315 TECHNICAL COMMUNICATIONS ISAD/SOLINET TO SPONSOR INSTITUTE "Networks and Networking II; The Pres- ent and Potential" is the theme of an ISAD Institute to be held at the Braniff Place Hotel on February 27-28, 1975, in New Orleans. The sponsors are the Information Science and Automation Division of ALA and the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET). This second institute on net- working will be an extension of the pre- vious one held in New Orleans a year ago. The ground covered in that previous institute will be the point of departure for "Networks II." The purpose of the previous institute was to review the options available in net- working, to provide a framework for iden- tifying problems, and to suggest evalua- tion strategies to aid in choosing alterna- tive systems. While the topics covered in the previ- ous institute will be briefly reviewed in this one, some speakers will take differ- ent approaches to the subject of network- ing, while other speakers will discuss total- ly new aspects. In addition to the papers given and the resultant questions and answers from the floor, a period of round table discussions will be held during which the speakers can be questioned on a per- son-to-person basis. A new feature to ISAD institutes now being planned will be the presence of ven- dors' exhibits. Arrangements are being made with the many vendors and manu- facturers whose services are applicable to networking to exhibit their products and systems. It is hoped that many of them will be interested in responding to this opportunity. The program will include: "A Systems Approach to Selection of Al- ternatives" -Resource sharing-Campo- nents-Communications options-Plan- ning strategy. Joseph A. Rosenthal Uni- versity of California, Berkeley. ' "State of the Nation"-Review of current developments and an evaluation. Brett Butler, Butler Associates. "The Library of Congress, MARC, and Future Developments." Henriette D. Avram, Library of Congress. "Data Bases, Standards and Data Conver- sions" -Existing data bases-Characteris- tics-Standardization-Problems. John F. Knapp, Richard Abel & Co. "User Products"-Possibilities for product creation-The role of user products. Maurice Freedman, New York Public Library. "On-Line Technology"-Hardware and software considerations-Library re- quirements-Standards-Cost considera- tions of alternatives. Philip Long, State University of New York, Albany. "Publishers' View of Networks"-Copy- right-Effect on publishers-Effect on authorship-Impact on jobbers-Facsim- ile transmission. Carol Nemeyer, Asso- ciation of American Publishers. "National Library of Canada"-Current and anticipated developments-Coop- erative plans in Canada-International Cooperation. Rodney Duchesne, Nation- al Library of Canada. "Administrative, Legal, Financial, Orga- nizational and Political Considerations" -Actual and potential problems-Or- ganizational options-Financial com- mitment-Governance. Fred Kilgour, OCLC. Registration will be $75.00 to members of ALA and staff members of SOLINET institutions, $90.00 to nonmembers, and $10.00 to library school students. For hotel reservation information and registration blanks, contact Donald P. Hammer, ISAD, American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; 312-944-6780. 316 Journal of Library Automation Vol. 7/4 December 1974 REGIONAL PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES Indiana Coopemtive Libmry Services Authm·ity The first official meeting of the board of directors of the Indiana Cooperative Li- brary Services Authority (InCoLSA) was held June 4, 1974, at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis. A direct out- growth of the Cooperative Bibliographic Center for Indiana Libraries ( CoBiCIL) Feasibility Study Project sponsored by the Indiana State Library and directed by Mrs. Barbara Evans Markuson, InCoLSA has been organized as an independent not-for-profit organization "to encourage the development and improvement of all types of library service." To date, contracts have been signed by sixty-one public, thirteen academic, four- teen schools and five specfal libraries- a total of ninety-three libraries. InCoLSA is being funded initially by a three-year establishment grant from the U.S. Office of Education, Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) Title I funds. Officers are: president-Harold Ba- ker, head of library systems development, Indiana State University; vice-president- Or. Michael Buckland, assistant director for technical services, Purdue University Libraries; secretary-Mary Hartzler, head of Catalog Division, Indiana State Li- brary; treasurer-Mary Bishop, director of the Crawfordsville Book Processing Center; three directors-at-large--Phil Hamilton, director of the Kokomo Public Library; Edward A. Howard, director of the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Pub- lic Library; and Sena Kautz, director of Media Services, Duneland School Corpo- ration. Stanford's BALLOTS On-Line Files Publicly Available through SPIRES September 16,.1974 The Stanford University Libraries au- tomated technical processing system, BALLOTS (Bibliographic Automation of Large Library