ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Captain Serves New Jersey Academic Libraries

A centralized computer operation will order, receive, process, and catalog books for the academic libraries of New Jersey under a program being developed by Captain Library Services Corp., a newly formed nonprofit educational corporation here.

The outgrowth of three years of cooperative effort by Rutgers University, the eight state colleges, and the New Jersey Department of Higher Education, the program as it matures should provide better service to library patrons and increased efficiency in library operations, according to Jay K. Lucker, associate university librarian at Princeton, who heads the board of the new corporation.

Serviced initially by Captain (Computer- Aided Processing and Terminal Access Information Network) will be the libraries on the various Rutgers campuses and libraries at Stock- ton State College and William Paterson College. Other units of the state system are expected to join in the future. Funded by the state Department of Higher Education, the program was developed by IBM in cooperation with Rutgers and has been in operation on the Rutgers campuses since last spring.

When a member library wants to order a book, it processes an order request through a computer hookup with Rutgers’ Alexander Library here. The system then orders the book from the publisher, encumbers the funds, receives, catalogs and processes the book, and returns it to the ordering library ready for shelving, together with a set of catalog cards— thus eliminating a great deal of duplication.

Officers of the corporation, in addition to Lucker, are Secretary Fleming Thomas of Burlington County College, president of the Two- Year Colleges Library Association of New Jersey, and Treasurer Mrs. Virginia Whitney, librarian at Rutgers.

A nineteen-member advisory council, representing both public and private college interests, is being formed and a full-time executive director will be hired to administer the project.