization, and
public-access systems are by their very nature decentralized.
The multiple perspectives approach is a committee approach. It is
suggested here that the T + O + P perspectives be represented on
a steering committee and the functions of the committee parallel
those suggested by Nolan, with the addition of an important
planning component.
This may sound like a "sloppy" management approach, with too
much involvement from too many people. In the long run, the time
invested in soliciting input from the various perspectives will
be rewarded in the design of the end product, the ease of
implementation, ongoing management, and the acceptance by the
user community. The committee can help to manage the complex
tasks of encouraging innovation while maintaining control and
efficiency.
+ Page 27 +
QUESTION 2: Each library is different, but, generally
speaking, what organizational structures seem most
appropriate to facilitate the technical support roles
identified in the first question? Please speak to the issue
of reporting lines. For example, should public and
technical services divisions have separate technical support
groups? Alternatively, should individual departments have
technical support staff? If decentralized technical support
efforts are envisioned, how should the efforts of these
groups be coordinated? What is the place of temporary
project-oriented work groups, which may cross departmental
lines, in your scenario?
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Wood
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Microcomputers are becoming ubiquitous in libraries. Apart from
the needs of users, library staff in all divisions are using word
processing, database management, and e-mail software. If a
library has a LAN, librarians, library assistants, and clerical
support staff may all be using the same software. Maintenance of
staff hardware is streamlined by providing similar equipment in
all divisions. It makes sense, therefore, to have microcomputer
consultants who work throughout the library. They may report to
a librarian, who in turn reports to Public Services or Learning
Resources, but the consultants serve everyone. Requests for
their help will be filtered through their supervising librarian.
These consultants may report to Public or Technical Services,
Learning Resources, or "Systems"; however, for maximum
efficiency, they assist in all divisions. Rather than having
Reference, for example, hire its own experts, the consultants
will be familiar with overall library computing. They will need
a supervisor who screens the questions they receive and organizes
their workflow. They will be besieged on all sides and will need
a "triage" system to manage their time and ensure that help is
provided to those who need it most.
Many public-access products, such as indexes on CD-ROM or
interactive learning programs, involve more than one library
department. Rather than having one consultant taking care of the
LAN and another consultant assisting Public Services with
workstations and training, the same consultant can do both.
+ Page 28 +
"Temporary project-oriented work groups" would operate, in this
scenario, through the same supervising librarian. No matter
which divisions were affected, one librarian would coordinate
workflow and ensure that the work groups were used for maximum
efficiency. This supervising librarian could report, as
mentioned above, to any division or this person could be
separate from existing divisions and report to Administration.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Lewis
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Public services departments need control over both the resources
required for project development and their equipment.
The day-to-day servicing of machines should be provided by a
support group within the public services department. Students
can monitor equipment and handle paper problems, reboot systems,
and change disks. Loading of new versions of software and other
routine updating, maintenance, and equipment troubleshooting
should be handled within the department. This may require
technical staff, but service contracts should be used wherever
possible. A service contract on a CD-ROM LAN probably makes more
sense than trying to support the hardware with in-house
expertise. When these systems fail, a very high level of
technical support is required; to maintain this type of person on
staff will be difficult to justify. When a department's need for
in-house technical support justifies a position, it should be
assigned to the department.
Most libraries will provide some level of technical support
within the library organization, usually from a separate support
unit. The allocation of these resources and the priorities set
will inevitably be the cause of conflict; the results are
unlikely to satisfy public service department's needs.
Coordination should be applied administratively and should be
given less emphasis than is generally the case, especially for
small projects. Innovation at the departmental level is more
important than coordination at this stage in the development of
public-access computing.
+ Page 29 +
Outside expertise can also be used in small-scale development
projects. Purchasing an expert system to assist in the reference
process or a computer-based library instruction package is
probably a much better idea than trying to create it yourself.
If a department sees the need for many locally developed or
modified systems, it may be appropriate to add programing staff
to the department--the closer to public service librarians, the
better. In most cases, alternatives, such as the use of
temporary staff or contracting out programing projects, can and
should be found. It will be important to develop working
relationships between public service librarians and computer
center staff, and to find the means to pay for expert services
when they are required.
Large-scale projects will continue to require working groups
which include staff from throughout the library and from the
computer center. Project management skills will become
increasingly important.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Rhine
+-------------------------------------------------------------
The library systems department should be a separate department
that reports directly to the Director. The increasing importance
of networking and integration in public-access systems requires a
department that can monitor systems needs in each of the
library's departments at the same time it prepares an overall
systems plan for the library. This overall plan has to be
considered in relationship to the institution's computing
facilities and services. To separate public services and
technical services systems is artificial. Each may require a
different view of the system, with different functional
requirements, but the two must be planned, developed, and
maintained with all aspects under consideration. In the typical
scenario of limited resources, priorities and decisions must be
made by weighing all departments' computing needs. Each member
of the systems department should be designated as a liaison to a
specific department or group of departments for providing the
following services:
1) Assessing departmental computing needs.
2) Assisting in determining departmental priorities.
3) Identifying the level of systems expertise available in
each library department.
+ Page 30 +
4) Steering independent departmental systems development
efforts away from incompatibilities with the overall
systems plan so that better system integration is
possible.
5) Coordinating departmental development with the systems
staff as well as with the rest of the staff.
Temporary project-oriented work groups should be just that--
temporary. Temporary work groups have a place in planning,
developing, and testing only. At the point of implementation,
the responsibilities of a work group must already be known to
individuals and/or departments whose job descriptions,
coordination needs, and support responsibilities are clearly
defined.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Pasternack
+-------------------------------------------------------------
As indicated in the response to Question 1, the role of the
Library Systems/Planning Office at Brown University is to
evaluate the technical feasibility of library plans and to
provide guidance and technical support to library departments.
Support for computing in the Brown University Library is highly
centralized in the Systems/Planning Office, with two
systems/planning analysts (librarians) responsible for supporting
technical and public services respectively.
This structure was implemented in order to concentrate technical
expertise within the Systems/Planning Office and at the same time
to provide support for individual departmental needs. While more
decentralized models were considered, particularly one that
provided a technical support position in the Reference
Department, the Library determined that it did not have the
personnel resources to support overlapping positions. Because
all library departments were using similar technologies and were
linked together by the campus wide-area network, technical
support positions in individual departments would invariably
overlap and compete with those in the Systems/Planning Office.
It would be presumptuous to assume that the Brown University
Library model of centralized computing support is appropriate for
all institutions, but I am persuaded that the model is best able
to cope with the increasingly integrated nature of library
computing.
+ Page 31 +
While the focus on PACS-L has been on the public services aspects
of computing, it should be kept in mind that our online
catalogs are used by the library technical processing
units as well. Indeed, one of the major reasons why some systems
offices are based in technical services is the initial OPAC focus
on loading existing MARC databases. With the implementation of
LANs and WANs and the loading of non-MARC databases in our OPACs,
there is a need for a single department to take responsibility
for library-wide systems planning and support.
With the centralized model there is also the need to encourage
individual departments to initiate projects and to assume
responsibility for routine departmental work efforts related to
computing. The two systems/planning analysts at Brown work
closely with the line departments in reviewing departmental
computing objectives and in planning for the implementation of
new services. In some instances, the analysts play a major role
in serving as catalysts for change. The analysts have had
previous work experience in either cataloging or reference, so
they are familiar with the issues affecting the departmental
managers and staff. However, the level of support provided to
individual units will depend upon the technical competencies to
be found in the departments.
The staff of the Systems/Planning Office is also represented on
all interdepartmental task forces and planning groups appointed
to make recommendations on computer-related issues. The Library
relies heavily on ad hoc committees and groups appointed to
recommend solutions to problems which affect more than one unit
or department. A practical example of this relates to the
networking of the library CD-ROMs. At the request of the
Assistant University Librarian for Public Services, the
Systems/Planning Analyst for Public Services is working with CIS
to determine the technical feasibility of making the library's
CD-ROMs available to the campus WAN. Once the technical
feasibility of the project is determined, an ad hoc group
reporting to the AUL for Public Services, and including
representatives from public services, technical services, and
systems, will determine which CD-ROM workstations and databases
to network.
A centralized library systems office such as that at Brown
University functions most effectively when it reports to the
chief operating officer of the library. Placing systems in
either public or technical services hinders its ability to
provide equitable support to all library units and encourages the
proliferation of local technical support groups. As to the
appropriate level of the systems office within the library
organization (e.g., a division, a department, or a unit), I feel
this is largely a local political question.
