lib-MOCS-KMC364-20131012114209 (Bath: The Library, 1974-75). 2. Valentine De Bruin, "Sometimes Dirty Things Are Seen on the Screen," Journal of Academic Librarianship 3:256-66 (Nov. 1977). 3. Carolyn M. Cox and Bonnie Juergens, Mi- croform Catalogs: A Viable Alternative for Texas Libraries (Dallas: AMIGOS Biblio- graphical Council, 1977). ERIC Document No. ED 149 739. 4. James R. Dwyer, "Public Response to an Ac- ademic Library Microcatalog," ]ourru~l of Academic Librarianship 5:132-41 Ouly 1979). 5. Brett Butler, Martha W. West, and Brian Aveney, COM Catalog: Use and Evaluation: Report of a Field Study of the Los Angeles County Public Library System (rev. ed.; Los Altos: Information Access Corporation, 1979}, 71p. 6. Theodora Hodges and Uri Bloch, "Fiche or Film for COM Catalogs-Two Use Tests" in Library Effectiveness: A State of the Art (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1980), p.122-30. 7. William Saffady, Computer-Output Micro- film: Its Library Applications (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1978), 190p. 8. Commercial COM Catalogs: How to Choose, When to Buy. Catalog Use Commit- tee, Reference and Adult Services Division, American Library Association. (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1978), 47p. 9. DeBruin, "Dirty Things," p.266. 10. Hodges, "Fiche or Film," p.128. 11. Hodges to Crowley, September 1979. Electronic Order Transmission James K. LONG: OCLC, Inc., Dublin, Ohio. In this era of decreasing library alloca- tion from the public sector, libraries are re- alizing increased benefits from the automa- tion of the acquisitions process. The price of hardware is decreasing and the capabilities of the available offerings increasing. We have evolved from the small local library collection of data and printing of orders, through the book vendor offerings of an on- line connection to a single vendors inven- tory. These systems still required local mail- ing for all other vendor orders. Communications 295 In 1981 we have seen a greater emphasis on electronic ordering. Memorial Univer- sity in Canada has been experimenting in sending orders directly to John Coutts Li- brary Services Ltd. in print format using the UTLAS CATSS System. Wayne State University is planning to use the Ringgold NONESUCH acquisitions system to trans- mit orders electronically to Book House us- ing the BISAC tape format. Blackwell/ North America and the Academic Book Center have experimentally used WLN to receive test orders in a print file format. These all save time in getting the orders to the respective vendor. If sufficient volume can be generated there may be a savings in transmission costs over the U.S. Mail. However, in order to realize maximum economics in this electronic process, four activities need to occur. 1. Acquisition orders must be collected from multiple libraries at a central site to generate volume for dispersal to multiple sites. 2. Standard formats need to be accepted and enforced for order transmission. 3. The ISBN must become a universally accepted part of the library acquisi- tions order. 4. The library must receive order status information from the vendor. Once again, this should occur via a stan- dard data format. At OCLC there were 113 libraries, as of November 1981, thatcouldsendprintedor- ders from a central site to over 15,000 ad- dressesoftheir choice. By July 1982 the pro- jection is for over 200 libraries to be using the system. The library's order is hatched by the vendor address that the library has spec- ified. This process offers savings by sharing mail and printing costs between partici- pants. With the proposed installation of di- rect transmission in 1982, this central col- lection will afford shared transmission costs. This is the type of centralized collec- tion that maximizes the benefits of elec- tronic ordering. Within the book industry, standards for electronic data transmission for book order- ing have been developed. In May of 1981 the Book Industry Systems Advisory Com- mittee (BISAC), a subcommittee of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), ap- 296 Journal of Library Automation Vol. 14/4 December 1981 proved the third version of their purchase order format. This is a simple format with fixed length fields and fixed length records. It was developed for tape transmission of book orders and relies heavily on the use of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for accuracy. ANSI Z39 subcommit- tee U is working on an ANSI purchase order data transmission format for libraries. This effort is in cooperation with BISAC. In 1981 there were nine book vendors using the BISAC purchase order format, including the large retail chains Walden and Dalton. There were also twelve vendors using the BISAC invoice format, five vendors using the title update format, and one vendor us- ing the approved data transmission proto- col (IBM 3780). This book ordering activity and stan- dards use is fine for the book vendors and retailers. But where are the libraries? OCLC plans to use BISAC data transmis- sion protocol and fixed data format in their initial direct transmission effort. However, there are some real problems with these for- mats relative to library needs. First, the for- mats do not provide for serials ordering or renewal. Second, data fields in the format are fixed length. This is a real problem when ordering esoteric publications. Espe- cially since the title and descriptor entries are a single field. Obviously there are many items that a library needs to order that can- not be supported by this current standard. OCLC and DataPhase have representatives on the BISAC purchase order subcommit- tee. This subcommittee is developing a vari- able length P. 0. format. However, if there is to be real cooperation, and the accompa- nying economics, we must have more active participation from the library community. The cataloger has the Library of Con- gress Catalog Number (LCCN). However, this is inadequate for library acquisitions. The ISBN was developed for acquisitions. The ISBN identifies the publishers or cur- rent distributor, the binding, etc., so neces- sary for accurate acquisitions. You can or- der music, maps, recordings, or film by using the ISBN. This is providing you order from a publisher that assigns ISBNs to those materials. It also assumes that you include the ISBN on the order. Baker and Taylor, Brodart, Random