[Anonymous], 'Serials Automation Interest Group (LITA/ALCTS)', LITA Newsletter v14n04 URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/lita/lita-v14n04-[anonymous]-serials [v14n4.igreps litanews] --------------- Serials Automation Interest Group (LITA/ALCTS) Approximately 300 people attended the New Orleans program "Electronic Document Delivery: Impact and Implications for Library Service," which was cosponsored by the LITA/ALCTS Serials Automation Interest Group and the LITA Vendor/User Interest Group. Speakers addressed the impact of delivering full text information electronically on library services and operations. The speakers were Barbara Richards (Carnegie Mellon University), Gene Rollins (Houston Public Library), Fran McClure (Montgomery County [MD] Public Library) and Julie Gammon (University of Akron). The speakers related their experiences in implementing and maintaining electronic full-text delivery systems, focusing primarily on the impact on public services (such as circulation and ILL) as well as the implications for collection development and management. The LITA/ALCTS Serials Automation Interest Group did not hold its regular business meeting because the length of the program made it im- possible for most people to stay. The Interest Group will meet at the Midwinter meeting.--Karen Wilhoit Programmer/Analyst Interest Group More than a hundred people attended an early-morning New Orleans ses- sion on the subject of gophers in libraries. Gopher is client and serv- er software that defines an information storage and retrieval system that runs over a TCP/IP network. PAIG Chair Priscilla Caplan (Harvard) and Vice-Chair Bill Jones (NYU) introduced the day's speakers, each of whom has been involved in implementing a gopher at their institution. Beth Warner (University of Michigan) started things off by describ- ing the long, carefully considered path that Michigan has followed to define and delimit their gopher, which will become the basis for their Campuswide Information System (CWIS). Their process began in the late 1980s to define what roles should be taken by the library, computer center and various information providers in defining, developing, im- plementing and supporting the campus gopher. Beth identified four ar- eas requiring planning: information resource issues (what to include and how), technical issues (e.g., client distribution and support), management issues (who does what) and user-services issues (training, support). The Michigan Gopher top-level menu has more than 150 items on it today and has broken new ground in defining how campus informa- tion providers, including libraries, can work together to provide this type of service. Andrea Duda (UC Santa Barbara) gave a practical description of the steps to mount a gopher, what pitfalls to avoid when designing your go- pher and how to help users by making your gopher clear and self-ex- planatory. She described some ways to get help in setting up and sup- porting a gopher, since the documentation for this free software isn't always enough. She further described some of the new features of Go- pher Plus, due out later this year, including a user question facility and the ability for users to add data to the gopher directly. Andrea concluded by reassuring the audience that setting up a gopher is not restricted to technical wizards, but can be done by anyone with the de- sire. The development of the InfoSlug Gopher at UC Santa Cruz was the op- posite of the Michigan experience, according to developer Steven Wat- kins. Santa Cruz's informal approach has allowed for fast development of the gopher system, but has proved limiting now that they have more experience. This summer InfoSlug will be completely reorganized to fix some of these problems. UC Santa Cruz's long experience at running a gopher has produced a number of interesting statistics about its us- age, the most popular types of resources and how people are getting to their server. Steve concluded by describing how he sees other types of librarians getting involved in the support of gopher systems, includ- ing reference, cataloging, collection development and access services. The final speaker was James Powell (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), who is using gopher to support a electronic journal publishing venture as part of its Scholarly Communications Pro- ject. Gopher functions as the front end to the journal archives so that users can search and browse the full text of the journal articles online. Some issues identified at VPISU include user authentication (security), getting good usage statistics, pricing and copyright for cost-recovery operations. The promised Gopher Plus enhancements should help with some of their electronic publishing problems. Some of the widely shared concerns raised in the discussion that followed were: *Distribution and support of gopher client software *Maintenance of current, accurate menus given the ephemeral nature of resources on the Internet *The various platforms that gopher runs on and their relative merits *Relationships that libraries have developed with campus computer cen- ters to support this type of service *Cataloging resources available via gopher *Organization and classification paradigms for gophers. All in all, a very lively discussion of a timely subject!--MacKenzie Smith Optical Information Systems Interest Group OISIG's New Orleans business meeting discussed the proposed program for 1994, "Access to Digital Images," which will feature Howard Besser (Canadian Center for Architecture) who will provide an overview of the current state of digital imaging technologies and the implications for library support. Speakers from library systems that are currently testing image ac- cess will share experiences, including H. Tom Hickerson (Cornell Uni- versity) and Marilyn Lutz (University of Maine). Dave Billick (UMI), incoming Vice Chair/Chair-elect, is coordinating the production of a resource packet on digital images. The program has cosponsorship of groups within LITA and two other ALA Divisions: ALCTS and PLA. OISIG also plans to produce a commonsense guide to optical media and periph- erals, to be coordinated by former Chair Lorre Smith.--Pamela Mason Online Catalogs Interest Group Interested in helping to develop future OCIG programs? Please join the program planning group. Contact OCIG's new chair, Jeff Rehbach, Middle- bury College; Internet: rehbach@myriad.middlebury.edu; BITNET: rehbach@midd; (802) 388-3711 x5356, or Vice Chair Laurie Preston, James Madison University; Internet: fac_lpreston@vax1.acs.jmu.edu; (703) 568-6907. LITA/ALCTS MARC Format for Holdings Interest Group Discussion at this group's Annual Conference meeting centered on stand- ards related to the holdings format. Julia Blixrud (Council on Library Resources) spoke about efforts to complete work on Z39.71, a consolidated standard for serial and non-se- rial holdings. Previous holdings standards have specified both re- quired data elements and a display format for the data. Given disagree- ment about the display options in the proposed standard, it will probably be rewritten to specify required data elements only. The em- phasis will be on principles rather than specific cases, and examples will be illustrative rather than prescriptive. The MARC holdings for- mat will serve as the vehicle of transmission for the data, and a vari- ety of displays will be generated by systems that use the data. Karen Coyle (University of California Division of Library Automat- ion) spoke about Z39.50, the intersystem search and retrieval proto- col. Three record syntaxes for holdings data have been or soon will be registered for use with the protocol: the MARC holdings format, a hold- ings and circulation data format and an item data format. Coyle consid- ers the proliferation of standards for transmitting holdings data un- fortunate, but perhaps inevitable given the tension between the real-time world of Z39.50 and the essentially batch-mode focus of the MARC formats. MARBI has apparently decided that the MARC formats will