Operations using a Time- sharing System) , has been in operation for twenty-two months and supports the acquisition and cataloging of nearly 90 percent of all materials processed. Important components of the BAL- LOTS operations are several on-line files accessible through an unusually powerful set of indexes. Currently available are: a file of Library of Congress MARC data starting from January 1, 1972 (with a gap from May to August 1972); an in-process file of individual items being purchased by Stanford; an on-line catalog (the cata- log data file) of all items cataloged through the system, whether copy was de- rived from Library of Congress MARC data, was input from non-MARC catalog- ing copy, or resulted from Stanford's own original cataloging efforts; and a file of see, see also, and explanatory references (the reference file) to the catalog data file. In addition, during September and October 1974, the 85,000 bibliographic and holdings records (already in machine- readable form on magnetic tape) repre- senting the entire J. Henry Meyer Me- morial Undergraduate Library was con- vmted to on-line Meyer catalog data and Meyer reference files in BALLOTS. These files are publicly available through SPIRES (Stanford Public Infor- mation Retrieval System) to any person with a terminal that can dial up the Stan- ford Center for Information Processing's Academic Computer Services computer (an IBM 360 Model 67) and who has a valid computer account. The MARC file can be searched through the following index points: LC Card Number Personal Name Corporate/ Conference N arne Title The in-process, catalog data, and refer- ence files for Stanford and for Meyer can also be searched as SPIRES public sub- files through the following index points: BALLOTS Unique Record Identifica- tion Number Personal Name Corporate/ Conference Name Title Subject Heading (catalog data and ref- erence file records only) Call Number (catalog data and refer- ence file records only) LC Card Number The title and corporate/ conference name indexes are word indexes; this means that each word is indexed individ- ually. Search requests may draw on more than one index at a time by using the log- ical operators "and," "or," and "and not" to combine index values sought. If you plan to use SPIRES to search these files, or if you would like more in- formation, a publication called Gttide to BALLOTS Files may be ordered by writ- ing to: Editor, Library Computing Ser- vices, S.C.I.P.-Willow, Stanford Univer- sity, Stanford, CA 94305. This document contains complete information about the BALLOTS files and data elements, how to open an account number, and how to use SPIRES to search BALLOTS files. A list of BALLOTS publications and prices is also available on request. As additional libraries create on-line files using BALLOTS in a network en- vironment, these files will also be avail- able. These additions will be announced in ]OLA Technical Commttnications. DATA BASE NEWS Interchange of AlP and Ei Data Bases A National Science Foundation Grant (GN-42062) for $128,700 has been awarded to the American Institute of Physics (AIP), in cooperation with Engi- neering Index ( Ei), for a project entitled "Interchange of Data Bases." The grant became effective on May 1, 1974, for a period of fifteen months. The project is intended to develop methods by which Ei and AlP can reduce their input costs by eliminating duplica- tion of intellectual effort and processing. Through sharing of the resources of the two organizations and an interchange of their respective data bases, AlP and Ei ex- pect to improve the utilization of these computer-readable data bases. The basic requirement for the develop- Technical Communications 317 ment of the interchange capability for computer-readable data bases is the es- tablishment of a compatible set of data elements. Each organization has unique data elements in its data base. It will therefore be necessary to determine which of the data elements are absolutely essen- tial to each organization's services which elements can be modified, and wh~t other elements must be added. Mter the list of data elements has been established, it will be possible to unite the specifications and programs for format conversions from AlP to Ei tape format and vice versa. Simultaneously, there will be the de- velopment of language conversion facil- ities between Ei' s indexing vocabulary and AlP's Physics and Astronomy Classifica- tion Scheme (PACS). It is also planned to investigate the possibility of establish- ing a computer program which can con- vert AlP's indexing to Ei's terms and vice versa. With the accomplishment of the above tasks, it will be possible to create new services and repackage existing services to satisfy the information demands in areas of mutual interest to engineers and physicists, such as acoustics and optics. ERIC Data Base Users Conference The Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) held an ERIC Data Base Users Conference in conjunction with the 37th Annual Meeting of the American So- ciety for Information Science (ASIS) in Atlanta, Georgia, October 13-17, 1974. The ERIC Data Base Users Conference provided a forum for present and poten- tial ERIC users to discuss common prob- lems and concerns as well as interact with other components of the ERIC network: Central ERIC, the ERIC Processing and Reference Facility, ERIC Clearinghouse personnel, and information dissemination centers. Although attendees have in the past been primarily oriented toward ma- chine use of the ERIC files, all patterns of usage were represented at this confer- ence, from manual users of printed in- dexes to operators of national on-line re- h·ieval systems. 