OCLC Training Room at Tsinghua University
"OCLC is a world-renowned information provider, and Tsinghua University is pleased to be associated with OCLC to extend the much-needed information services to libraries and information centers across China at a reasonable price," said Liu Guilin, director, Tsinghua University Library.
"Tsinghua University is one of the finest institutions of higher education in China, and its strength is in scientific research and technological development," said Andrew H. Wang, director, OCLC Asia Pacific Services. "OCLC's strategic alliance with Tsinghua University will help Chinese libraries and information centers meet the increasing needs for information as we head toward the 21st century."
Phyllis B. Spies, OCLC vice president, Member Services, Sales and International, emphasized the significance of the cooperative effort for libraries worldwide.
"The community of OCLC libraries today is truly international and becoming more so each day," said Ms. Spies. "Cooperation and collaboration among libraries on a global basis holds the promise of a new era of success for libraries and library users."
K. Wayne Smith, OCLC president and CEO, called the strategic alliance "a significant milestone in OCLC's history." Dr. Smith will head a delegation from OCLC to dedicate the OCLC Service Center at Tsinghua University in August.
Tsinghua University houses the network center of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), which is the Internet arm in China for educational institutions. Presently, 108 universities are linked on CERNET. The majority of the more than 1,000 universities and colleges in China are expected to be on the CERNET by the year 2000.
Hwa-Wei Lee, dean of libraries, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, served as a consultant for OCLC to work with Mr. Wang in developing the framework for the alliance.
Tsinghua University has set aside half of its main lobby in the university library for an OCLC training room, in which 30 Pentium workstations are connected to CERNET. FirstSearch training has begun at Tsinghua University and will take place throughout China in the coming months.
The Tsinghua University OCLC Service Center recently opened in Beijing, China.
Forty Russian cataloging experts gathered at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg on April 29 and 30 for a meeting to consider how Russian cataloging rules and the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, (AACR2) might be harmonized to facilitate the exchange and use of bibliographic and authority data. The meeting was held under the auspices of Vladimir Zaitsev, director of the National Library and chairman of the Russian Library Association, and was chaired by Irina Tsvetkova, deputy director of the National Library. Also attending were David Buckle, managing director of OCLC Europe; Barbara Tillett, chief of Cataloging Policy and Support Office at the Library of Congress; Monika Münnich, chair of the Expert Group RAK of the Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut; and Marina V. Extrem, Aleksandr Kurkov and Galina R. Reader, all of the Cataloging Department, National Library of Russia.
A portion of the meeting was devoted to sharing the experiences of the REUSE Project, which is currently undertaking a similar harmonization effort between Anglo-American cataloging rules and formats and German rules and formats. Also included were reports about various cooperative efforts involving the Library of Congress, other national libraries and U.S. libraries.
Over the next few months, a Russian working group will lay out an agenda for future activities, including a thorough comparison of current Russian descriptive cataloging rules and AACR2, preparation of databases of sample records prepared under both rules, and further work on RUSSMARC, the national communications format currently under development. Plans are also in place to share information among the Russian project, the REUSE project in Germany and current efforts to harmonize CANMARC, UK MARC and USMARC formats.--Glenn Patton is online resource sharing manager, OCLC.
Janet Mitchell, deputy managing director of OCLC Europe, has been named managing director of that office, which is located in Birmingham, United Kingdom. She will succeed David Buckle, who has announced that he will retire June 30.
"Janet Mitchell is a 14-year veteran of OCLC," said Phyllis B. Spies, vice president, Member Services, Sales and International. "She has played a key role in expanding OCLC services by developing partnerships with organizations in many countries that provide marketing and support to OCLC users in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. She is assuming the leadership position of OCLC Europe at a time of tremendous opportunities. She has the knowledge, experience and commitment to help OCLC achieve its mission of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs."
Ms. Mitchell, born in Plymouth, England, was a librarian at Leeds University and lecturer at Leeds Polytechnic School of Librarianship and Information Studies from 1972 until she joined the OCLC Europe office in 1982 as a user support librarian. She subsequently held various management positions and was named deputy managing director in 1995.
She holds a library science degree from Leeds Polytechnic and a master's degree in applied studies from the University of York, and she speaks German.
"I look forward to leading OCLC Europe at an exciting time when European libraries are moving rapidly into the information age," said Ms. Mitchell. "European libraries and their collections are rich resources for the world's scholars and have an important role to play in the worldwide membership of OCLC."