+ Page 32 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Gray
+-------------------------------------------------------------
A committee approach provides one type of structure for ongoing
planning and development of public-access systems, but a
committee cannot manage people effectively. There are very
practical considerations related to daily operations and
reporting lines that must be addressed. The shifts in the needs
of organizations as a result of technological change suggest a
new approach to creating organizational structures. A matrix
reporting structure can be an effective organizational approach
to managing staff performing a variety of technical functions.
A core systems staff pared down to the essentials for
management, daily operations, and basic technical support
functions is my ideal for most library organizations. The
systems manager (whatever the title) reports to a senior level
administrator who has some understanding of technology.
The small staff has its advantages and disadvantages. The
economic advantages are obvious. The primary organizational
advantage is that it can open up opportunities for involvement in
technical operations from a variety of people outside the systems
office. The major disadvantage of a small core staff is that
illness, vacations, or maternity leaves can wreak havoc in daily
operations and support functions.
A matrix approach brings people into the systems operations from
all the user areas of the library. In the matrix model, people
report to the person in charge of a particular function for the
portion of their job related to that function. For instance, an
individual creating bibliographic tools that will eventually be
managed by the systems office may be assigned to report to the
systems manager for a portion of their work week over a period of
time. The person managing the installation and operation of a
local area network of CD-ROM products may have a portion of their
time allocated to systems.
+ Page 33 +
A job description is developed for a particular task or function
that has been identified as a priority for development. This can
be an iterative process working in concert with the department
requesting the development or support, the systems office, and an
individual with skills to handle the task or function. One
important thing to keep in mind is to make sure there is a clear
delineation of both responsibility and accountability. A person
is assigned to the job and is relieved of an appropriate amount
of work from his or her other assignment. The whole library
benefits when we create opportunities for staff from a variety of
areas to work closely with systems staff in designing and/or
implementing new technology, such as a reference tool to be
accessible on a public workstation. Organizationally, a staff
member may have as a part of her on-going assignment the
development of reference applications on Macintosh computers and
the other part of her work day is in the reference department
performing traditional reference functions.
Job descriptions are written to reflect the various areas of
responsibilities. Reporting may be to two different supervisors
for the different functions being performed. Evaluations are
done jointly by all the persons having responsibility for a
person's work over the period being evaluated. This gives the
staff member working in more than one position an opportunity to
be evaluated for all of their work. The matrix reporting
structure also lessens the stress on a person who might otherwise
be reporting to one supervisor for their primary responsibilities
and working with other staff on a project outside their regular
job description. Without the formal reporting line changes, a
staff member may be seen "slacking" off their regular job or not
making enough of a time commitment for what may be viewed as
"volunteer" work for another department.
The collaborative writing of evaluations has had some side
benefits at Brandeis. Supervisors report gaining a greater
appreciation for another department's work through discussions
with other supervisors about the quantity and quality of work
done.
In the matrix model, one can achieve the best of both
centralized and decentralized approaches to providing technical
support. Coordination, responsibility, and accountability for
technical support functions through the systems office is
achieved by creating dual reporting lines. Duplication of effort
is reduced and centralized training of support staff can be
achieved. The decentralization of support staff helps ensure
better response to the specific needs of individual departments.
Since technical expertise is spread throughout the organization,
the overall technical expertise of the library staff increases.
+ Page 34 +
QUESTION 3: Well-qualified technical staff are difficult to
find, they are expensive, and they are hard to retain. What
is the best strategy for recruiting and retaining technical
support staff for public-access computer systems in terms of
required degrees and/or training, required experience,
salary incentives (considering equity issues), and career
advancement opportunities?
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Wood
+-------------------------------------------------------------
In Los Angeles, we have had success in recruiting consultants
with experience rather than formal degrees; this may have allowed
us to pay them less, although we have had job applicants with
formal training apply. We have been pleased with the ease with
which consultants from a sales or customer support background
have adapted to helping faculty and students; they also have
superior knowledge of how software has developed and are familiar
with a wide range of products. They are paid considerably more
than library assistants and only slightly less than entry-level
librarians. In some cases, they could make more working for
computer stores or doing private consulting; the advantages of
working for us are the lessening of the stress found in the sales
arena and the benefits package we offer. Our technical support
personnel like the library environment and working with faculty,
researchers, and students. They see the university experience as
looking good on their future resumes.
Our experience of hiring consultants is only a few years
old, so we cannot comment on long-term expectations.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Lewis
+-------------------------------------------------------------
As stated above, I believe libraries should make every attempt to
raise the general level of computer skills possessed by the
public services staff, and that, where possible, hardware should
be supported with service contracts. For most libraries,
development projects are less important than implementing, with
only slight modification, systems which can be purchased or
acquired from other libraries.
+ Page 35 +
Such strategies should limit the need for large numbers of
technical staff. But, even so, technical staff will be required.
The key issue is to define positions clearly and to make sure
that the rank and salary is appropriate to the work, and visa
versa. Because these positions are new to many libraries and
because in many cases the first staff to fill them were
self-taught and without credentials, libraries often have trouble
getting this right the first time around. Practice should make
us better at it.
The credentials required should be those appropriate for the
position; there is no reason to insist on an MLS. Salaries paid
will need to meet the market. This is not an equity issue. In
many cases, technical staff will be paid more than librarians.
Librarians need to understand and accept that they will not be
the only professionals working in libraries, and, in some cases,
they will not be the highest paid.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Rhine
+-------------------------------------------------------------
The best strategy I see for recruitment in terms of the
intangibles is to offer flexible hours and advertise that the
systems job includes interesting and varied job duties, research
opportunities, and a chance to be in a setting where new
technologies and programming opportunities are always under
consideration. If you can offer control over a budget, all the
better.
Required degrees should include information science or library
science with computer science courses. Training in database
design, programming, systems analysis, and telecommunications is
highly desirable. The library degree is important in
understanding the complexity and the "big picture" of what
library systems entail. However, if you have systems staff with
good library science backgrounds, someone with a computer science
degree and/or training may be appropriate. The experience level
varies with what you've got already. Someone on the systems
staff should have experience with large mainframe or network
systems. Most important is that your systems people have the
desire to continue to educate themselves and monitor new
technologies and programming developments.
+ Page 36 +
As far as salary incentives are concerned, if you want to retain
good technical staff, you have to pay competitive salaries. If
your library administrators cannot find a way to offer
competitive salaries for both systems and traditional library
staff, you can't expect to retain good people. We live in a
society where success is measured largely by money, and
qualified, ambitious people are going to expect money as a
reward. We may find people on occasion that don't require
competitive salaries, but we can't keep counting on it. If we
can't pay the market price for technical staff, we have to expect
that they will only stay on a short-term basis. If you're
concerned about equity, expect to get what you pay for.
The advancement opportunities depend on your organizational
structure. If you have a systems department reporting to the
Director, the head of your systems department would be a
high-level position. However, you must accept that there will be
turnover. If you can offer technical staff the opportunity to
gain experience with a large integrated system or to work with
projects that are interesting and challenging, you'll be more
likely to recruit good people, but you will have to accept that
they will move on, so cover yourself for when they leave.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Pasternack
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Generally speaking, there are three levels of personnel primarily
responsible for library technical support: (1) systems
librarians/analysts, (2) programmers, and (3) technicians. At
Brown, both systems librarians/analysts and programmers provide
systems support, and we are planning in the future to hire one or
more technicians. We have found that the most important factor
in recruiting technical personnel is salary. In several
candidate recruitments, the size of the candidate pool was
directly related to the salary offered.
The staff in the Systems/Planning Office and the library
programmers are on the University's EDP salary scale, which is 10
percent higher than the scale used for comparable non-EDP jobs.
Even with this salary differential, it has been difficult to
recruit experienced personnel, particularly programmers, because
our campus salaries are not fully competitive with those being
offered by private industry. The need to pay programmers higher
salaries than librarians has not been a major issue. Most of our
staff recognize that programmers can generally command higher
salaries than librarians at comparable administrative levels.
+ Page 37 +
At one time, I also believed that having a "state-of-the-art"
system was an important inducement to attracting experienced
technical personnel. I have found, however, that individuals
experienced with third generation systems, such our DBMS system
(ADABAS), can often command salaries that are beyond our means.