318 ]oumal of Library Automation Vol. 7/4 December 1974 A number of invited papers were pre- sented dealing with subjects such as: • The current state and future directions of educational information dissemina- tion. Sam Rosenfeld (NIE), Lee Burch- ina! (NSF). • What services, systems, and data bases are available? Marvin Gechman (In- formation General), Harvey Marron (NIE). • The roles of libraries and industry, re- spectively, in disseminating educational information. Richard De Gennaro (Uni- versity of Pennsylvania), Paul Zurkow- ski (Information Industry Association) . Several organizations (National Library of Canada, University of Georgia, Wiscon- sin State Department of Education) were invited to participate in "Show and Tell" sessions to describe in detail how they are using the ERIC system and data base. A status report covering ERIC on-line ser- vices for educators was presented by Dr. Carlos Cuadra (System Development Cor- poration) and Dr. Roger Summit (Lock- heed). Interactive discussion groups cov- ered a number of subjects including: • Computer techniques-programming methods, use of utilities, file mainte- nance, search system selection, installa- tion, and operation. • Serv:Uig the end user of educational in- formation. • Introduction to the ERIC system- what tools, systems, and services are available and how are they used? • Beginning and advanced sessions on computer searching the ERIC files. On- line terminals were used to demon- strate and explain use of machine ca- pabilities. COMMERCIAL SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENTS SCOPE DATA Inc. ALA Train Compatible Terminal Printers SCOPE DATA Inc. currently is offer- ing a high-speed, nonimpact terminal printer for use in various interactive print- ing applications. Capability can be included in the Se- ries 200 printer as an extra-cost feature to print the eight-bit ASCII character set for ALA character set with 176 characters. For further information contact Alan G. Smith, Director of Marketing, SCOPE DATA Inc., 3728 Silver Star Rd., Orlan- do, FL 32808. Institute for Scientific Information Puts Life Sciences Data Base On-Line through System Development Corporation The Institute for Scientific Information (lSI) has announced that it will collab- orate with System Development Corpora- tion (SDC) to provide on-line, interac- tive, computer searches of the life sciences journal literature. Scheduled to be fully operational by July 1, 1974, the ISI-SDC service is called SCISEARCH® and is de- signed to give quick, easy, and econom- ical access to a large life sciences litera- ture .file. Stressing ease of access, the SDC re- trieval program, ORBIT, permits sub- scribers to conduct extremely rapid liter- ature searches through two-way commu- nications terminals located in their own facilities. Mter examining the preliminary results of their inquiries, searchers are able to further refine their questions to make them broader or narrower. This di- alog between the searcher and the com- puter (located in SDC's headquarters in Santa Monica, California) is conducted with simple English-language statements. Because this system is tied in to a nation- wide communications network, most sub- scribers will be able to link their terminals to the computer through the equivalent of a local phone call. Covering every editorial item from about 1,100 of the world's most important life sciences journals, the service will ini- tially offer a searchable ille of over 400,000 items published between April 1972 and the present. Each month ap- proximately 16,000 new items will be added until the average size of the file to- tals about one-half million items and rep- resents two-and-one-half years ·of cover- age. To assure subscribers maximum re- trieval effectiveness when dealing with this massive amount of information, the data base can be searched in several ways. Included are searches by keywords, word stems, word phrases, authors, and organi- zations. One of the search techniques utilized-citation searching-is an exclu- sive feature of the lSI data base. For every item retrieved through a search, subscribers can receive a complete bibliographic description that includes all authors, journal citation, full title, a lan- guage indicator, a code for the type of item (article, note, review, etc.), an lSI accession number, and all the cited ref- erences contained in the retrieved article. The accession number is used to order full-text copies of relevant items through lSI's Original Article Tear Sheet service (OATS®). This ability to provide copies of every item in the data base distin- guishes the lSI service from many