ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

New Technology

• The American Mathematical Society’s Mathematical Reviews database, MATHFILE, will soon be available on Bibliographic Retrieval Services and DIALOG. The database contains bibliographic and subject access to material covered in Mathematical Reviews since 1973, full text of reviews published since 1980, and more than 400,000 entries on pure and applied math published throughout the world, including coverage of over 1,500 journals.

• The twenty-six member countries of the European Conference on Posts and Telecommunications (CEPT) have agreed on a standard for the next generation of videotex (or viewdata) terminals which incorporates the best of the different European systems. This standard is the result of three years work and is considered a major achievement in European cooperation. The new standard opts for an alpha-mosaic mode, where displays are constructed using a mosaic of dots, but it has a high degree of compatability with the alpha-geometric mode, where geometric elements such as diagonal lines, arcs, and circles are used. A terminal built to the new standard will be able to receive codes from the still widely-differing British Prestel, French Télétel, and German Bildschirmtext services, and will also have capabilities for sixteen colors, double width characters, and underlining.

• The Government Printing Office has announced the availability of DIALORDER service for those customers who are among the 13,000 subscribers to Lockheed’s DIALOG Information Retrieval Service. GPO’s Publications Reference File, which contains over 20,000 government publications, is available to DIALOG users. The DIALORDER service will greatly reduce order processing time for the documents.

• Information Resources Press, Arlington, Virginia, has made available a new database called EIS: Digests of Environmental Impact Statements which is searchable online via Bibliographic Retrieval Services. The EIS/database consists of approximately 12,000 detailed abstracts covering all final environmental impact statements issued by the U.S. government between 1970 and 1976 and all draft and final statements issued from 1977 to date. Current subscribers to EIS will be charged a royalty fee of $25 per hour; nonsubscribers will be charged $75 per hour.

• John Wiley & Sons, New York, and the Harvard Business Review have entered into an agreement for Wiley to market and distribute the Harvard Business Review database, which has been in production since April 1981. The HBR database now consists of a bibliographic file with HBR’s own abstracts and in-depth citations of all articles published by the Review from 1971 to the present, plus approximately 400 earlier articles of particular importance. Full-text retrieval is slated for mid-1982. The anticipated royalty fee for accessing the database through Bibliographic Retrieval Services is $40 per hour.

• The Minnesota State University System Project for Automated Library Systems (MSUS/PALS) is now making its online catalog access system software available for sale. The system, which operates on UNIVAC 1100 series hardware and utilizes OCLC archival tapes for data input, is a comprehensive, integrated bibliographic access system with provision for keyword and boolean searching; format, date and language delimitors; truncation; bibliographic control number searching; multiple institution holdings and displays; printout capability; and COM catalog and offline special listing capability. Further information may be obtained from Dale Carrison, Dean of the Library, Mankato State University, Mankato, MN 56001; (507) 389-6201.

• Northwestern University Library now offers subject searching capability on its LUIS computer catalog, in addition to its author and title access. The vocabulary is based on the LC Subject Headings, the NLM Medical Subject Headings, and special headings devised by Northwestern’s Transportation Library for their holdings. All items processed by the library since 1970 are retrievable on the LUIS system. For those unfamiliar with any of the three systems of headings, LUIS generates a nutshell guide to each at the request of the user.

• The Pacific Northwest Bibliographic Center’s board of directors has asked the Pacific Northwest Library Association and the WLN Computer Services Council to participate in a joint venture to convene a team to plan for the establishment of a Pacific Northwest Library Network incorporating WLN as an integral segment. The Joint Planning Team would be composed of seven members, one of whom would represent an OCLC library in the region. Because of changing conditions, decreasing funds, and economic instability, the PNBC board decided in February that the Center would no longer provide access to the University of Washington Library’s collections, nor would it provide bibliographic searching and verification services after June 30, 1982. The board also announced its intention to change its emphasis from operating a switching and document delivery center to focusing on the support of a joint planning venture to establish in the region an institution-based resource sharing network.

• Pergamon International Information Corporation, McLean, Virginia, has announced that its PATSEARCH database is now available in the U.S. via the London-based Pergamon InfoLine computer. Previously available through Bibliographic Retrieval Services, the database is now exclusively accessed from the Pergamon InfoLine. PATSEARCH contains front page information from all U.S. patents issued since 1971.

•The Council on Library Resources has awarded a grant of $394,886 to the Research Libraries Group for the next phase of its Linked Systems Project which is called the “Standard Network Interconnection.” This nationwide network will be based on a diversity of systems but linked by standard protocols. The work to be performed will cover the design, development, and implementation of the standardized telecommunications link between the systems at RLG, the Washington Library Network, and the Library of Congress. After the interconnection is installed, users of either WLN or RLIN and the Library of Congress will be able to access the bibliographic resources on the other systems. This may be the first dramatic step towards creating a nationwide bibliographic database.

• SUNY/OCLC,the New York State Library, and OCLC have agreed to work in close cooperation for the completion of OCLC-based union list projects in New York State. The library will be an OCLC union listing agent in New York, and SUNY/OCLC will provide technical data and expertise on magnetic tape products from the OCLC system. The SUNY/OCLC network has 214 institutions, making it the third largest network and the largest network within OCLC in terms of catalog input.

• Tymshare, Inc.,Cupertino, California, is introducing a new line of compact, personal information terminals usable to access catalog, circulation, and interlibrary loan information. Called Scanset, the terminals feature six multifunction programmable keys which are capable of up to twelve user-defined tasks. The screens display 24 lines of text, 40-80 character line lengths and limited graphics capabilities.

• UTLAS(University of Toronto Library Automation Systems) has launched the two branches of a newly configured system called the Dual Catalogue Support System. Consisting of identical parallel databases and systems in online operation, Dual CATSS has been able to improve terminal response time, system reliability, and the quantity and timeliness of cataloging information. UTLAS users now have access to over 13 million records. ■■

NEW CHOICE STAFF MEMBER

Francine Graf has been appointed assistant editor for science and technology at Choice magazine, ACRL’s review journal for college libraries published in Middletown, Connecticut. Graf was formerly head of the Collection Development Department at the University of Connecticut Health Center Library. She has also held positions as head of the Acquisitions Department and reference librarian at the same institution.

Francine Graf

Graf received a bachelor’s in political science from the University of Connecticut and an MLS from the University of Kentucky. She has been active in the Medical Library Association and recently developed and taught a course on monograph selection and management as part of the association’s continuing education program. ■■