Transcript No Slide Title

SUNCAT
the UK Serials UNion CATalogue
Report of Plans & Progress to the Phase 1 Libraries
Peter Burnhill
director, EDINA national data centre
on behalf of
the SUNCAT Project Partners: University of Edinburgh & Ex Libris
Presentation Overview
Who? (Introductions)
Sponsors, Project Partners & Team
What? (The SUNCAT)
Background
An Actual, as ‘Preview’
How? (The Project)
Strategy
Project progress
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Sponsors
• The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
• The Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP)
SUNCAT Steering Committee
Chair: Professor Derek Law (JCCS; UofStrathclyde)
Secretary: Chris Awre (JISC)
with representatives of the JISC, the RSLP, the British
Library and the wider academic community
JISC
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Project Partnership
Project Partners:
University of Edinburgh (Lead Partner; EDINA/EUL)
Ex Libris
Associate Partners:
National Library of Scotland
University of Glasgow
Libraries at Oxford University
Libraries at Cambridge University
Contributing (Phase 1) Partners:
The larger university & research libraries in the UK
About 22 in total
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Project Team
Project Manager: Dr Leah Halliday
ALEPH/Systems: Dr Noam Kaminer & Julia Goldshtein (Ex Libris)
User Requirements: Liz Stevenson (EUL)
with Tony Kidd (Glasgow Univ Library)
Project Officer (50%): Nathalie Schulz *
Special Advisor: Slawek Rozenfeld **
Bibliographic Quality Advisory Group: Chair, Alason Roberts (EUL)
Hugh Taylor (Cambridge), Susan Miles (Oxford), John Nicklen (NLS),
Hugh Croll (EUL), Slawek Rozenfeld & Nathalie Schulz (EDINA)
* Her other 50% is as Secretary to Revision Committee for AACR
** He was formerly Head of Computing at ISSN-IC
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Team Strength: Commitment to Serials
• service-imperative & project competence
eg EDINA with SALSER, CASA & links to European union catalogues,
SUNCAT Scoping Study, ISSN authority file, JOIN-UP & inter-working with
others in JISC Information Environment
• expertise in database and linking technologies
eg Ex Libris with cost-effective solutions & leading-edge experience of ‘nonproprietary’ inter-operability in global information industry
• expertise in serials cataloguing, MARC21
eg Heads of Serials & Cataloguing at NLS, Oxford, Cambridge & Edinburgh +
other experts
• expertise in ‘coal-face’ needs, nationally & locally
eg EUL & GUL with collection & use; electronic; print; DocDel; UKSG,
Journals Working Group, UKNUC Feasibility Study, SALSER
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SUNCAT: Overall Aims & Timetable
1. Key online UK facility for researchers, whether staff or student, to
locate journals & the like [in other than their local university library]
2. Central source of high-quality records that enables cost-effective
upgrade of local records at UK university and college libraries
Timetable:
•
Go-ahead for Phase 1 (two-years) was given in February 2003.
20+ larger research libraries
•
Prepare for Phase 2, two-years from January 2005.
200+ libraries in higher education
•
Aim for a test service during this calendar year, 2003.
•
‘Quick-start’ strategy depends upon your co-operation and support.
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Background to SUNCAT (1)
quality of serials data is fundamental
- to effective operation of UK digital library
- for both delivery of electronic content & location of print.
• Present state is highly variable and mostly poor
• Need for UK ‘locate’ facility for physical collections of serials
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Background to SUNCAT (2)
The UKNUC Feasibility & SUNCAT Scoping Studies
– overview and spur to action; established that SUNCAT is
both wanted and feasible
• We are building on this in our ‘user requirements’
– key role for ISSN as linch-pin in the serials value chain
– use of CONSER as means to upgrade local records
– SUNCAT to fit within JISC Information Environment
ITT: the national serials union catalogue for the UK
education and research community
– an information source & a ‘shared service’
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Defining SUNCAT
 ‘A modern serials union catalogue, not a document supply business’
‘Serials-level information, not article level information’
1. UK ‘locate’ facility for (physical) collections of serials
2. Source of high quality records to enhance local catalogues
Focus on print holdings (hence Humanities) & on STM (hence recent)
- but that means older material matters, but also can’t ignore electronic
•
a ‘physical’ core of centralised, slowly-changing information:
eg description + location (who has what serial?)
