[Original posting on this topic appeared in COLLDV-L no. 1946 and is
reproduced below; the response and follow-up are next.]
From: Dennis Dillon <dillon_at_mail.utexas.edu>
We've been hearing repeated rumors from different sources inside OCLC since
mid-December -- that OCLC is planning to discontinue telnet access to
Firstsearch at the end of 1999. There has been nothing in print.
Can anyone shed further light on this possiblity?
Dennis Dillon
Head, Collections and Information Resources
The University of Texas at Austin
==========================================================================
(1) From: "Oliver,Sonya" <olivers_at_oclc.org>
I would like to provide some information about upcoming changes
that are coming to the OCLC FirstSearch service, in response to your inquiry
that was posted to COLLDV-L today.
OCLC is currently developing a New FirstSearch, which integrates the
FirstSearch and OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online services into
a single service, along with adding many enhancements that have been
requested by users.
As part of the changes coming to FirstSearch this summer, text-based telnet
access the service will continue, abut the interface that users will see
when they telnet to FirstSearch will change. This text-only access will be
made through a Lynx browser, which will also help those visually impaired
users who rely on Braille or screen-reading software when accessing Web
resources. Libraries will not need to have Lynx browser software loaded on
their machines to access the text-only Lynx interface because OCLC will run
the browser software on its machines. Users may telnet to OCLC as they have
in the past for text-based FirstSearch access to connect to Lynx for their
text-only access.
One way to hear more about upcoming New FirstSearch changes is by
subscribing to FirstSearch-L, a broadcast-only Internet list, at
<http://www.oclc.org/oclc/forms/listserv.htm>. Another source of
information is the New FirstSearch Web site at
http://www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/fs_new.htm.
Please feel free to contact AMIGOS or me if you have additional questions.
===========================================================================
(2) From: Dennis Dillon <dillon_at_mail.utexas.edu>
Thanks, this is what I had heard.
We've provided telnet to lynx access to our library web for five years, as
well as running the screen reading software on special PC's in our library
for the visually impaired. It has been that experience that has had our
librarians asking about true telnet access -- that and performance issues.
We have experimented with an http text only version of our web that
organizes the web information in a logical vertical stream instead of the
horizontal reading that Lynx provides, since Lynx can be logically very
difficult to follow if tables, etc. are used, even for the visually
capable -- but it can be a real brain teaser if you are blind and
attempting to use screen reading software as I'm sure you've discovered.
Anyway, maintaining two http interfaces (regular and visually impaired) has
not proved practical either, not when there are dozen of page changes every
day, the maintenance involved is just not practical.
Even though Austin usually comes out number one in the national rankings
for its percentage of internet using population, and even though our campus
users are very savvy (the library web gets over a million hits a week), a
number of our user tell us that they prefer the FirstSearch telnet
interface.
For what it is worth, our librarians have been looking forward to the New
FirstSearch though we currently don't use Electronic Collection Online
(right now we have 1100 e-journal subscriptions and at $35 a piece for
access/maintenance via ECO, that would be almost $40,000 extra). Since we
have plans to continue expanding our number of e-journals -- well, you can
see where the economics soon lead. Though, of course, we fully support
index-to-journal linkages. For now, ECO is on the back burner.
We don't really know what our FirstSearch telnet usage is, except
anecdotally. Our experience in the past has been that you never really
know who is using your system for what, until you take something down --
and then the users are more than happy to let you know what their opinions
are. As the guy who personally replied to every e-mail complaint when we
took Clarinet down at Texas, I can tell you that my fingers and wrists
ached for months from sending calm explanatory e-mails.
--Dennis Dillon
Received on Mon Feb 22 1999 - 12:50:48 EST