Search results

OCLC Services available since 1971 are now providing access to 27 million items in 45 countries. Outlines current abilities and future developments including: PRISM AND PRISM ILL, a new telecommunications network and its ContentsFirst and ArticleFirst databases. Discusses the introduction of its document delivery service, OCLC Dispatch and Gateway access to reference services from local and campus information networks planned for 1993. OCLC has undertaken multidimensional planning to provide it with a many faceted framework to develop its resource sharing potential now and in the future.

OCLC provides inter‐library lending facilities for participating libraries in 52 countries worldwide via the OCLC PRISM ILL system. This service can be used to borrow monographs and serial articles from either participating OCLC libraries or document suppliers. Enhancements to the PRISM system currently being implemented are described. FirstSearch document delivery options and electronic journal services are outlined, together with OCLC's plans for providing integrated access to these and ILL services.

It has been claimed that the British diet is still recognizably different from that of other cultures. The claim appears to be based on the fact that the structure of the main meal and its food combinations – meat, potatoes and vegetables – identify it with British culture. This study examines evidence for this claim and attempts to find a theoretical explanation for it. A historical survey of British eating habits gives some understanding of how these have been formed, and food consumption figures and market research surveys are used to indicate the distinctive features of the British meal in the 1990s. Although this evidence can only be used in a speculative manner to confirm the claim made for a distinctive form of the British meal in the 1990s the results suggest that food items associated with the British diet and in particular with the main meal are still important, and their consumption is significant compared with “foreign” items such as pasta. An explanation for this phenomenon invokes structural theory which recognizes that meals have a format that is held in place by natural and social phenomena determined by social relationships while developmental theory which allows for change accounts for the transformations in foodstuffs that have occurred within the structure. Structuralism embraces socialization and tradition that maintain continuity. Developmentalism engages materialistic factors such as technology, transport, which bring about change. The balance between these factors will determine whether or not in the next 50 years the British diet will still be recognizably British.

The British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects has been awarded a grant of £3,500 from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, to help in the preservation of the Library's manuscripts and archives collection. The grant will be used to treat important 18th and 19th century papers, including the correspondence of eminent architects. The first item to receive treatment will be the fragile “Goodchild Album”, a valuable record of the work of the Cockerell practice compiled by his assistant, John Eastly Goodchild. The album was purchased by the British Architectural Library at a Christie's sale in 1983 with the aid of a grant from the National Art Collections Fund.

Bibliographic information from one of the world's most celebrated botanic library and archive collections, the Library and Archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will be added to the OCLC On‐line Union Catalog through a conversion project by OCLC's RETROCON Service.

The Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials, the world's first peer‐reviewed medical journal distributed by computer, began publication on July 1. OJCCT is a joint venture of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and OCLC. AAAS developed the editorial content and focus of the journal, and OCLC developed its programming and technology.

Reports on the OCLC Users’ Council meeting of May 19‐21, 1996. Issues under discussion include principles of cooperation, cataloging credits, the president’s report, international plans and opportunities and interest group reports.

The section of VINE (pp 19–25)has as a common theme retrospective conversion. It is a topic which seems to have been giving rise to more and more interest of late as the proliferation of online database systems makes the problem increasingly acute for a growing number of libraries. There are a range of options open to libraries — keyboarding, either directly to an in‐house database or via a bureau service, buying‐in records from an external source and in a recognised format, or using scanning techniques. In practice many libraries will adopt a mix of all three depending on the quality and content of the catalogue to be converted. I am not intending in these pages to look at all facets and problems of retrospective conversion: the Catalogue and Index Group of the Library Association ran an extremely well attended One‐Day Seminar in January this year which addressed many of the issues and choices retrospective conversion raises. (The Proceedings will be published later this year in the CIG's Newsletter). There are three articles in this VINE looking at recon. These first pages assume the buying‐in approach and give a quick guide to some of the data sources for retrospective conversion currently around and the special retrospective services being offered by the database holders; where no special provision for retrospective as opposed to current services exists, as in the case of SWALCAP for example, then the organisation has not been included. The next article outlines a new service using an intelligent scanner and format recognition software; and the final part of the trilogy recounts the particular experiences of Edinburgh University Library with a range of these services.