COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS

New Technology

•The Council of New England State University Librarians (CONSUL) has announced the availability of the final report on a study undertaken to automate the libraries and link the systems of those six New England libraries. The report, which is dated December, 1981, was completed by Richard W. Boss of Information Systems Consultants. In addition to a 94-page discussion of the needs of those libraries and how they might approach automation, and a series of recommendations, the report contains a series of appendices summarizing the activities undertaken as a part of the study. Copies of the report are available for $15 from Joseph P. Cusker, Executive Officer, Council of Presidents, New England Land Grant Universities, 15 Garrison Avenue, Durham, NH 03824.

• Datapro Research Corporation,Delran, New Jersey, has published a basic reference source for organizations faced with the need to improve upon conventional text communications systems. The 26-page report, All About Electronic Mail, provides an overview of the state-ofthe-art in electronic mail practices and technologies. The report examines electronic mail from a wide range of perspectives, highlighting functional and economic considerations of volume, speed, and compatibility in the analysis and selection of electronic mail alternatives. It features technologies ranging from complete internal/external communications networks to simple extensions of conventional mail service. A list of more than 100 hardware and service supplier names, addresses, and telephone numbers is included at the end of the report.

Copies of All About Electronic Mail are available at $15 each from Datapro Research Corporation, 1805 Underwood Boulevard, Delran, NJ 08075; (800) 257-9406, or in New Jersey, (609) 764-0100.

• Geac International,Markham, Ontario, and Carlyle Systems, Berkeley, California, have agreed to link the Geac online circulation system with the Carlyle online catalog system in order to provide libraries with an integrated approach to sophisticated catalog searching and circulation control. Using the combined system, the libraiy patron will be unaware which of the two linked systems is being used. For catalog searching, messages and commands entered on Geac terminals will be automatically passed through the Geac mini-computer to the Carlyle computer. The Carlyle system, which provides full keyword searching, Boolean combinations, authority control, and index browsing capabilities, will execute each search and transmit the results back to the terminal. A request for information on the availability of desired materials can be made on the same terminals, and will be executed solely by the Geac system. Under the agreement, Carlyle and Geac will both market the combined system.

• Johns Hopkins University’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library has received a $1,232,000 grant from the Pew Memorial Trust to improve the Library’s information retrieval capabilities. The grant will be used to continue the conversion of information in the card catalog to computerreadable form and to acquire computer equipment sufficient for a local computer-accessible catalog. The grant will also enable the Libraiy to begin exploration of videodisc technology as a preservation medium and to use telecopying devices for increased resource sharing among the University’s libraries.

• LITA’s Video and Cable Communication Section is seeking library produced videotapes for a screening to be held at the annual Video Showcase during the ALA annual conference in Philadelphia. This year, libraries are asked to submit tapes that feature new or unusual uses of video and cable technology in libraries. The showcase provides an opportunity for those ALA members interested in video and cable communications to see how librarians across the country are using this technology. The video showcase will be held in the LITA suite, which provides an informal atmosphere for sharing ideas.

Videotape entries should be in 3/4” U-matic format and limited to ten minutes. Tapes should be submitted to Bob Katz, Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12210. Highlights from the video tapes may be edited together and made available as a VCCS Video Sampler.

• The Editorial Library of the Los Angeles Times will be the first test site for a ‘rollfiche’’ version of the Third Edition of CATALIST, the union list of books in California libraries. The rollfiche CATALIST will be installed in an Auto-Graphics, Inc., Micromax 800 (TM) reader. Until recently, CATALIST has been available only in 4” x 6” cut microfiche which is an economical format for files that are small or infrequently accessed. However, microfiche can also be produced in an uncut form called “rollfiche”. Rollfiche can handle more information than microfilm; one linear foot of rollfiche contains as much information as ten feet of microfilm at the same reduction ratio.

Rollfiche is convenient for a large, frequentlyused file. Using the Micromax 800 (TM), information can be found much faster than searching through a large number of cut microfiche.

The Los Angeles Times libraiy staff will prepare an evaluation for the California Library Authority for Systems and Services (CLASS) and Auto-Graphics of their experience in using “MAXCAT”, the rollfiche version of CATALIST. For more information about CATALIST, contact Catherine Fine at CLASS. For information about the Micromax 800, contact Jim Headley at Auto-Graphics, Inc.; (213) 269-9451.

• The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) has begun to collect use fees for AGRICOLA, effective January, 1982. As part of an agreement between NTIS and the National Agricultural Library signed this past summer, NTIS will, in addition to distributing AGRICOLA magnetic tapes, also collect from tape subscribers use fees for online and SDI searches. No use fee will be charged to U.S. Federal or State agencies, or to Land-Grant or 1890 colleges and universities who subscribe to the tapes. The use fees will be $2 per connect hour for online access and $.35 for each SDI profile per year. Foreign tape subscribers will be charged slightly higher fees.

• The Online Chronicle, a new electronic journal serving the professional online database and the home information utility industries, has begun full commercial publication by Online, Inc., Weston, Connecticut, and is distributed internationally by DIALOG Information Services, Inc. The Chronicle contains news of databases; online systems (such as DIALOG or BRS); terminals and printers; microcomputers and software in information applications; mergers, acquisitions and other corporate news; personnel changes; information utilities such as The Source and CompuServe; and videotex systems. Also included are feature articles, columns and classified ads.

A new issue of the Online Chronicle is available on the DIALOG service every other Monday morning. Each issue averages about forty news and feature articles. The Chronicle is priced at $35 per connect hour, plus $.15 per typed record and $.30 per offline print. For further information, contact: Jean-Paul Emard, Editor, Online Chronicle, 11 Tannery Lane, Weston, CT 06883; (203) 227-8466.

• The Research Libraries Group, Inc., announced that it has signed a contract with Transtech International Corporation of Wellesley, Massachusetts, to develop an RLG CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) terminal cluster which will provide computer support for management of bibliographic records composed in whole or in part of Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters. The contract, in the amount of $279,480, is the second signed with Transtech. In June a contract for $40,000 was concluded with Transtech for the first phase of development on the RLG CJK, and it was on the basis of the successful completion of this work that the second contract was negotiated.

The RLG CJK device developed by Transtech will be modified version of Transtech’s SINOTERM, marketed since 1979 and currently used by the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China. Modifications will include support for an extended character set, and a larger display screen. The extended character set will be comprised initially of approximately 15,000 characters including simplified and original Chinese forms, Japanese forms, and Chinese characters used in Korea.

RLG expects to install approximately fifty terminals in ten institutions in 1983. The Library of Congress has indicated it plans to use RLG’s CJK to process its East Asian materials and intends to order a number of clusters to support this. The development project is supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. ■■

LIBRARY INSURANCE

Increasing awareness of the value of academic library collections makes the subject of insuring them against loss or damage vitally important. The ALA Library Administration and Management Association’s Insurance for Libraries Committee would like to hear from academic librarians about their successes and/or failures in convincing academic administrators of the need for action.

What control do academic librarians have over the amount and type of library insurance, if any, provided by the institution? Is library insurance considered as part of a library plan for protection against disaster or as part of an institution-wide insurance program? Responses to these and similar questions should be sent to Eleanor Pinkham, LAMA/LOMS Insurance Committee Chair, College Librarian, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI 49007, by June 15, 1982. They will be used for future program planning for annual conferences or for the possible publication of guidelines appropriate for the special needs of academic librarians. ■■

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