others. Current Library of Congress Catalog On-Line for Reference Searches Information Dynamics Corporation (IDC) has agreed to collaborate with Sys- tem Development Corporation (SDC) to provide reference librarians, researchers, and scholars with on-line interactive com- puter searches of all library materials being cataloged by the Library of Con- gress. Scheduled to be fully operational as of October 1, 1974, the SDC-IDC ser- vice is called SDC-IDC/LIBCON and is designed to give quick, easy, and eco- nomical access to a large portion of the world's scholarly library materials. As in the lSI service described above, the data base can be searched in several ways. Included are compound logic searches by keywords, word stems, word phrases, authors, organizations, and subject headings for most English materials. One of the search techniques utilized-string searching-is an exclusive feature of SDC's ORBIT system. Keyword searching of cat- aloged items including all foreign materi- als processed by the Library of Congress Technical Communications 319 is an exclusive feature of the IDC data base not currently available in other on- line MARC files. For individual items retrieved through a search, subscribers can receive a biblio- graphic description that includes authors, full title, an IDC accession number, the LC classification number, and publisher information. STANDARDS The ISAD Committee on Technical Stan- dards for Library Automation Invites Your Participation in the Standards Game Editor's Note: The TESLA Reactor Bal- lot will be provided in f01'thcoming is- sues. To use, photocopy the ballot fol'm, fill out, and mail to: John C. Kountz, Associate for Library Automation, Of- fice of the Chan{Jellor, The California State University and Colleges, 5670 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 900, Los Angeles, CA 90036. THE PROCEDURE This procedure is geared to handle both reactive (originating from the outside) and initiative (originating from within ALA) standards proposals to provide rec- ommendations to ALA's representatives to existing, recognized standards organiza- tions. To enter the procedure for an initia- tive standards proposal you must complete an "Initiative Standards Proposal" using the outline which follows: Initiative Standard Proposal Outline- The following outline is designed to facili- tate review by both the committee and the membership of initiative standards pro- posals and to expedite the handling of the Initiative Standard Proposal through the procedure. Since the outline will be used for the review process, it is to be followed ex- plicitly. Where an initiative standard re- quirement does not require the use of a specific outline entry, the entry heading is to be used followed by the words "not applicable" (e.g., where no standards exist which relate to the proposal, this is indi- 320 Journal of Library Automation Vol. 7/4 December 1974 cated by: VI. Existing Standards. Not Ap- plicable). Nate that the parenthetical statements following most of the outline entry de- scriptions relate to the ANSI Standards Proposal section headings to facilitate the translation from this outline to the ANSI format. All Initiative Standards Proposals are to be typed, double spaced on 8~~~~ x 11" white paper (typing on one side only) . Each page is to be numbered consecu- tively in the upper right-hand corner. The initiator's last name followed by the key word from the title is to appear one line below each page number. I. Title of Initiative Standard Pro- posal (Title) . II. Initiator Information (Forward). A. Name B. Title C. Organization D. Address E. City, State, Zip F. Telephone: Area Code, Num- ber, Extension III. Technical area. Describe the area of library technology as under- stood by initiator. Be as precise as possible since in large measure the information given here will help determine which ALA offi- cial representative might best handle this proposal once it has been reviewed and which ALA organizational component might best be engaged in the review process. IV. Purpose. State the purpose of Standard Proposal (Scope and Qualifications) . V. Description. Briefly describe the Standard Proposal (Specification of the Standard). VI. Relationship of other standards. If existing standards have been identified which relate to, or are felt to influence, this Standard Proposal, cite them here (Ex- pository Remarks). VII. Background. Describe the re- search or historical review per- formed relating to this Standard Proposal (if applicable, provide a bibliography) and your find- ings (Justification). VIII. Specifications. (Optional) Speci- fy the Standard Proposal using record layouts, mechanical draw- ings, and such related documen- tation aids as required in addi- tion to text exposition where ap- plicable (Specifications of the Standard). Kindly note that the outline is designed to enable Standards Proposals to be writ- ten following a generalized format which will facilitate their review. In addition, the outline permits the presentation of back- ground and descriptive information which, while important during any evaluation, is a prerequisite to the development of a standard. TESLA REACTOR BALLOT Identification Number For Standing Requirement Reactor Information Name-----'----------- TiUe ______________________ ___ Organization --------------- AddrMs _____________ ___ City ___ _ State ___ Zip __ _ TelephoneA 1:-:::-REA::+----~---­ Need (For This Standard) For D Against 0 Specification (A Presented in This Requirement) For 0 Against 0 EXT. Can You Participate In The Development Of This. Standard -.,.