In a recent recruitment for a programmer/analyst manager, we had
many candidates who requested higher salaries than we could
afford. There have also been times when we had to hire personnel
who were not fully experienced with ADABAS, and on those
occasions we had to expend considerable sums of money on
programmer training. Having a "state-of-the-art" system is thus
a two-edged sword.
We do not specifically require an MLS degree for the systems
librarians/analysts or a computer science degree for the
programmers. The librarian/analyst positions require either an
MLS or a degree in computing science. In recruiting for these
positions, we felt that we would have a larger candidate pool if
we did not have specific degree requirements. While both of the
library systems/planning analysts we hired have an MLS, we also
recruited a very capable programmer who did not have a bachelor's
degree. I believe that work experience and demonstrated
knowledge are more important in systems work than formal degrees.
This is particularly true in the programming area where many
educational institutions are graduating students who are
ill-prepared to work on large and complex mainframe systems.
I really don't have any sage advice concerning career advancement
opportunities. In some institutions there will be non-
administrative promotional tracks, such as faculty status ranks,
which provide for advancement within job grades based upon
performance and professional contributions. While librarians at
Brown do not have faculty status, a two-track system for
librarians enables the librarians in the Systems/Planning Office
to be promoted within position.
Programmers, in general, have a greater number of career
advancement opportunities than librarians, given the size of the
job market and the demand for experienced programmers. In the
case of library programmers, this may mean accepting a position
on a non-library project. While I regret losing an experienced
programmer, I recognize that in order to advance professionally,
a programmer may need to accept a position working on another
project at Brown University or elsewhere.
+ Page 38 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Gray
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Recruitment and retention of well-qualified staff is a common
problem among non-profit organizations. There are no easy
answers. For the most part, it is impossible for many of us in
libraries to compete with high-tech firms for well-qualified
technical staff, so we must compete on a different basis. There
are some organizational "quality of work-life" issues that can
help in the recruitment and retention of staff. A reputation for
flexibility in scheduling, grade and salary levels that reflect
responsibility and qualifications, a track record for promoting
within an organization, opportunities for educational benefits,
and child-care benefits are all important for the modern work
force. Individuals who feel they are valued for their
contributions and who are given responsibility and independence
are going to stay with you longer than those who do not feel
appreciated, are not clear about their responsibilities, and feel
they are being watched over all the time.
When thinking of recruitment and retention, it is also important
to consider in-house training. If an organization develops depth
of expertise, the loss of a "star" is not as critical as it is
for the organization overly dependent upon a few experts.
+ Page 39 +
QUESTION 4: In addition to technical support, staff training
and end-user instruction play critical roles in the success
of public-access computer systems. Who should perform these
functions (e.g., library instruction staff, electronic
information coordinators, or systems staff), what types of
training and instruction seem most useful, and how extensive
should these efforts be?
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Wood
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Staff training is crucial to smooth operation. Staff using
microcomputers must have adequate and appropriate training when
they are first hired and whenever new software is installed.
Classes should be arranged (with division head approval for the
time from work) and one-on-one help provided as necessary. Group
instruction is always more efficient, and simple sheets of
instructions lessen the calls for one-on-one help. The
supervisory librarian described under Question 2 can coordinate
these efforts; consultants teach and support staff as well as
users. Any innovations, such as a LAN or change in word
processing software, should be announced in a non-threatening
way. In-house documentation helps and personal attention for
those who are less comfortable with computers. Staff input
should be encouraged. Requests, complaints, and suggestions
should go to the supervising librarian who then organizes the
consultants' time and efforts in addressing staff needs.
End-user training involves both bibliographic instruction and
computer literacy. As with staff, users are encouraged to come
to classes before we offer lengthy one-on-one training sessions.
Class hand-outs are designed to help users after class when they
try out what they have learned. These classes may be a joint
effort of consultants and public services librarians. Teaching
searching of online catalogs or locally-mounted databases, for
example, is usually done by librarians; however, users who want
to dial into these databases from their homes or offices may
need the assistance of microcomputer consultants. Users who want
to download search results into word processing or database
management programs will also benefit from classes or support
from consultants. The combined efforts of public services
librarians and consultants, coordinated by the supervisory
librarian, can form a continuum of training for users that
maximizes both.
+ Page 40 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Lewis
+-------------------------------------------------------------
End-user instruction is the reference librarian's job.
Electronic resources are library resources, and librarians should
integrate their use into general and specialized instruction
sessions. When responding to a reference query, instruction in
the use of an OPAC or a CD-ROM should be provided in the same way
instruction is commonly provided to users of printed sources.
Supporting remote users is a complication. Part of the problem
involves technical issues in negotiating the network. Most
campus networks are still largely ad hoc and communications
issues can become complex quickly. Reference librarians should
know enough to understand the questions, but it should be a
computer center function to provide the answers. This problem
will lessen as campus networks mature, as standards are applied,
and as front-ends are developed.
The second part of supporting remote users is more difficult.
This is the intellectual interaction which is the heart of the
reference process. How do you do question negotiation over the
network? How to you instruct? We don't know much about this
now, so the sooner we begin to experiment the better. High-end
solutions, such as expert systems and knowbots bear watching, but
most of us should begin small with e-mail reference services and
bulletin boards. The key to successful library services will be
the ability to communicate with our users. Our users are on the
network; we need to discover how best to work with them there.
Staff training must require both the expectation that increased
computing skills are a necessary part of a satisfactory
performance and the resources to support the acquisition of the
required skills. Public service librarians need to be aware of
how to locate data in electronic form in the same way that they
are now knowledgeable about printed sources. If they do not,
they are not doing their jobs. This will require more computer
expertise than many librarians now have, so programs that support
the acquisition of these skills are required and should be an
administrative priority.
The most effective program will start by putting a machine on
every librarian's desk and providing the time required to learn
to use it. Formal training, including course work, needs to be
encouraged.
+ Page 41 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Rhine
+-------------------------------------------------------------
Training for staff should be done by staff members designated
from each department who work with the systems liaison to get
sufficient training where technical knowledge is necessary. This
method can be better coordinated with the depa
rtment's schedule
and turnover rate. It also takes into consideration the level of
expertise required for that particular department. I firmly
believe that staff training is too large a job and requires too
many perspectives to be a responsibility of the systems
department.
End-user training and documentation should be provided by library
instruction staff. The library instruction staff should be able
to consult the systems liaison for clarification of technical
issues. There should be point-of-use training provided by
documentation as well as by library staff members. There should
be classes given ahead of time by library instruction staff.
Training and support of users by classes and at point-of-use is
one of the areas where libraries provide a great value over
competitive information services, and libraries should exploit
this advantage. There need to be staff dedicated to identifying
and providing the best training and support the library can offer
to its patrons.
Systems staff should work in conjunction with library instruction
staff to provide common user interfaces, online context-sensitive
help, and methods of feedback to determine users' conceptual
models of public-access systems.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Pasternack
+-------------------------------------------------------------
What is most important in end-user education is for the trainer
to have good teaching skills, to be knowledgeable about the
system, and to be familiar with user needs. Hopefully, the
trainer will be a member of the reference department or whatever
unit is responsible for library instruction programs. But there
may be times when the systems office or the computing center
staff need to assist reference in instituting training programs
or in conducting training sessions.
+ Page 42 +
Many librarians, both in systems and in reference, may not be
fully experienced or comfortable with providing instruction in an
electronic environment. In this regard, the local computing
center can sometimes be quite helpful. The Brown CIS staff have
a strong user education program, and we have relied heavily on
their expertise and advice in reaching the "electronic audience."
In turn, CIS has benefitted from the Library's knowledge about
providing individualized instruction.
Similarly, the User Services staff in CIS and the Library
Reference Department share responsibility for answering OPAC
questions--terminal emulation and logon questions from dial-in
users are referred to CIS; searching questions are referred to
Reference. We have found that in a highly distributed electronic
environment, the user is not certain about who the primary
information provider is or where to go for assistance, and that
all user support groups need to be knowledgeable about their
relative responsibilities for answering user questions.
Our OPAC was designed to operate in a networked environment and
offers two modes of searching: (1) menu-driven and (2) direct
command. Most users are able to master the mechanics of the
menus without documentation or instruction. At one time, we
tried offering training sessions about the menu system, but
discontinued the training because of lack of demand. One of our
reference librarians continues to offer direct command training
as part of the CIS computer training program. Attendance has
been variable, and we have had to learn how to market our
services more effectively. Documentation for the menus and
command language is posted on the Brown mainframe and is
available from the Library literature distribution racks. Most
of the documentation was developed by the Systems/Planning Office
with the assistance of Reference.