House, and McGraw- Hill estimate less than 25 percent of their orders contain an ISBN. Yankee Book, Blackwell/North America, and the Book House report approximately 10 percent use on orders received. A significant number of these ISBNs are incorrect, obsolete, or oth- erwise erroneous. If we are to realize the tremendous economies possible with elec- tronic transmission, we MUST have greater and more accurate use of the ISBN. It is simply uneconomical to transmit all of the data necessary to accurately identify a piece via the cataloging fields and subfields for every order; even if this information were available for ordering. Another standard developed by BISAC is the Standard Address Number (SAN). All library vendors, public, academic, and school libraries have been assigned a SAN. Do you know yours? Do you know the SAN of your vendor? These SANs are available in your libraries' reference sections, as well as the online name-address directories that ac- company the network acquisition systems. If electronic ordering is going to be used most effectively and economically, the SAN plays an important part. It is not economi- cally efficient to transmit hundreds of char- acters of address information. The last item that becomes feasible with electronic transmission is order status infor- mation. The day is gone when we can af- ford to keep thousands of dollars encum- bered with acquisition pieces that are unavailable. The normal practice of auto- matic cancel after sixty or ninety days, keeps those monies committed. How much better would it be to know within twenty- four to forty-eight hours of an order that the material was unavailable. Those funds, that become more dear each year, could be recommitted to more available items. This would be advantageous to both the vendor, the library and ultimately the library pa- tron. Both the BISAC invoice and title up- date formats have potential for use in re- porting. It would be better, however, if we could derive a format specific for title status. In closing, I urge you to use the ISBN and SAN; pursue avenues of collective ordering; and lastly, become active in the standards effort. It is the library that ultimately has the most to gain from a cooperative, coordi- nated, volume-oriented, resource-sharing electronic ordering process. For information relative to BISAC trans- mission formats or BISAC membership, write to: Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee, 160 Fifth Ave., Suite604, New York, NY 10010. For input to BISAC purchase order for- mats, write to: J. K. Long, Chairman, BI- SAC P.O. Subcommittee, c/o OCLC, Inc., 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, OH 43017. (Mr. Long is also the library or network repre- sentative on the ISBN advisory council.) For input to the ANSI Z39 P.O. transmis- sion formats, write to: Mr. E. Muro, Chair- man, Subcommittee U, c/o Baker & Taylor Co., 6 Kirby Ave., Somerville, NJ 08876. For problems with the ISBN and SAN, write to: Mr. Emory I Koltay, Interna- tional Standard Book Numbering Agency, 1180 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 20036. Microcomputer Backup to Online Circulation Sheila INTNER: Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Our primary objective in purchasing microcomputer systems for the Great Neck Library was to provide a better alternative to paper and pencil checkouts when our minicomputer-based CLSI LIBS 100 auto- mated circulation system was down. Two difficult and lengthy downtime periods oc- curring shortly after going online convinced the administration that public service should not be jeopardized because of system failure. After investigation of the backup systems vended by Computer Translation, Inc., 1 two of them were purchased in No- vember 1980. Computer Translation, Inc. (CTI) sells a turnkey backup system based on an Apple II Plus microcomputer, with two mini-disk drives using 5\14 " floppy diskettes, a TV monitor, and a switching system connect- ing the Apple to the LIBS 100 console and terminals. Software designed to interface with the CLSI system is part of the package. The backup collects and stores data for Communications 297 check-ins and checkouts and then dumps them into the database by simulating a ter- minal when the mini-main-frame is opera- tional again. This requires dedicating a ter- minal to this process until complete. It can also be used alone as a portable unit for circulation purposes, or with any of the many Applesoft packages available, or with an Applesoft program of the user's own de- sign. Our initial experience in Great Neck was with a borrowed demonstration system, set up by a sympathetic CTI representative on the spur of the moment in tandem with and connected to the Main Library checkout station's CRT laser terminal after several days of downtime. The circulation staff cheered as the familiar prompts appeared on both screens. They used the CLSI equip- ment which they were accustomed to oper- ating and the computer room staff learned to operate the CTI system. The ease with which the Apple could be transported to different locations in the building and the immediate relief it gave wherever it was connected, sometimes one checkout station, sometimes another, led us to put off decid- ing on a permanent installation at first. We thought it might be more advantageous to keep it on a rolling cart and use it wherever a terminal was down, or wherever the traf- fic appeared to be heaviest. We continued in this manner for a while even after both of our own Apple systems were delivered. It soon became apparent that the Apple and its accompaniments, especially the switching system with its dangling cables, was a nuisance at the checkout counter. People with piles of books or records tended to nudge it dangerously close to the edge or jiggle its connections loose. The circulation staff didn't like waiting until someone from the computer room could be spared to bring up the system, secure the connections, and turn on the Apple. Also, although the Apple is a very reliable instrument which has given us negligible downtime, bumpy rides over various floors , carpets, lintels, and tex- tured tiles occasionally loosened its chips and rendered it, too, inoperative. CTI representatives were called in to make a more permanent installation for the Apple in our computer room , a simple oper- ation requiring some additional cable. Se-