Since 1986, OCLC Asia Pacific Services has been offering OCLC products, services, training and support to libraries in the Asia Pacific region. The variety of products and services that libraries in this area use for their collection and technical services is as diverse as the countries that comprise the Asia Pacific region.
Although the vast majority of Asia Pacific users rely on subsets of the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) in CD-ROM format for their cataloging needs, a growing number of users are now using the PRISM service.
Since the beginning of 1996, all of the university libraries in New Zealand are using the PRISM service for their cataloging and interlibrary loan needs.
The seven university libraries in New Zealand that joined OCLC as cataloging members are: Lincoln University Library, Massey University Library, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago Library, University of Waikato Library, and Victoria University of Wellington.
Two features that have made PRISM even more attractive to librarians in the Asia Pacific region are the around-the-clock hours that PRISM now operates and recent enrichments to the OCLC Online Union Catalog, such as the addition of records from Puvill Libros, Casalini Libri, and Waseda University Library.--Eliza Sproat is marketing communications specialist, OCLC Asia Pacific Services.
In March, Chi-chun Tseng (right), director of the National Library, Taipei, Taiwan, presented Andrew H. Wang, director, OCLC Asia Pacific Services, with a plaque in commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the OCLC Online Union Catalog.
The University of Waikato, established in 1964, is located in Hamilton in the center of the North Island of New Zealand and is the youngest of the seven New Zealand universities. The University staff of some 1,300 teaches at all levels, from undergraduate to doctoral level. The student population is over 11,000. The University of Waikato offers courses in the following schools: Computing & Mathematical Sciences, Education, Humanities, Law, Management Studies, Maori & Pacific Development, Social Sciences, and Science & Technology.
The library, which includes the Central Library and two branches, Education and Law, has a collection of approximately 765,000 volumes and a staff of 76. The library uses the Data Research System (DRS), has a campus-wide CD-ROM network, and provides access to a wide range of external databases via the Internet.
Along with the other six New Zealand university libraries, Waikato signed an OCLC PRISM contract in July 1995.
New Zealand is fortunate in having a single national bibliographic utility, the New Zealand Bibliographic Network (NZBN), which serves both as a source of bibliographic records for libraries' online catalogs and as the New Zealand National Union Catalogue, which provides a single source for library holdings locations in support of interlibrary loan. Based on WLN software, NZBN is reaching the end of its useful life, and is shortly to be replaced by a very ambitious system being developed jointly by the National Libraries of New Zealand and Australia. Like other national utilities, NZBN receives bibliographic records from the Library of Congress; the British Library; the National Libraries of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; and other New Zealand library participants.
However, at just over 9 million records, the NZBN database is considerably smaller than the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) and is not particularly rich in older publications or in titles in East Asian and other non-English languages.
For current cataloging, the University of Waikato Library purchases records from a number of sources. Where available, current records are obtained from LC MARC, utilizing the special feature of the Data Research System that enables very easy copying of records from external databases via DRANET.
Many other records, such as those for most New Zealand publications, are purchased from NZBN using the DRS screen-transfer facility. However, there still remain a number of publications acquired by the library for which records are not available from these two sources--for example, titles in languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German and Spanish, and audio-visual materials, such as videos. For these titles, OCLC has now become our major source of bibliographic records.
The library has not yet completed retrospective conversion. It is impeded in doing so not only because of limited staffing and lack of other resources, but also due to the fact that many of the titles for which we need machine-readable bibliographic records are not recorded in the NZBN database. For these titles, we are now able to utilize the OLUC, and as might be expected, we are achieving a high hit rate. Use of the OCLC PRISM service provides us with a very cost-effective source of bibliographic records for these older publications.
Our catalogers are particularly delighted with the easy operation of the PRISM service. Adding our holdings to the OLUC is a matter of entering "u" and pressing the F11 key. And with the Data Research System, it is incredibly simple to transfer a record: having called up the correct record on our PRISM PC, we enter "t" (for transfer) on our Data Research terminal and "XPO F10" on the PC, and magically, within a couple of seconds, the OCLC record is on our database, diacritics and all, ready to be edited and saved. Magic? We think so.
In summary, we are delighted with PRISM and with the service we receive from OCLC. Use of the system enables us to undertake retrospective conversion more speedily and to get our current cataloging out and onto the shelves much more expeditiously. And isn't this what the automation of cataloging procedures is all about? --Tony Millett is deputy university librarian, University of Waikato Library, Hamilton, New Zealand.