Staff training at the Brown University Library is largely the
responsibility of individual departments working with the
Systems/Planning Office. Theoretically, the systems/planning
analysts train the departmental managers and supervisors, and
they in turn train the departmental staff. In practice, the
technical and training competencies vary from department to
department, and the level of support and training offered by the
Systems/Planning Office has had to be adjusted accordingly.
Given limited personnel resources, we try to rely upon training
expertise wherever it is found. In our initial OPAC
implementation, two volunteer trainers from Reference and
Cataloging assisted with providing introductory search training
to all our staff. A reference librarian continues to provide
this training for new staff members library-wide. We also rely
upon CIS to provide mainframe and microcomputer training sessions
tailored for library staff.
+ Page 43 +
Brown is thus highly pragmatic in its approach to training and
relies upon staff from various library units and CIS to support
systems used in the libraries. We have found that no single
department or office has the personnel or expertise to provide
training support for all the diverse systems we use.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Gray
+-------------------------------------------------------------
A multi-faceted approach to staff training and end-user
instruction is necessary to address the different ways people
learn. [7] Computer-aided instruction, written materials
personal instruction, video, and publications are all
important tools for training.
Staff training and end-user instruction should be coordinated
through a sub-committee of the technology steering committee.
Staff training is probably best done by systems staff or
the "extended systems staff." Whoever is training should know
the basics of adult education--how to teach adults, what are the
motivators to learning, and how to introduce technical skills.
It may be necessary to provide separate training sessions for
supervisors, depending upon the individuals. It is important to
be sensitive to the nuances of the structure of training
situations. Individuals representing the organizational and
personal perspectives on the steering committee will be helpful
in this regard.
End-user instruction is best coordinated through the steering
committee with the individuals in charge of user education. End-
user instruction is an extension of the various types of library
education we present to our users.
+ Page 44 +
QUESTION 5: What other thoughts do you have on the issue of
providing adequate staffing to support public-access
computer systems?
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Wood
+-------------------------------------------------------------
At the Norris Medical Library, public access microcomputing has
grown gradually and, perhaps, haphazardly over the past few
years. Responsibility for online catalogs, bibliographic
instruction,software support, and LAN management may be
fragmented among library staff. At some point, these efforts
need to be centrally coordinated. As these activities may all
involve the use of microcomputers and, as described above, they
may overlap in content, the most efficient organizational
structure brings them together.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Lewis
+-------------------------------------------------------------
It is important to remember what business we are in. Most
libraries are not and should not be in the technology development
business. We apply technology; we don't usually invent it. A
library is a service organization whose goal is to link students
and faculty with the resources; increasingly, these resources
will be electronic. Public-access computing in academic
libraries is a reality now, but if it is to be applied widely, it
will require a large number of public service staff working with
schools and departments on many small-scale projects. The
organizations we build need to encourage and support this type of
innovation.
Public-access computing in libraries currently confronts two
organizational conflicts. The first is that the skills possessed
by many public service librarians and the skills needed to
operate in an electronic environment do not yet match. I believe
this will be a short-term problem. Remember that OPACs,
microcomputers, CD-ROMs, and electronic mail have become common
and accepted parts of library service only in the last several
years. My experience has been that staff, given support, adapt
remarkably quickly and with surprising ease. It would be a
mistake to overreact to the current situation; quick fixes which
concentrate skills and responsibilities in the hands (and minds)
of a few technical staff or the few librarians who have "taken"
to the technology, might be useful in accomplishing a few quick
projects, but over the long haul this will be a counterproductive
strategy.
+ Page 45 +
The second conflict is that the organizational structures
required to implement large-scale projects are different than
those that are required to effectively operate the resulting
systems. An integrated library system requires a great deal of
coordination. Our current need is different; it is to encourage
small-scale innovation, both to make incremental improvements in
how our big systems are used and to bring electronic resources to
scholars and students across the university. In many cases, the
latter task will be done one faculty member at a time. To do
this well will require a knowledgeable staff willing to take
risks and resources which can be used by these staff to apply
public-access computer solutions to a wide variety of problems.
If these two critical pieces are not in place, the other staffing
issues addressed in this symposium will not matter.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Rhine
+-------------------------------------------------------------
ALL librarians MUST be able to understand more about electronic
formats--many do, many do not. Libraries need to develop a way
to re-educate their staff to better understand how systems work
and to interact with technology.
Because of the complexity and size of library systems, library
schools need to start teaching the generic components of computer
architectures, including operating systems and their interaction
with applications. Library students should be taught more about
algorithms and how they affect the efficiency of a database,
especially in relationship to bibliographic information.
Teaching different programming techniques and concepts that
better manipulate information is essential. Most importantly,
library schools need to fill the gap in manipulating information
with computers. Teaching library students how to use electronic
mail, spreadsheets, and relational databases isn't enough. Our
field is too complex and challenging to provide such trivial
education.
+ Page 46 +
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Pasternack
+-------------------------------------------------------------
A personnel issue which is becoming of increasing concern to me
is the need to support the growing variety of incompatible
technical systems being introduced in library public service
units. In our Reference Department, the reference staff are
expected to be knowledgeable about our OPAC, RLIN, OCLC, Dialog,
BRS, Medline, the Silver Platter CD-ROMs on both the PC and
Macintosh, the WilsonDisc CD-ROMs, the Science Citation Index CD-
ROM, the Academic Index CD-ROM, e-mail on CMS, a campus
electronic bulletin board, and PCs and Macintoshes for staff use.
I suspect we are not unique in this regard.
Computing centers can usually deal with the variety of systems
which need to be supported by assigning one or more staff members
to become experts in a particular system. However, in library
public services we seem to be acquiring more equipment and
systems than we can handle. While we have tried to standardize
on certain devices, the pressures for bringing up the latest
vendor products are enormous.
Often, the decision to acquire a particular product is based
upon collection development considerations, and the user support
issues are secondary. While there is growing recognition here
and elsewhere that user support is critical to the successful
implementation of an electronic service, we have a ways to go in
"institutionalizing" user support as part of the
acquisition/collection development process.
+-------------------------------------------------------------
| Gray
+-------------------------------------------------------------
The traditional organizational boundaries which have defined
technical and public service library staff have been shifting
with each new wave of technology. Fragile shorelines change with
each succeeding season, and our libraries change with each new
technological breakthrough. Organizational boundaries will
continue to exist for the foreseeable future, and technological
change will continue to exert influence upon the jobs we perform
in libraries.
+ Page 47 +
As the impact of library technology has moved from technical
functions to reference service functions to campus networks and
beyond, the scope of concerns addressed by systems staff have
broadened. Experience, research, and reflection upon
technological change have resulted in the following important
insights:
* Effective planning, implementation, and management of
public-access systems are enhanced by a multiple
perspectives approach.
* A matrix reporting structure can be an effective
organizational approach to managing staff performing a
variety of technical functions.
* Staff participation in decisions regarding the
structure and nature of technological change improves
success rates when implementing change.
These insights are not a result of original scholarship, nor
are they unique to libraries, but are adapted from other sectors
of the economy for application to library organizations.
The following are four suggestions which may be helpful to
organizations attempting to provide adequate staffing to support
public-access computer systems.
RECOMMENDATION 1: Create a technology steering committee
composed of individuals representing technical, organizational
and personal perspectives. The functions of the committee are to
include: direction, rationing of computer resources, structuring
for effective use of computing facilities, selecting key managers
of computing facilities, advising, auditing or evaluating, and
planning for future technology.
RECOMMENDATION 2: Experiment with the matrix approach combined
with the technology steering committee described above. There
are specific organizational requirements, whether union or
institutional, which must be met for the successful
implementation of a matrix reporting structure. The combination
of the matrix organizational approach and the technology steering
committee can provide a strong cohesive focus to technological
management, planning, and development within an organization.
+ Page 48 +
RECOMMENDATION 3: Understanding of human needs, valuing
contributions, providing a good work environment and competitive
benefits help in retaining staff. A premium can be paid for
expertise, but, if the salaries for technical staff get too far
out of alignment with other staff, problems arise. Try to train
staff in-house to ensure depth of expertise.
RECOMMENDATION 4: A coordinated approach to staff training and
user education is just as important as a coordinated approach to
technological planning, development, and management.