•
linked to distributed, more rapidly-changing information, stored locally
eg circulation status
•
linked via BALSA to JOIN-UP & other services
–
to be used by, and to make use of, other services in JISC IE
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Designing & Building SUNCAT (1)
•
We have examined what a Serials UNion CATalogue needs,
in terms of:
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•
•
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[serials] information content
scope [what is the union to be of?]
functionality [users and uses + performance characteristics]
We see the key success factors for SUNCAT as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
critical mass in terms of serials coverage
high quality bibliographic records, including the ISSN
the means to enable cost-effective upgrade of local records, inc ISSN
a technology platform that will scale
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Important features for a serials union catalogue
• Multilingual content: Multiscript & Bi-Directional
– Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic and CJK in production
• Cataloguing functionality
– Multiple schemas for import
MARC21, UKMARC, UNIMARC,…(other ISO 2709)
– Online/batch conversion/fix routines
e.g. UK-MARC->MARC21
– Automatic Transliteration of Chinese into Pinying
– Field/Record verification
e.g. mandatory, protected, repeated,…
– Augmentation of record
Hierarchical-, Parallel links , external data
– Multi-Lingual Thesaurus
– Indexing on any field
… that the choice of ALEPH allows
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Designing & Building SUNCAT (2)
• We will therefore:
 prioritise the development of data, not of software
 accept de facto definitions of serial (for input)
 deploy ALEPH Union, as extant & proven union
catalogue software
e.g. Californian Digital Library (replacement for ‘Melvyl’)
 aim for a quick-start & an early launch of a pilot service
Glimpse of something prepared earlier …
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Actual Example (taken from CDL)
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Displays Brief Records for ‘Hits’
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Display of Full Record
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Back to Project Planning
• Project manager now transforming ‘indicative
project plan’ into an actual project plan
(due end of April):
• project management structure
• work package leaders
• timetable & target deliverables
• project reporting
• staff recruitment
• contracts & payment
• partnership agreement
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Early activities: Report as at 7th April
1. Data model being reviewed
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Identification
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Bibliographic description/expression
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Holdings: Indicative/Full statement
2. Hardware already in place
Sun Enterprise 6500, called ‘nevis’: 18 processors & 18 Gb memory
3. ALEPH 500 software now installed
First EDINA/Ex Libris meeting in mid-March, next due this coming Friday
4. Orders have been placed for ISSN database & CONSER database
5. Reaching agreement & endorsement on ‘quality’ & standards
Bibliographic Quality Advisory Group held first meeting on Friday 28 March
6. Establishing web ‘presence’ for SUNCAT
7. Now holding our first meeting with the Phase 1 Libraries …
•
nominated contact for each, will follow up with technical enquiries
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‘Quick Start’ data strategy
Install ISSN & CONSER databases as priority
National Library of Scotland database
110,000 records, of which 65,000 are ‘good quality’
longstanding experience of USMARC/MARC21
Libraries at Universities of Oxford & Cambridge as ‘BetaTest’ & ‘proof of
concept’ sites
Consider ‘easy-load’ of ALEPH 500 sites
Nottingham, Bristol & British Library
Identify & resolve technical problems with each Contributing Partner
Determine order and procedures for all Phase 1 participants …
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Contact
www.edina.ac.uk/projects
www.suncat.ac.uk to be website URL
EDINA HelpDesk
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0131 650 3302
Fax: 0131 650 3308
Liz Stevenson (User Requirements)
Leah Halliday (Project Manager)
Peter Burnhill (Project Director)
Chris Awre (JISC Contact)
[email protected]
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