One Big Catalog (Re: Important Article) [WEB4LIB] Re: FW: Important Articl [WEB4LIB] Re: FW: Important Articl

[Jean Hewlett]

One consideration is ability of the "one big catalog" to deal with
online
catalogs that have been produced by various vendors. This is essential
if you
expect it to show an item's circulation status, and it is far from a
trivial
problem. (Unless, of course, you are going to abolish local catalogs or
require
them all to come from one vendor--neither of which seems at all likely
in the
near future.)

My employer, North Bay Cooperative Library System, is a library
consortium in
Northern California. We recently introduced a union catalog called
"Supersearch"
which includes the holdings of most of our member libraries. These
library
systems use a wide variety of online catalog software, including DRA,
Innovative
Interfaces, Dynix, and CARL. To my knowledge, Supersearch is the first
time a
union catalog has been able to provide copy status information that is
drawn
directly from several different computer systems running incompatible
software.

Supersearch has been a great success, and has resulted in a huge
increase in
interlibrary loans within our consortium. However, it works best if you
are
trying to locate a known item, or at least a known LCSH subject heading.
It does
not presently offer either a keyword in title or a keyword in subject
search
option.

If you would like more information about NBCLS Supersearch, please
contact Sue
Widmer at ssearch at sonic.net.

Jean Hewlett
Reference Librarian, North Bay Cooperative Library System

David Merchant wrote:

> >>1. the 'Net has connectivity problems.  Where would this "one
catalog" sit?
> >
> >A great many "big catalogs" or "gigantic repositories" are replicated
in
> >multiple locations on multiple continents.  There is no need for them
to be
>
> True, that would solve that problem to a degree.  However, since the
> article stated 'getting rid of the local catalog' the connectivity to
the
> Global cat, even its mirror, could be far enough away as to increase
the
> chances of connectivity problems.  A local cat can still be up and
> accessible by at least on campus users even if connectivity to the Net

> backbone is down or problematic.  And again, I based my comments on
the
> article stating that we should _get rid of the local catalog_.  If the
plan
> included keeping the local catalog, I would not have commented as I
did.
>
> >>wants to find out if there is a certain book on the local shelf will
have
> >>to wait a long time to find that info out, and may find shelf
browsing
> faster.
> >Who said anything about not allowing local shelf browsing?  In
addition,
>
> They didn't disallow local shelf browsing by visual inspection.  My
comment
> here was to say that "if there is increased connectivity problems or
> increased slowness to retrieving information about books on topic X,
the
> user may find it more expedient to shelf browse visually to find what
they
> need."
>
> >even if there were a "world catalog", nothing would prevent a local
library
> >from having its own catalog.  In fact, OCLC could be considered an
example
> >of such a system.
>
> According to the plan in the article, there would be no local catalog.

> That is what I was responding to, to me I agree with you, right now
nothing
> prevents a local library from having its own catalog, but it would not
fit
> with the "vision" or the plan as stated in the article.
>
> >
> >>2. Local collection.  Sometimes I want to find which books on topic
X _my_
> >>library has.  I don't care what others may or may not have, I want
to find
> >>what my library has.
> >
> >Fine.  Any catalog worth its salt has the ability to do that.  Check
out
> >http://catalyst.boisestate.edu and you'll see that it is a shared
catalog
> >between two libraries.  And, there are also various special
collections
> >that can be searched independently.  The same could hold for any
other set
> >of collections in a catalog.
>
> Again, I think we are talking past each other.  On a Global cat, where

> there are listings, links, to every holding of book X, the returned
hits
> would be huge, even a not all that popular of a book  could return a
huge
> number of hits of where copies of that book could be had from Russia,
> Japan, America, etc... For a person who is _just_ interested in what
> _his/her_ library has and is not interested at all in what any other
> library has that could be a bit of a nuisance.  And yes, if I could
set the
> search parameters to just my catalog, then what is the difference
between
> that and my library keeping it's own catalog?  Remember, the article
talks
> about each library getting rid of it's own catalog.  I wouldn't mind a

> Global cat as long as each library could keep its own cat, and that is
one
> of my main complaints about the article's plan.
>
> >Regardless of the "whatever-centric" thinking that may or may not be
> >present, no system will ever be adopted by everybody (unless they
appoint
> >one of us King of the World....but of course he died out there in the
North
> >Atlantic anyway)
>
> :-)
>
> >And, coming from a North American source, it hardly seems surprising
that
> >it may have such thinking.....just as a similar document from another

> >country or region may be oriented to its way of thinking.
>
> Aye, 'tis very very true.
>
> TTFN,
> David
> Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University
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