Notes
1. Harold A. Linstone, Multiple Perspectives for Decision Making:
Bridging the Gap between Analysis and Action (New York: North-
Holland, 1984).
2. Ibid, 46-47.
3. Ibid, 48.
4. Ibid, 52.
5. Ibid, 57-61.
6. Richard L. Nolan, "Managing Information Systems by Committee,"
Harvard Business Review 60 (July-August, 1982): 72-79.
7. Sonia Bodi, "Teaching Effectiveness and Bibliographic
Instruction: The Relevance of Learning Styles," College &
Research Libraries 51, no. 2 (March, 1990): 113-119.
+ Page 49 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic
journal. It is sent to participants of the Public-Access
Computer Systems Forum, a computer conference on BITNET. To join
the PACS Forum, send an electronic mail message to
LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 that says:
SUBSCRIBE PACS-L First_Name Last_Name.
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All rights
reserved.
This article is copyright (C) 1990 by the University Libraries,
University of Houston. All rights reserved.
Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and
libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their
collection at no cost. This message must appear on copied
material. All commercial use requires permission.
----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 50 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Smith, Steve. "A CD-ROM LAN Utilizing the CBIS CD Connection
System." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2
(1990): 50-61.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
Like many libraries, the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library of the
University of Alaska at Fairbanks has been exploring ways to
expand access to the growing number of commercial CD-ROM database
products, which are supplementing and replacing traditional print
and online reference sources in libraries. Over the past few
years, we have increased the number of CD-ROM titles in our
collection; however, due to the popularity of these databases,
the queues to use them also grew, which resulted in patron
frustration. This paper will briefly chronicle our library's
implementation of a local area network (LAN), which is primarily
used to provide multiple-user access to CD-ROM databases.
Background Information
The Rasmuson Library is the largest research and academic library
in the state of Alaska. Prior to implementing our LAN, we used a
variety of CD-ROM databases. As members of the Western Library
Network (WLN), we made the LaserCat CD-ROM database available to
patrons for several years. We also provided access to the
following CD-ROM databases: Dialog's OnDisc ERIC, University
Microfilm's ABI/INFORM OnDisc, and Auto-Graphics' Government
Documents Catalog Service. All of these databases were
accessible at individual workstations. There were several
LaserCat workstations.
Since we were planning to add a few new CD-ROM products each
year, it became apparent that we would quickly run out of room
for separate workstations dedicated to single databases. We were
beginning to see patrons waiting for access to a workstation--or
worse--giving up and leaving. At the same time, we had been
discussing the need for a local area network to provide access to
several local databases we were developing for our special
collections. We also saw the need for a LAN to provide some
administrative services, such as scheduling facilities and
equipment from multiple locations.
+ Page 51 +
In the spring of 1989, we made the decision to develop a LAN
throughout the five floors of the library. Our first use of the
LAN would be to provide access to our growing CD-ROM collection.
We needed both a LAN operating system and a CD-ROM server.
Ethernet was selected as the LAN topology because of its
robustness. Having an internal Ethernet would also facilitate
the future connection of this LAN to a fiber-optic Ethernet being
installed on the campus.
Procurement of the CD-ROM LAN
Specifications were developed after a survey of available CD-ROM
LAN systems. (Meridian, Silver Platter, and LANtastic were the
major players). The first request for bids went out, but none of
the bidders met our specifications. Some bidders obviously had
no idea what was involved in networking CD-ROMs. Others simply
didn't include all the components we specified. A second request
for bids that had more exact specifications was issued. At the
same time, we purchased three Hewlett-Packard (HP) 80386-based
microcomputers to use as workstations. HP was chosen simply
because of a state contract that allowed us to purchase these
units without a time-consuming bid process.
The system with the lowest bid that met our specifications was a
product developed by CBIS, Inc. of Norcross, Georgia. We
purchased a total CBIS package, including their NETBIOS-
compatible local area network software (Network-OS), the CD
Connection software to run CD-ROM databases over the network, and
a CD Server/386 with an 80386 processor. Frankly, we had
expected Meridian Data to be the successful bidder. At the time
we began looking into CD-ROM networks, CBIS was a new and
untested player in the CD-ROM networking marketplace, while the
Meridian Data CD Net system had a track record.
Initially, we resisted the CBIS bid, which was made by a local
vendor. However, as a result of discussions with CBIS sales and
technical people, we decided that CBIS was offering a workable
system. A cautionary note for anyone entering this arena: the
local vendor we purchased the system from had no prior knowledge
of CBIS products. Their relationship with CBIS was established
when they received our bid.
+ Page 52 +
Technical Support and Documentation
In our estimation, the quality of the technical assistance our
local vendor provided ranged from poor to nonexistent. At one
point, they gave information concerning the system that was
simply erroneous. CBIS offers free technical assistance to all
registered users; our local vendor wanted to charge by the hour
for technical assistance. We have ended up getting telephone
support directly from CBIS technical staff.
For the most part, we have found CBIS assistance to be prompt and
accurate. After several calls, we identified the staff most
responsive to our needs. When we call now, we request these
staff by name. A few things, like a simple list of CD-ROM
products that have successfully run on the CBIS system, took a
number of calls and some cajoling to obtain. Part of the problem
was that the product was so new that some information has simply
not available in a form suitable for customer use. The CD
Connection manual didn't provide as much helpful information as
we would have liked, especially about trouble shooting. The
information was simply not there. We understand that CBIS is
working on an updated and expanded manual.
The moral of this brief tale is to be wary about who you purchase
a CD-ROM LAN system from. In many cases, you will know as much,
if not more, than a local vendor. Chances are that, unless CD-
ROM LAN activity is high in your area, you will be a local
store's only customer. This gives the local vendor little
incentive to spend much time training its staff to service the
CD-ROM networking product. Even if you deal directly with the
manufacturer, networking CD-ROMs remains new enough that complete
documentation may not be available. Although CD-ROM LAN systems
are proliferating and some installations are several years old,
the library community is probably somewhere near the end of the
early adopter stage of CD-ROM LAN use.
+ Page 53 +
Network Hardware
The hardware for our CD-ROM LAN is fairly straightforward. Table
1 provides specific information about network servers and
workstations. We decided to try a mix of workstations to see
what hardware gave the best performance at the lowest cost.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 1. Network Hardware.
1. Network Server.
25 MHz, zero-wait-state, 80386-based microcomputer with 4 MB of
memory (1 MB DOS, 1 MB RAMdisk, and 2 MB cache); 1.2 MB, 5 1/4"
disk drive; 40 MB hard disk; amber monochrome monitor; dot-matrix
printer; and Accton 8-bit Ethernet card.
2. CD-ROM Server.
25 MHz, zero-wait-state, 80386-based microcomputer with 4MB of
memory; 1.2 KB, 5 1/4" disk drive; amber monochrome monitor; and
8-bit Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card.
3. Workstations.
Four 4.77 MHz, 8088-based microcomputers each with 640 KB of
memory; 2 360 KB, 5 1/4" disk drives; 20 MB hard disk; CGA
monitor; dot-matrix printer; and 8-bit Accton Ethernet card.
Two 12 MHz, 80286-based microcomputers each with 1 MB of memory;
360 KB, 5 1/4" disk drive; 40 MB hard disk; VGA monitor; dot-
matrix printer; and 8-bit Accton Ethernet card.
Three 20 MHz, 80386-based microcomputers each with 1 MB of
memory; 1.2 MB, 5 1/4" disk drive; 1.4 MB, 3.5" disk drive; 40 MB
hard disk; VGA monitor; dot-matrix printer; and 8-bit Accton
Ethernet card.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Network-OS can operate as a peer-to-peer or dedicated server
system. Thus, any node on the network may function as only a
workstation, a dedicated server, or a combination server and
workstation. Network-OS does not require a dedicated server to
run the network; however, response time is so sluggish with a
non-dedicated server that trying to save a few dollars this way
may negatively affect users' attitudes towards the system, not to
mention overall system performance. The CD Connection machine
must be a dedicated server.
+ Page 54 +
Our CD Server/386 does not require a hard disk. The server has
seven Hitachi CD-ROM drives--the maximum number of CD-ROM drives
that can be in the machine. A CD Server/SU tower is attached to
the CD Server/386. This unit contains seven more Hitachi CD-ROM
drives. At this time, we have eleven of the fourteen drives
loaded and operating over the LAN. Since installation in
January, we've had to replace one of the Hitachi drives (it was
still under warranty). CBIS has recently switched to NEC CD-ROM
drives. The CD Server/386 can operate with two extension towers,
for an total of 21 CD-ROM drives. Although CBIS assures us we
will see no degradation in performance, I remain skeptical that
the CD Server/386 can adequately run 21 CD-ROM drives with the
same level of performance as when it is running 7 drives.