---------==----- 0 No D Yes Reason For Position: (Use Format Of Proposal. · Additional Pages Can Be Used If Required) The Reactor Ballot is to be used by members to voice their recommendations relative to Initiative Standards Proposals. The Reactor Ballot permits both "for" and "against" votes to be explained, per- mitting the capture of additional informa- tion which is necessary to document and communicate formal Standards Proposals to standards organizations outside of the American Library Association. As you, the members, use the outline to present your Standards Proposals, TESLA will publish them in JOLA-TC and solicit membership reaction via the Reactor Ballot. Throughout the process TESLA will insure that Standards Pro- posals are drawn to the attention of the applicable American Library Association division or committee. Thus, internal re- view usually will proceed concurrently with membership review. From the review and the Reactor Ballot TESLA will pre- pare a "majority recommendation" and a "minority report" on each Standards Pro- posal. The majority recommendation and minority report so developed will then be transmitted to the originator, and to the official American Library Association representative on the appropriate stan- dards organization where it should prove a source of guidance as official votes are cast. In addition, the status of each Stan- dards Proposal will be reported by TESLA in JOLA-TC via the Standards Scoreboard. The committee (TESLA) it- self will be nonpartisan with regard to the proposals handled by it. However, the committee does reserve the right to reject proposals which after review are not found to relate to library automation. INPUT To the Editor: We have been asked by the members of the ALA Interdivisional Committee on Representation in Machine Readable Form of Bibliographic Information, (MARBI) to respond to your editorial in the June 1974 issue of the Journal of Li- brary Automation. This editorial dealt with the Council of Library Resources' [sic] in- volvement in a wide range of projects, ranging from the sponsorship of a group which is attempting to develop a subset of MARC for use in inter-library exchange Technical Communications 321 of bibliographic data ( CEMBI), to man- agement of a project which has as its goal the creation of a national serials data base, (CONSER), and, more recently, to the convening of a conference of Library and A&I organizations to discuss the outlook for comprehensive national bibliographic control. You raised several legitimate questions: 1) Has sufficient publicity been given to these activities of the Council so that all, not just a few, libraries are aware of what is happening and have an opportunity to exert an influence on developments? and, 2) Is the Council bypassing existing chan- nels of operation and communication? You also suggest that proposals from groups such as CEMBI be channeled through an official ALA committee such as MARBI for intensive review and eval- uation. It should be pointed out that MARBI is not charged with the development of standards. It acts to monitor and review proposals affecting the format and content of machine readable bibliographic data, where that data has implications for na- tional or international use. This applies to proposals emanating from CEMBI and CONSER as well as from other concerned groups. All indications to date are that the Council is fully aware of MARBI's role and will not bypass MARBI. A number of members of MARBI are also members of CEMBI and MARBI is represented on the CONSER project. Also reassuring is the fact that, unless we allow LC to fall by the wayside in its role as the primary creator and distributor of machine readable data, any standards for format or content developed by a Council-sponsored group will eventually be reflected in the MARC records dis- tributed by LC. The Library of Congress has issued a statement, published in the June 1974 issue of JOLA, to the effect that it will not implement any changes in the MARC distribution system which are not acceptable to MARBI. MARBI and LC have worked out a procedure where- by all proposed changes to MARC are submitted to MARBI. They are then pub- lished in ]OLA and distributed to mem- 322 Journal of Library Automation Vol. 7/4 December 1974 hers of the MARC Users Discussion Group for comments. Comments are col- lected and evaluated by MARBI and a re- port submitted to LC, with its recom- mendations. The MARBI review process does not guarantee perfection and there is no as- surance that everyone will be satisfied. Compromise and expediency are the name of the game in this extremely complicated and uncharted area of standards for ma- chine readable bibliographic data. How- ever the Council has undoubtedly learned from the ISBD(M) experience that it cannot make decisions which affect li- braries without the greatest possible in- volvement of librarians. It is the feeling of the MARBI committee members that the Council intends to work with MARBI in future projects which fall into MARBI's area of concern. Velma Veneziano MARBI Past Chairperson Ruth Tighe Chairperson Editor's note: It is gratifying to note that MARBTs response reflects the opinions expressed in the June 1974 editorial. The library community will doubtless. be pleased to learn of CLR's intention to work closely with MARBI.