Technically Speaking
 By David Dorman
American Libraries Columnist
ddorma@ltnet.ltls.org
Library consultant for the Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign, Illinois.
Column for May 2002
OCLC Taps VTLS
to Help Migrate WorldCat
In its effort to migrate WorldCat from proprietary database technology to Oracle’s 9i database-management software, OCLC will be using portions of VTLS’s Virtua software technology. As part of a March agreement, OCLC will license source code from specific parts of the Virtua ILS. Vinod Chachra, president of VTLS, will act as a design consultant and will work closely with the WorldCat design team. The two companies have also signed a joint software-development agreement that will allow VTLS staffers to work on OCLC software-development teams.
Unicode implementation, multilingual linked authorities, native implementation of Z39.50, and hierarchical relationships among bibliographic records are the four major areas for which OCLC will be using VTLS technology. Although OCLC purchased the license to some of Virtua’s code, OCLC coders will need to rewrite it from C—which is the primary language used by Virtua—to Java, which is the primary language that OCLC now uses for development.
OCLC database-development staff have been working with Chachra since November 2000 and have been impressed by how Virtua has implemented Z39.50 in native mode and how it has solved the many tough implementation problems of Unicode. OCLC expects to save a great deal of development time by employing the solutions to these and other tough programming challenges.
Lynn Kellar, project manager for the WorldCat database, said she expects that the database will be completely deployed under the Oracle platform by the end of 2003. Once this is done, Kellar hopes to support numerous applications that will significantly improve the functionality of WorldCat.
Among those improvements will be support for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records hierarchical relationships. FRBR is an IFLA online document that establishes a framework for creating record hierarchies such that one high-level record will be able to represent numerous lower-level records linked to it. Having a single record that represents multiple editions of the same work, for example, will make it much easier for developers to create software to simplify the identification of works and the process of requesting any copy from a group of records representing multiple editions of the same work. The four hierarchically related entities in the FRBR model that refer to an intellectual creation, for example, are “work,” “expression,” “manifestation,” and “item.”
An intrinsically hierarchical bibliographic model is an idea whose implementaion is long overdue and whose importance is being increasingly recognized. For over 30 years RLIN has been the only bibliographic database in the United States built around a hierarchical model. VTLS is so far the only ILS vendor that has announced compliance with the FRBR hierarchical relationship model; but any ILS vendor who is not making plans now to implement it will likely be at a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace when the full significance of hierarchically related records is demonstrated by early adapters such as VTLS.
E-book Pricing Models Changing
SOLINET (Southeastern Library Network), an OCLC network affiliate headquartered in Atlanta, has been offering member libraries access to the e-books it has leased from NetLibrary for over a year. Currently, SOLINET has two NetLibrary collections: one static collection consisting of 14,487 titles, and another growing collection consisting of about 2,500 titles.
The network is turning around and reselling access in perpetuity to that collection for a one-time fee to library consortia and individual libraries. SOLINET recently signed an agreement with the Missouri Library Network Corporation (MLNC) whereby MLNC will act as a broker, offering its member libraries access in perpetuity to the first SOLINET collection at a cost per full-time equiva lent (FTE) that is slightly marked up from what MLNC is paying SOLINET. MLNC charges $1.10 per FTE for four-year academic institutions, $0.57 per FTE for two-year colleges and high schools, and $0.0535 per population served for public libraries. SOLINET’s prices to its members and to MLNC are $1, $0.50, and $0.05 respectively. The one-time prices for access in perpetuity to the second collection are $0.80, $0.40, and $0.04 respectively.
ProQuest has offered the entire 127,000-title collection of Early English Books Online (EEBO) since 1998. Recently, they contracted to make the collection, consisting of every extant work printed in English from 1473 to 1700, available to the entire United Kingdom academic community through one consortial arrangement with the Joint Information Systems Committee. JISC, a U.K.-wide organization promoting information technology and e-resource access, is paying ProQuest about $3 million up front and recovering that amount by offering the collection to U.K. academic libraries on a sliding scale. Libraries have the choice of paying a one-time fee, one-fifth of that amount for five years, or one-tenth for 10 years, after which access is without an annual cost in perpetuity. In addition to the one-time licensing fee mentioned above, each participating library must pay an annual hosting fee.
ProQuest sells the EEBO collection to U.S. academic libraries for a one-time fee for access in perpetuity, for costs ranging from $33,000 to $106,000, depending on the size of the institution and whether it has already purchased the EEBO collection in microfilm.
Other E-book News
Ebrary has announced it has inked a deal with Amigos, the Bibliographic Center for Research, the Michigan Library Consortium, OHIONET, NELINET, PALINET, and Wisconsin Library Services to distribute Ebrarian e-book services to the networks’ members. As of late March, Ebrary reported it had 42 library customers. While still minuscule in comparison to NetLibrary’s 6,000 customers, Ebrary’s market share among large academic libraries is significant, and this latest deal gives the company marketing partners for selling to a potential market of over 8,800 libraries. Competition in library-oriented e-book services has arrived.
GalaxyLibrary has begun using IBM Electronic Media Management software as its digital-rights solution for distributing e-books. The company also began offering to convert books in PDF to the OeB (Open e-Book) format for $35 per title using Texterity’s conversion software.
Contracts and Agreements
- Sirsi—with the Fairfax County Public Library, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, for the Unicorn Library Management System, to replace the library’s DRA Inlex system; with the Montana Library Network (MLN), a statewide consortium serving the state’s 744 libraries, and headquartered in Helena, for a Unicorn library system to serve 17 of MLN’s libraries, replacing three Dynix, two Horizon, two Follett, and one Winnebago system in eight libraries, and serving as a first-time system in nine of the libraries; with Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, for a Link system to replace the library’s DRA Classic system; and with Trent University of Peterborough, Ontario, for a Link system to replace the library’s DRA Classic system. Link is Sirsi’s suite of ILS software tools for academic libraries.
- Ex Libris—with the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI), a network of 26 small private college and seminary libraries, for an Aleph 500 system, MetaLib, and SFX, to replace PALNI’s DRA Classic system system; and with Brandeis University, an existing Aleph500 user, for the Digitool digital asset management system.
- Innovative Interfaces—with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, for a Millennium system for the library’s main building and 18 branches, to replace a DRA Classic system; and with the Helsinki Metropolitan Libraries (HML) in Finland, for a Millennium system for HML’s four libraries and 92 branches, to replace a Geac.
- Endeavor—with the Maryland Interlibrary Consortium, comprised of five small private colleges in Maryland, for Voyager and ENCompass, to replace the consortium’s CARL system; and with the University of Toronto, an existing customer, for the ENCompass digital management system.
- Epixtech—with the Harrison County Library System in Gulfport, Mississippi, for a Horizon Sunrise system to replace the library’s Dynix system in the library’s nine branches.
- TLC/CARL—with the Santa Ana (Calif.) Public Library with Library.Solution, to replace the library’s Dynix system; and with the Park City (Utah) Library for Library.Solution, to replace the library’s DRA TAOS system.
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