Having run the network for four months with a mix of
microcomputer workstations, we can make the following
recommendations about minimum workstation hardware for similar
CD-ROM LANs.
XT-class machines are simply too slow. Up to 30 or 40 seconds
can pass while you wait for a database to load. Basic
workstation memory (640 KB) is barely adequate for CD-ROM
applications on the LAN. Adding extra memory to the XT-class
machine is time consuming--XTs were simply not designed with this
kind of expansion in mind.
A minimum of 1 MB memory is needed for each workstation. Be wary
of how that 1 MB is divided up. The 80386-based HP machines we
purchased have 1 MB of memory, but the memory above 640 KB is
called "reserved" memory. Basically, this means it is reserved
for machine-specific functions like the ROM BIOS and video
drivers. We are unable to load any application software (like
our network menu program) in that memory space.
We believe that a minimum workstation configuration is a 12 MHz
80286-based microcomputer with 1 MB memory, a hard drive (40 MB
seems to be standard in new machines lately), at least one floppy
drive for loading software and giving patrons the option of
downloading search results, and a VGA color monitor. When budget
permits, our preference is to go with 80386-based workstations.
As prices come down on these units, they may become our basic
workstation. We prefer VGA color monitors because most CD-ROM
databases have wonderful interface screens that look best on VGA
monitors. Having a high-resolution screen display can reduce eye
fatigue, especially for long CD-ROM sessions.
+ Page 55 +
We feel that having printers available on CD-ROM LAN workstations
is also important. Each workstation on our LAN includes a 9-pin,
dot-matrix printer. As the number of workstations grows, we may
explore sharing a printer among a cluster of three or four
stations; however, we feel that having dedicated printers for
each workstation is easier for patrons. Although we haven't done
a time study, our sense is that dedicated printers reduce the
total time that users spend at workstations.
Network Software
Table 2 gives a summary of the network software we are using to
support LAN operations. We also tried Borland's Sprint word
processing software, which successfully ran on the network.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2. Network Software
1. CD Connection (CBIS)
2. MSCDEX (Microsoft)
3. Network-OS (CBIS)
4. PC Anywhere (DMA, Inc.)
5. Perfect Menu (International Computer Group)
----------------------------------------------------------------
I've already mentioned that we are running Network-OS, a NETBIOS
compatible package, as the LAN operating system. If you are
familiar with MS DOS, this is an easy package to install and
maintain. However, I don't mean a passing acquaintance with DOS,
but an intimate and loving relationship. Fortunately, we have a
person on our staff who has such a knowledge of MS DOS. This has
made life on the LAN front much easier. We had the network
running the same day we installed the Network-OS software. It
took a little over a day to install the CD Connection software on
two workstations, and about one week to get it fully operational.
All this activity was preceded by several days of reviewing the
manuals.
+ Page 56 +
It was the small things that slowed us down. For example, the
Ethernet cards, which were supplied by CBIS, contained no
documentation, and we had to experiment to find out what the
cards' configurations should be. A call to CBIS requesting
documentation brought no results.
When we needed additional Ethernet cards, we went directly to the
card manufacturer and purchased the cards at the same price that
CBIS had charged us. Each card from the manufacturer came with a
manual and diagnostic software.
We installed Perfect Menu to use as a network menu system. It
provided a good user interface, had good security, and was easy
to modify. It could operate in resident or nonresident mode.
Nonresident mode is an option if memory is tight, but it really
slows down performance as you wait for the software to unload and
load before and after you use a CD-ROM database. On 8088-based
workstations, operating Perfect Menu in nonresident mode gives
you time to get a cup of coffee while the menu comes up. We run
the main menu functions off the network server.
Perfect Menu provides some useful utilities such as metering,
which allows us to limit the number of workstations that can
simultaneously access a CD-ROM database. This may prove helpful
for CD-ROM vendors whose licenses restrict the number of
simultaneous users of their products. We also make use of a
timeout feature, which allows us to shut down the network at
night and turn it back on the next morning. Perfect Menu also
provides some user statistics, such as the total time an
application was loaded at a workstation.
Currently, we are installing a remote workstation at our
Biomedical library, which is about one mile from the main
library. We are using the PC Anywhere software to support this
workstation. This software allows a remote computer to access
the network through any network node that is running a copy of PC
Anywhere and has a communications port. Using two LAN drivers,
we have connected our Biomedical library workstation via a
dedicated line to a LAN workstation in the main library.
Essentially, the remote computer will use this LAN workstation as
a slave unit. We will also use PC Anywhere as way to provide
dial-access to the network.
This remote-access arrangement for our Biomedical library is an
inelegant solution at best. When a campus-wide fiber optic LAN
is installed, we will replace the current remote-access method
with a direct connection via the fiber optic LAN. In the
meantime, we will experiment with PC Anywhere.
+ Page 57 +
We are deciding whether or not to continue to use the Network-OS
operating system. On the positive side, Network-OS, which has an
MS DOS base, has been fairly easy to install and maintain. On
the negative side, the software doesn't have all the features
that a network operating system such as Novell Advanced Netware
offers. For example, we had to purchase a separate menu software
package (Perfect Menu) to provide a reasonable user interface.
Netware comes with a built-in menu utility. There are also
inherent memory limitations in an MS DOS environment. My
personal preference would be for a UNIX system. However, it is
still difficult to use CD-ROM databases with UNIX.
Installation of CD-ROM Databases on the Network
Loading CD-ROM databases on the network was been done on a case-
by-case basis. Some CD-ROM databases worked immediately, some
didn't run at all, and others required considerable tinkering
before they ran. We often found that claims of compatibility
between CD Connection and specific CD-ROM databases were only
partially true. For example, we were told that the Cambridge
Scientific products would run on the LAN. Indeed they did, but
only if the CD-ROM database in question was in the first drive in
the server. This was fine--until we had another CD-ROM that also
required placement in the first drive. Working with both CBIS
and Cambridge, we have finally overcome this limitation, and soon
we will be mounting two Cambridge CD-ROMs on the LAN.
Table 3 shows the CD-ROM databases that we have tested on the
network. Only ABI/INFORM OnDisc has failed to run on the
network.
+ Page 58 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 3. CD-ROMs Tested on the LAN
1. ABI/INFORM OnDisc (UMI)
2. Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific)
3. Government Documents Catalog Service (Auto-Graphics)*
4. LaserCat (WLN)*
5. Life Sciences Collection (Cambridge Scientific)
6. Magazine Index Plus (Infotrac)
7. OnDisc ERIC (Dialog)*
8. Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (Wilson)
* Software currently runs on workstations
----------------------------------------------------------------
University Microfilm's CD-ROM products have been a perplexing
problem. I've seen the UMI products running on a LAN; however,
none of their CD-ROMs would run on the CBIS system. It was only
after we had the LAN operating that UMI and CBIS exchanged
software to try to achieve compatibility. This did not seem to
be a high priority for either of them, so we call them regularly
to remind them of our need.
Currently, the UMI CD-ROM databases are still not working with
the CBIS system. We have the ABI/INFORM OnDisc CD-ROM locally
loaded at one workstation. This workstation has access to all
other databases on the LAN, except LaserCat. The LaserCat
software conflicts with the UMI software.
Providing LAN access to CD-ROMs from different vendors can be
challenging. Unless they employ CD-ROMs from different vendors,
tests reported in the literature and vendor demonstrations may
not give you an accurate picture of CD-ROM network products.
What runs well in an single-vendor CD-ROM LAN could cause
problems in a multiple-vendor LAN. Part of the problem may stem
from the original design of CD-ROMs as single-user products.
Some CD-ROM software packages are still not ready for a multiple-
user, multiple-product LAN environment.
+ Page 59 +
Of the CD-ROM products we have tried, those by Auto-Graphics
(Government Documents Catalog Service), Dialog (OnDisc ERIC), and
Infotrac (Magazine Index Plus) have run immediately without
problems. Products by WLN (LaserCat), Cambridge Scientific (Life
Sciences Collection and Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts),
and Wilsondisc (Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature) have run
after some manipulation on our part and calls to CBIS and the CD-
ROM vendor. LaserCat in particular drinks up memory like a
thirsty man in Death Valley. Occasionally, parts of the LaserCat
program remain in memory after the program has been unloaded,
reducing available memory at the workstation. The only way out
of this situation is to reboot of the workstation.
