Transcript OACIS Partner Meeting - Yale University Library

OACIS: Overview of a
Collaborative Project
Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials
<http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis>
Presentation by Simon Samoeil
OACIS Project Manager, Yale University
Review of goals
• To create a freely available publicly accessible
web site featuring a continuously updated union
list of Middle Eastern serials
– In all formats (including live web links)
– From 20+ countries (ME as defined by LC)
• To lay foundations for the future, delivering widest
possible information access
– Expanded cooperation and participation
– Document delivery/ILL
– Digitization and preservation
• To create a Union List of Middle East Serials
OACIS Advisory Board
Cornell University
Ohio State University
Universitaets-und Landesbibliothek of
Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle, Germany
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
University of Texas
University of Washington
Yale University
OACIS Participating
Universities
Balamand University, Lebanon
Princeton University
University of Jordan, Jordan
Tishreen University, Syria
OACIS Advisory Board Members
Ali Houissa - Cornell University
Jonathan Rodgers – University of Michigan
Dona Straley- Ohio State University
Abazar Sepehri – University of Texas
Mary St. Germain – University of Washington
Lutz Wiederhold - Universitaets-und Landesbibliothek of
Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle, Germany
William Kopycki– University of Pennsylvania
Why now?
• ME has always been a key part of the world
– Historically, economically, politically
• Scholars and librarians have cooperated on
modest projects
– CRL’s Middle East Microform Project (MEMP)
– Fawzi Khoury and Michele Bates Directory, The
Middle East in Microform, University of
Washington, 1991
– Projects have not been across national
boundaries or via technology
• Need for a significant set of digital building
blocks that don’t exist yet
Origins of OACIS
• US Department of Education Title VI program
activates TICFIA portion in 1999 (stands for
Technological Innovation & Cooperation for
Foreign Information Access)
• All are three-year projects
• 1999-2002 projects funded: Africa, Eurasia,
Japan, Latin America, South Asia
• 2002-2005 projects: Indonesia, Japan, Latin
America, ME, Asia, language teaching,
Africa, South Asia, Tibet
Years of Collaboration
• Year 1: database creation, loading of serial records
– Database expansion in US, Europe, Middle East
• Year 2: explore ILL/document delivery partnerships
• Year 3: create mirror sites, modest digitizing,
identify future phases (such as preservation)
• Year 2-3: internships from ME to work on OACIS
– Will enable participation from home library &
beyond
• Synergies with other Title VI participants
• Presentations at conferences, workshops (ME, DL)
• Assessment by users, measuring success
Today
• OACIS is mostly “On Target, On Time”
• Some travel and internship setbacks because
of volatile political situation
• Recent accomplishments:
– First full partners meeting (in July at Yale University)
– Discovered complementarities of Halle project and
are beginning links to it
– Offer of digitization by Texas
– Prototype launched globally November 10th, 2003
with thousands of bibliographical records
– Interns for 2004 selected (Jordan, Syria)
– Potential intern for 2005 (Lebanon)
Home Page - http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/
Potential Middle Eastern Participants
American University of Beirut
Assad National Library in Syria
American University in Cairo
Arab Institute for Human Rights in Tunisia
National Library of Egypt
Breaking MARC
Data Display Issues
On the Inside
Encoding 101
System Specifications
The Open Source system consists of the following
components:
* Server operating system: Linux 2.4.18 via Red
Hat 8.0
* Web server: Apache 2.0.4
* Database: MySQL 3.23
* Application languages: PHP 4.3.0, JavaScript
2.0, HTML
This system currently runs as a test environment on a
purchased DELL Precision 350 with Intel Pentium 4
(2.26 GHz).
http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/
What’s Next?
•Middle Eastern Interns
-Interns selected
-First intern will concentrate on issues of inputting
non-MARC catalog records into OACIS using
entry forms.
-Second intern will focus on questions of
document delivery
•Adding new participant data
-In February we started adding content from nonpartner institutions at a slow and steady pace so
as not to disrupt continuous project work.
What’s Next?
•Exploring linking and other synergies with our
Halle partner’s MENALIB project
•Fleshing out our thinking and plans for document
delivery
•Fleshing out our thinking and plans for digitizing
•Seeking sustainability