-SKM To the Editor: As briefly discussed with you, yom edi- torial in the June 1974 issue of JOLA is both admirable and disturbing (to me, at least). The problem of national leadership in the area of library automation is a crit- ical problem indeed. Being in the ''boon- docks" and far removed from the scene of action, I can only express to you my perception as events and activities filter through to me. I can remember as far back as 1957 when ADI had a series of meetings in Washington, D.C. trying to establish a national program for biblio- graphic automation. I have been through eighteen years of meetings, committees, conferences, etc. concerned with trying to develop a national plan for bibliograph- ic automation and information storage and retrieval systems. I have worked with NSF, USOE, Department of Commerce, U.S. Patent Office, engineering and tech- nical societies, DOD Agency-the entire spectrum. I spent a good many years working in ADI and ASIS, SLA, and- most recently ALA. At no time were we able to make significant progress towards a national system. Even the great Airlie House Conference did not produce any significant changes in the fragmented, competitive "non-system." It has only been in the recent past since CLR has taken an aggressive posture that I am able to see the beginning of orderly develop- ment of a national automated bibliograph- ic system. I certainly agree that any topic as critical as those being discussed by CEMBI should be in the public domain, but I also believe that the progress made by CEMBI would not have been possible without CLR taking the initiative in get- ting these key agencies together. Thank goodness someone quit talking and started doing something at the national level! I sincerely believe that in the absence of a national library and with the cmrent lack of legally derived authority in this arena, CLR provides a genuine service to the total library community in establish- ing CEMBI. Hopefully, your very excel- lent article (in the same issue of JOLA) on "Standards for Library Automation ... " will help to put the entire issue of bibliographic record standards into per- spective. As a former chemist and corro- sion engineer, I am fully aware of the ab- solute necessity for technical standards. I am also fully aware of the necessity of developing technical standards through the process you outlined in your article. Hopefully, CLR action with CEMBI will expedite this laborious process and help to push our profession forward into the twentieth century. Since we ourselves have not been able to do it through all these years, I am personally grateful that some group such as CLR took the initia- tive and forced us to do what we should have done years ago. Maryann Duggan SLICE Office Di1·ector Editor's note: Positive action and progms- sive movement are, of course, desirable and are often lacking in large organiza- tions. However, posit·ive action without communication of this action to the affect- ed population can only be detrimental. On issues of the complexity of those ad- dressed by CEMBI and CONSER, review by the library community is always use- ful, even though action may be tem- porarily delayed.-SKM To the Editor: On page 233 of the September issue of lOLA there is a report from the Informa- tion Industry Association's Micropublish- ing Committee Chairman (Henry Powell). He states that", .. the committee spelled out several areas of concern to micropub- lishers which will be the subject of com- mittee action .... " One of the concerns of the committee is that a Z39 standards committee has recommended "standards covering what micropublishers can say about their products." (Emphasis mine.) Technical Communications 323 As Chairman of the Z39 Standards Sub- committee which is developing the adver- tising standard referred to, I wish to point out that there is no intention on the part of the Subcommittee to tell micropublish- ers what they can say nor what they may say about their products. The Subcommit- tee, which is composed of representatives from three micropublishing concerns, two librarians, and myself, has from the be- ginning taken the view that the purpose of the standard would be to provide guid- ance for micropublishers and librarians alike. We are most anxious that no one feel that the Subcommittee has any inten- tion of attempting to use the standards mechanism to tell any micropublisher how he must design his advertisements. In ad- dition it should be noted that no ANSI standard is compulsory. Carl M. Spaulding Program Officer Council on Library Resou1·ces