Our biggest problem with getting CD-ROM products to run on the
network has been loading and unloading MSCDEX. Some software
packages require MSCDEX on each workstation, others don't.
Trying to save as much memory as possible, we don't want anything
loaded that doesn't have to be in memory. A few utilities are
available to unload MSCDEX automatically, but they also reboot
the machine--a condition we don't want on the LAN, particularly
if the machine being rebooted is a server. Currently, the only
CD-ROM software we run on the network server is the searching
software from Cambridge Scientific. We are close to solving the
automatic loading and unloading of MSCDEX, but this effort has
required intensive work with DOS.
Our main approach to CD-ROM vendors is to tell them that a
requirement for purchasing or subscribing to their product (or
continuing to do so) is that it run on our LAN. While some
compatibility problems persist, I believe most of them will be
resolved.
The larger problem is obtaining CD-ROM LAN licenses. Pricing for
these licenses has been all over the board, from no extra charge,
to blanket-license fees for x number of workstations, to a per-
workstation charge, to doubling the subscription fee (we returned
that CD-ROM). Some license agreements extend only to LANs
operating within a single building. Some vendors with this
restriction have allowed us to include our Biomedical Library.
Soon, we will run into problems as we try to extend access to our
LAN beyond the confines of our immediate campus.
In short, CD-ROM producers are not yet prepared to handle network
license agreements for their products. I see licensing as the
critical problem facing CD-ROM networking. The rest of the
problems are technical issues which, while momentarily vexing,
are not unexpected given that this is a new technology. I
believe those vendors who do not adapt their products, their fee
structures, and their licensing agreements for a network
environment will see their market share shrink.
+ Page 60 +
Conclusion
We have been satisfied with our excursion into the world of CD-
ROM networking. We currently have five public workstations up, a
workstation at our reference desk, one in our online searching
room, and two in administrative offices. Soon, we will have a
remote site at our Biomedical library. Our plans are to expand
both the number of workstations and the number of CD-ROM
databases. Our current strategy is to add multiple copies of a
CD-ROM database if and when demand for that database slows down
network performance. We also plan to install a bridge to the
campus-wide LAN and a dedicated communications server with
multiple dial-up ports. We have already placed an order for
another CBIS server.
User response has been extremely positive. With little fanfare
and minimum help, our patrons appear have taken to the LAN well.
We are developing easy-to-use online help screens and integrating
the use of the LAN into our Library Skills course. Generally, if
a user has no problems utilizing a microcomputer, the user has no
problem employing the LAN.
The CBIS system we installed has worked fairly well; however, we
are fortunate to have experienced technical people on our staff.
CD-ROM network systems are not yet turnkey operations. I did not
discuss the work involved in installing the LAN itself. We spent
as much time installing cable as we did installing software and
hardware.
CD-ROM producers are only slowly responding to the new world of
CD-ROM networking. Their actions will greatly influence how
quickly or how slowly libraries progress with CD-ROM networking.
Hopefully, we can all work together to make CD-ROM networking a
commonplace reality.
+ Page 61 +
About the Author
Steve Smith
Rasmuson Library
University of Alaska at Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
FNSLS@ALASKA
----------------------------------------------------------------
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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is copyright (C) 1990
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This article is copyright (C) 1990 by Steve Smith. All rights
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Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
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----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Page 4 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wilson, Thomas C. "Zen and the Art of CD-ROM Network License
Negotiation." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2
(1990): 4 - 14.
----------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 Introduction
Multi-user access is one of the fastest growing areas of the
CD-ROM marketplace. Since several library sites have tested the
merger of multiple technologies to build such networks, clearly
it is technologically possible to provide either in-house or
remote networked access to some CD-ROM databases.
As with many experiments in library automation, the technological
hurdles that must be overcome belong to the first stage of the
process and, complicated though they may be, do not represent the
totality of the problem. License agreements represent another
challenging area in the universe of CD-ROM networking. The first
indication of the complexity at hand is the lack of standard
methods for initiating, negotiating, or determining such
arrangements. Each vendor is likely to produce a unique license
agreement and, in some cases, is likely to have different
arrangements with each institution, regardless of the similarity
of their network environments.
CD-ROM network license agreements are also frequently extensions
of or riders to existing single-use agreements, not separately
designed legal documents. This situation is further complicated
by the implied separation of licenses for data and licenses for
software. Additionally, some agreements require that the
established relationship be held in confidence, thereby limiting
customers' ability to learn how others have handled specific
licensing dilemmas. It is clear that this segment of the
information industry has not fully matured.
End-users, network managers, database producers, and product
vendors all approach licensing issues from different
perspectives. Even within these groups opinions, policies, and
procedures vary greatly. It is also the case that none of these
groups have a corner on clarity or sensibility. The issues are
often fraught with philosophically opposing motivations, but that
is not to say that compromises can not be made. This paper will
outline several descriptive categories of CD-ROM network license
arrangements available in the marketplace at this time and will
attempt to examine and clarify some of their pitfalls.
+ Page 5 +
2.0 Context of CD-ROM License Agreements
To establish a context for CD-ROM license agreements, it may be
helpful to view them as an outgrowth of two other related types
of licenses--commercial microcomputer software licenses (e.g.,
dBase IV, Lotus 1-2-3, and WordPerfect) and large-scale database
licenses (e.g., Current Contents, INSPEC, and Magazine Index).
In the former, it is use of the software that is granted under
certain stipulations, primarily concerned with the number of
users, workstations, or program copies. In the later, similar
concerns remain; however, since software is an entirely separate
entity that is purchased or leased from another vendor, the
primary limitation is on access to or use of data.
CD-ROM products represent a combination of software and data.
As such, one would expect that the process of licensing would be
straightforward in terms of dealing with a single entity (e.g.,
database producer, vendor, or jobber). Frequently, this is not
the case, since the CD-ROM marketplace is filled with a variety
of combinations of data gatherers and compilers, software
developers and marketers, publishers, and product vendors and
jobbers, each with some involvement in the process.
It may also be helpful to understand that most current CD-ROM
database products are extensions of online files. While there
are a growing number of products that followed a different
development path (e.g., Microsoft Bookshelf), most of the
products of interest to large-scale centralized information
centers are and will be databases that have been previously
available in some online format or have existed in machine-
readable format for other purposes (e.g., preparation for
traditional print publishing).
The major implication of this developmental history is the role
that database producers play in CD-ROM network licensing. The
role is somewhat schizophrenic in that, while they certainly want
users to gain access to the valuable knowledge stored in their
particular databases, database producers also want to recover the
cost of producing the databases and, if they are a commercial
company, to make a profit. The later economic concern inherently
limits CD-ROM networking to customers for whom the cost of access
to the data is less than its applied value.
+ Page 6 +
Since distributing data in CD-ROM format may reduce the demand
for online access to equivalent files, many database producers
are leery of providing broad-based access to CD-ROM products in a
local environment, particularly when "local" means a campus-wide
LAN with dial-access capability and connections to wide-area
networks. By behaving in this manner, database producers
frequently present a somewhat inconsistent image to institutions
that wish to license CD-ROM products for network access.
3.0 Categories of License Agreements
The result of this complex scenario is that a variety of network
license arrangements exist in the marketplace. Two general
issues are involved in these licenses, restrictions and pricing.
3.1 Restrictions
Typically, a CD-ROM network licensing agreement will indicate the
legal network location or the legal number of registered users,
simultaneous users, or workstations on the network. If the
agreement is numerically oriented, the method of measuring these
users or workstations may vary, but usually will stipulate the
exact number or specify ranges within which the network must
operate.
3.1.1 Registered Users
Some license agreements identify by name the individuals who are
permitted to have access to a particular product. While an
arrangement such as this may work in an organizational
environment where information needs are clearly and fairly
predetermined, most libraries and information centers would find
this type of agreement unacceptable since most do not identify
users individually in terms of utilizing particular resources.
