Search results

In his paper to the Aslib conference on Cooperation in Cataloguing David Batty mentions the development of two systems to enable a library to exploit the MARC II format for bibliographic data, including of course the BNB and Library of Congress literature tapes. These systems were (a) at the Fondren Library, Rice University, Texas, and (b) the AMCOS (Aldermaston Mechanised Cataloguing and Ordering System at AWRE which will commence full operational tests in March 1970.

Details are given of a survey carried out in a large scientific special library on the comparative accuracy of the author and title information which the user brings to the catalogue. The sample was restricted to requests for book material. The results are analysed in detail and show the title to be more accurate. Some suggestions are made for extending this type of survey.

The purpose of mechanisation in libraries is to have basic records in machine readable form so that the processing capabilities of machines can be exploited, (a) to maximise access to and ease of use of the literature, and (b) to help relieve the problems produced in libraries by the ever increasing output of literature.

The loans control system used at AWRE is described in detail. Punched cards produced in the library are used as input to a computer to provide the necessary control tools: reminders, borrower, and date listings. Details are given of a method of using the computer to perform a sort in UDC number order. Plans to integrate and mechanize the cataloguing and ordering operations using an IBM 870 system and an IBM 360/30 computer are also described.

Procedures are discussed by which all types of libraries irrespective of size can use Marc tapes effectively. Based on the planning for the second stage of the AWRE AMCOS system, the paper proposes that each library establish a Potential Requirements File by a selective intake of new Marc records to provide all the functions of an efficient acquisitions system. These methods for selection and acquisition can be used as the foundations for a cataloguing system. A proposal is made for alerting cataloguers automatically when local cataloguing practice conflicts with that of BNB.

The development of Stage Two of the AMCOS Project which uses BNB MARC tapes as the basis of a fully mechanised ordering and cataloguing system has been progressing since December 1968. The paper by Russell Sweeney described the secondment of a teacher of librarianship to the library at AWRE Aldermaston for twelve weeks to take part in the development of computer programs for AMCOS Stage One. This present paper describes a similar exercise to involve a teacher in the programming for Stage Two.

This paper is an attempt to give the picture of a somewhat different approach from that at Harwell. Descriptions of the systems and the data bases being used at Aldermaston have already been recorded in some detail, especially by L. Corbett, and so will not be repeated here. I would on the other hand like to say something about the policy behind the decision to use external data bases, to include some more up‐to‐date assessments of the use being made of these services and their present costs, and finally some plans for future developments.

This bibliography includes a few relevant items taken from the bibliography on library automation, by C. F. Cayless and H. Potts, but updated and enlarged with items recorded in Program or brought to the attention of the Circulation Working Party of the Aslib Computer Applications Group. The list has been restricted to British papers.

Planningof any kind can be motivated by a pressing practical problem which has to be solved—for example, an increasing number of people may have to be housed in the same area; or by a long‐term idealistic vision; or by both (the idealist seeing the long‐term implications of an immediate problem). In short‐term planning, the danger exists that the more technical problems may be solved, without attention to their implications for human beings; to take my housing example, higher and higher flats may be built, without considering the possible effects (e.g. the effect on social groupings). In long‐term planning, Utopian or ideological blueprints may be produced.

Since January 1971, the British National Bibliography has been producing MARC tapes as a by‐product of the process of computer type‐setting the printed BNB Weekly List. (In this paper, the tapes are referred to as ‘BNB MARC’.) Experimental tapes have been available since 1968. In July and August 1971, Aslib Research and Development Department carried out a survey of BNB MARC users, limited to those libraries in the British Isles using the tapes for a regular service or experimenting with them as a part of the original MARC network (listed in Appendix II). The report is limited to the use in mid‐1971 of MARC tapes provided by BNB, but Appendix III includes brief notes on some work begun after August 1971. No system is described in depth; those interested in greater detail are referred to the selected references at the end. Most of the systems, especially operational ones, are reported there, making description here unnecessary.