Transcript The concept of a national catalogue Jean Sykes Librarian and Director of

The concept of a national
catalogue
Jean Sykes
Librarian and Director of
Information Services, LSE
Director, CC Interop Project
The UKNUC Feasibility Study
2000 - 2001
• Two surveys: one with academics
and research students, one with
librarians
• System testing, including Z clumps
• Aims: to find out how an UKNUC
might be used, what functions it
could perform, and which
technologies were appropriate
• Sponsors: JISC, RSLP, BL
Concertation Day February 2001 –
a mixed reception
• Was the concept too HE focused?
• Would regional catalogues be
better? Or subject ones?
• What about rare books, archives,
maps, non-print materials?
• Serials important, not monographs
• Waste of public money – just use
BL catalogue and OCLC?
UKNUC report published April 2001
• Physical union catalogue preferred to
“immature” virtual ones
• But UKNUC should be adaptable to
include virtual as technology improved
• Serials issues quite different from
monographs
• Major problem of poor standard of
bibliographic records for serials
• A separate national serials catalogue
strongly recommended – priority 1
UKNUC report continued
• Foundation catalogues to be: COPAC,
BL, 20 cross-sectoral libraries with
collections important to research
• Links to clumps to be incorporated into
foundation architecture from outset along
with Z target accessibility
• Improved resource discovery facilities for
subject, regional, and format searches
• The 20 libraries to represent public
libraries, special libraries, government
and Research Council interests
What about serials?
• To start with BL, NLS, NLW and major
research libraries
• Then some non-CURL libraries and
some small specialist institutions
• Records to be upgraded as part of the
build, and libraries to both input into and
benefit from improvements in
cataloguing standards
• Researchers need access to full text at
article level – link to OpenURL
initiatives?
SUNCAT
• A scoping study was commissioned
in early 2002
• Funding for Phase 1 agreed by
JISC and RSLP in August 2002
• EDINA with Ex Libris and Edinburgh
University Library won the ITT and
were awarded £700k for 2 years
(2003 –2004)
• 22 libraries in first 2 years
SUNCAT continued
• Phase 2 funding approved 2005/06
• 100 + further libraries to be added
• Focus to be on specialist
collections, including older and
rarer materials
• Phase 3 (2006 -) will be the
consolidation phase
• User interface needs more work
Relevant national initiatives
• JISC’s large-scale resource discovery
programme (5/99); 4 clumps projects
• COPAC, funded by JISC and CURL
(1995 -)
• RSLG Report 2003; RLN 2004-07
• JISC’s DNER > Information Environment
• JISC’s eLib3 programme – Stephen
Pinfield’s report January 2001
• “Further research and development work
should be carried out on Z39.50”
Why CC Interop project?
• Clumps projects finishing in 2001
• No further JISC funding for Z39.50
projects
• UKNUC study recommended a place for
Z in a national catalogue as well as
COPAC (in due course)
• RSLG discussing a national catalogue
• Gap in R & D and in funding became
obvious (see Stephen Pinfield)
CC Interop May 2002 to April 2004
• 3 partners: MIMAS, InforM25, and
CDLR
• 3 union catalogues: COPAC,
InforM25 and CAIRNS/RIDING; all
functioning services
• 3 work packages; £227k
• Wp A: COPAC and InforM25
• Wp B: CDLR and RIDING
• Wp C: User behaviour study
What questions were asked?
• How distributed and large physical union
catalogues can interact
• How to use dynamic landscaping to
refine user searches (CLDs to select
sub-sets of catalogue)
• What interoperability standards are
needed
• What can we find out about the
behaviour of users when they search
union catalogues
Overall aims of CC Interop
• Reach conclusions re feasibility of interlinking virtual and physical union
catalogues as part of a national
catalogue
• Identify technical and organisational
issues to be addressed in a national
catalogue
• Inform future developments of a national
catalogue in the context of the RLN and
the Information Environment
More questions than answers
• Like most good research CC Interop
raises more questions than it answers
• The next speakers will outline the
progress made in several aspects of the
project
• Then we will discuss the future: what
further research needs to be done?
• And what do you think are the key
issues?