+ Page 7 +
3.1.2 Number of Workstations
License agreements that limit the number of network workstations
are more amenable to standard library practice. It is possible
to identify honestly how many workstations have access to a
network, provided there is no gateway, bridge, or dial-in access
to that network. However, this restriction is problematic for
libraries that wish to provide convenient access to clients from
homes and offices through dial-in or wide-area network
strategies. In many cases, it would be difficult or impossible
to count effectively the total number of workstations having
access to the network. Furthermore, since the method of counting
has financial implications, it does not make sense to assume that
every workstation that has access to every resource on the
network will use every resource on the network.
3.1.3 Number of Potential Users
A variant of limiting the number of workstations on the network
is restricting the number of potential users on the network.
This number is even more difficult to count than the total number
of workstations on an open network. Fortunately, the number of
potential users has not been a common restriction with CD-ROM
networking. It is found more frequently in mainframe-oriented
database license agreements. But it may become an issue with CD-
ROM licensing. Aside from the practical impossibility of
determining this number, such an approach also confuses
potentiality with reality. If faced with this type of
restriction, it may be wiser for librarians to seek other
databases with more realistic license agreements.
+ Page 8 +
3.1.4 Simultaneous Users
Stipulating the number of simultaneous users of a product is
another common CD-ROM network license restriction. Simultaneous
use is defined as the use of a specific product at the same time;
it is not measured by simultaneous disk access or keyboard
activity. If a user enters a CD-ROM product, the user will be
counted as one user until the user leaves that product entirely.
This method is based on the assumption that, through the network
software, access to any given resource can be limited to a set
number of simultaneous users. This type of arrangement
establishes a maximum number of simultaneous users, regardless of
the number of workstations on the network. Restrictions of this
sort appear to be approaching a happy medium between identifying
specific users on one extreme and paying for universal access on
the other. In an arrangement such as this, institutions also
retain the freedom to expand the size and nature of a network
without the necessity of re-negotiating licensing agreements with
each vendor, providing the number of simultaneous users remains
the same.
3.1.5 Network Location
Some CD-ROM network licensing agreements stipulate a spacial
restriction rather than a numeric one. In this category, the
licensee may have any number of workstations on the network as
long as they all reside in the same physical building and no
access is granted beyond the physical building housing the
network. This is actually fairly common in CD-ROM network
licenses, although it is quite rare for commercial software like
Lotus 1-2-3. Frequently, this is an additional stipulation along
with one of the other licensing restrictions mentioned above.
While this restriction eliminates external access, it does grant
high levels of freedom within a given physical space. License
agreements with restrictions such as this become more complicated
in cases where libraries house computer equipment in separate
buildings (e.g., computing centers, branch libraries, and out-
buildings). Clearly, this is an area requiring attention in
order to make CD-ROM networking a realistic option in many
libraries.
+ Page 9 +
3.1.6 User Affiliation
Many single-user CD-ROM license agreements carry a restriction
that stipulates that only individuals who are affiliated with the
licensing organization may have access to the product. Since
libraries rarely require that users identify themselves before
using information resources, this license restriction is
problematic for both single-user and multi-user settings. Once
this situation is expanded to include remote access, the ability
to monitor the relationship between user and organization becomes
less controllable.
3.2 Pricing
Just as the restrictions placed on licensees vary greatly so do
the pricing structures for networking CD-ROM databases. In
general, there are four categories.
3.2.1 No Additional Fee
Some vendors will permit licensees to mount their CD-ROM
databases on a local area network without incurring additional
cost. Surprisingly, there are several companies that have
pursued this pricing scheme. Certainly it does encourage those
who can afford to install a LAN to do so using these vendors'
products. Usually this type of pricing scheme is married to the
physical building restriction mentioned above, effectively
limiting the scope of the network while still providing multi-
user access.
3.2.2 Base Plus Percentage
All CD-ROM databases have a base purchase or subscription fee.
To network some products requires an additional charge figured as
a percentage of the base fee. These percentages typically range
from 50% to 100% (i.e., twice the base price), but they can
exceed 100%. The agreement typically stipulates a range for the
number of users or workstations. For example, two to ten users
or workstations on the network might be charged at base plus 50%,
while eleven to twenty users or workstations might be charged at
base plus 100%.
+ Page 10 +
3.2.3 Base Plus Fixed Fee
This category is a variant of the previous one. Instead of the
additional cost being figured as a percentage of the base, it is
a set fee per user or workstation. These users or workstations
may be counted in a variety of ways: registered users,
simultaneous users, potential users, permitted workstations, or
total workstations. For example, if a network permitted five
simultaneous uses of a given database, the cost would be base
plus five times the additional fee. These fees range from $20 or
$30 to several hundred dollars per user or workstation.
3.2.4 Separate Structure
In some cases, the pricing structure for CD-ROM network licenses
is completely different than the pricing structure for single-
user licenses for the same product. The price range for multi-
user access is usually significantly higher.
3.3 Combinations of Restrictions in License Agreements
Given that there appear to be six categories of restrictions and
four pricing schemes, statistically there could be up to twenty-
four different combinations of licensing arrangements considering
just these two factors.
In reality, there are probably even more possibilities, since
individual database producers or vendors may include variations
on these themes. It is no wonder that the existing CD-ROM
networks tend to be limited to relatively few products or
multiple products from the same database producer or vendor.
Implementing a larger LAN that provides access to a wide array of
CD-ROM resources may require difficult negotiations and may
result in a myriad of agreements, each with its own unique
limitations.
+ Page 11 +
4.0 The University of Houston Libraries' Experience
As part of the University of Houston Libraries' Intelligent
Reference Information System (IRIS) Project [1], library staff
investigated the network licensing policies of numerous CD-ROM
vendors. In 1989, the University of Houston Libraries were
awarded a $99,852 Research and Demonstration Grant from the U.S.
Department of Education's College Library Technology and
Cooperation Grants Program to develop and study a prototype IRIS
system that combines expert system and CD-ROM network
technologies (federal funds will pay for 51% of the estimated
costs of project).
Between December 1989 and January 1990, twenty-one database
producers or vendors, representing fifty-three databases, were
contacted for license information. Two of the 53 databases were
not available for networking at the time of this survey. One of
these is now available for network licensing on a case-by-case
basis through an interim policy.
Table 1 indicates how these databases fit into the restriction
categories and pricing schemes mentioned above. The numbers
represent databases, not producers or vendors, since licensing
agreements vary from database to database, even from the same
producer or vendor. The total is more than the number of
databases represented because some producers and vendors offer
more than one networking option and some have multiple
restrictions. Given the University of Houston Libraries' single-
building network environment, license restrictions based on the
number of potential users were not relevant, and they are not
included in Table 1.
+ Page 12 +
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 1. CD-ROM License Restrictions and Pricing
PRICING RESTRICTIONS
Reg. # of Simul. Net. User
User Wks. Users Loc. Affil.
No Fee 0 0 0 25 21
Base + % 0 12 2 15 15
Base + Fee 2 2 5 0 6
Separate 0 4 0 3 2
Total 2 18 7 43 44
----------------------------------------------------------------
5.0 Conclusion
Out of this rather complicated matrix, is there one clear option
that could serve in all situations? Probably not! In fact, it
is the existence of options in the marketplace that suggests that
different libraries and database producers have different needs
and desires. Having a variety of combinations of restrictions
and pricing schemes permits more libraries to consider CD-ROM
networks than if there were only one solution. However, the
variety occurs at the global level (i.e., as one considers all
vendors and producers). If any single vendor or producer is
examined, the results are likely to include one or, at most, two
options.
+ Page 13 +
Despite the already complex nature of CD-ROM licensing
agreements, more flexibility is needed from producers and
vendors. For libraries to buy into networking arrangements,
database producers and vendors must not view libraries as one
monolithic entity. What works in one instance will not work in
another. It would be helpful to have several options from each
vendor or producer to create solutions that are truly effective.
Restrictions and pricing schemes are necessary components of the
symbiotic commercial relationship between database producers and
libraries, but alternatives that facilitate the operational
management of LANs are more likely to succeed. Short of this
end, CD-ROM networking will remain limited in scope, not
necessarily because of the cost entailed, but rather because of
the difficulty in managing multiple resources with unique and
binding license restrictions.
Notes
1. Charles W. Bailey, Jr. and Kathleen Gunning, "The Intelligent
Reference Information System: An Expert System to Select
Networked CD-ROM Databases and Other Reference Resources,"
CD-ROM Librarian 5 (September 1990), forthcoming.
+ Page 14 +
About the Author
Thomas C. Wilson
Coordinator of Computerized Information Retrieval Services
University Libraries
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-2091
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