SUNCATthe UK Serials UNion CATalogue

Report of Plans & Progress to the Phase 1 Libraries

Peter Burnhill

director, EDINA national data centre

on behalf of

the SUNCAT Project Partners: University of Edinburgh & Ex Libris

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Presentation Overview

Who? (Introductions)

Sponsors, Project Partners & Team

What? (The SUNCAT)Background

An Actual, as ‘Preview’

How? (The Project)Strategy

Project progress

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Sponsors

• The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

• The Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP)

SUNCAT Steering Committee

Chair: Professor Derek Law (JCCS; UofStrathclyde)

Secretary: Chris Awre (JISC)

with representatives of the JISC, the RSLP, the British Library and the wider academic community

JISC

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Project Partnership

Project Partners: University of Edinburgh (Lead Partner; EDINA/EUL)Ex Libris

Associate Partners: National Library of Scotland University of GlasgowLibraries at Oxford UniversityLibraries at Cambridge University

Contributing (Phase 1) Partners: The larger university & research libraries in the UK About 22 in total

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Project Team

Project Manager: Dr Leah Halliday

ALEPH/Systems: Dr Noam Kaminer & Julia Goldshtein (Ex Libris)

User Requirements: Liz Stevenson (EUL)

with Tony Kidd (Glasgow Univ Library)

Project Officer (50%): Nathalie Schulz *

Special Advisor: Slawek Rozenfeld **

Bibliographic Quality Advisory Group: Chair, Alason Roberts (EUL)Hugh Taylor (Cambridge), Susan Miles (Oxford), John Nicklen (NLS), Hugh Croll (EUL), Slawek Rozenfeld & Nathalie Schulz (EDINA)

* Her other 50% is as Secretary to Revision Committee for AACR

** He was formerly Head of Computing at ISSN-IC

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Team Strength: Commitment to Serials

• service-imperative & project competenceeg EDINA with SALSER, CASA & links to European union catalogues,

SUNCAT Scoping Study, ISSN authority file, JOIN-UP & inter-working with others in JISC Information Environment

• expertise in database and linking technologieseg Ex Libris with cost-effective solutions & leading-edge experience of ‘non-

proprietary’ inter-operability in global information industry

• expertise in serials cataloguing, MARC21eg Heads of Serials & Cataloguing at NLS, Oxford, Cambridge & Edinburgh +

other experts

• expertise in ‘coal-face’ needs, nationally & locally eg EUL & GUL with collection & use; electronic; print; DocDel; UKSG,

Journals Working Group, UKNUC Feasibility Study, SALSER

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SUNCAT: Overall Aims & Timetable

1. Key online UK facility for researchers, whether staff or student, to locate journals & the like [in other than their local university library]

2. Central source of high-quality records that enables cost-effective upgrade of local records at UK university and college libraries

Timetable:

• Go-ahead for Phase 1 (two-years) was given in February 2003.20+ larger research libraries

• Prepare for Phase 2, two-years from January 2005. 200+ libraries in higher education

• Aim for a test service during this calendar year, 2003.

• ‘Quick-start’ strategy depends upon your co-operation and support.

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Background to SUNCAT (1)

quality of serials data is fundamental - to effective operation of UK digital library- for both delivery of electronic content & location of print.

• Present state is highly variable and mostly poor

• Need for UK ‘locate’ facility for physical collections of serials

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Background to SUNCAT (2)

The UKNUC Feasibility & SUNCAT Scoping Studies– overview and spur to action; established that SUNCAT is

both wanted and feasible• We are building on this in our ‘user requirements’

– key role for ISSN as linch-pin in the serials value chain– use of CONSER as means to upgrade local records– SUNCAT to fit within JISC Information Environment

ITT: the national serials union catalogue for the UK education and research community– an information source & a ‘shared service’

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Defining SUNCAT

‘A modern serials union catalogue, not a document supply business’

‘Serials-level information, not article level information’

1. UK ‘locate’ facility for (physical) collections of serials2. Source of high quality records to enhance local catalogues

Focus on print holdings (hence Humanities) & on STM (hence recent)- but that means older material matters, but also can’t ignore electronic

• a ‘physical’ core of centralised, slowly-changing information: eg description + location (who has what serial?)

• linked to distributed, more rapidly-changing information, stored locallyeg circulation status

• linked via BALSA to JOIN-UP & other services– to be used by, and to make use of, other services in JISC IE

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Designing & Building SUNCAT (1)

• We have examined what a Serials UNion CATalogue needs, in terms of:• [serials] information content• scope [what is the union to be of?]• functionality [users and uses + performance characteristics]

• We see the key success factors for SUNCAT as:1. critical mass in terms of serials coverage2. high quality bibliographic records, including the ISSN3. the means to enable cost-effective upgrade of local records, inc ISSN4. a technology platform that will scale

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Important features for a serials union catalogue

• Multilingual content: Multiscript & Bi-Directional– Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic and CJK in production

• Cataloguing functionality– Multiple schemas for import

MARC21, UKMARC, UNIMARC,…(other ISO 2709)

– Online/batch conversion/fix routinese.g. UK-MARC->MARC21

– Automatic Transliteration of Chinese into Pinying– Field/Record verification

e.g. mandatory, protected, repeated,…

– Augmentation of record Hierarchical-, Parallel links , external data

– Multi-Lingual Thesaurus – Indexing on any field

… that the choice of ALEPH allows

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Designing & Building SUNCAT (2)

• We will therefore:

prioritise the development of data, not of software accept de facto definitions of serial (for input) deploy ALEPH Union, as extant & proven union

catalogue softwaree.g. Californian Digital Library (replacement for ‘Melvyl’)

aim for a quick-start & an early launch of a pilot service

Glimpse of something prepared earlier …

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Actual Example (taken from CDL)

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Displays Brief Records for ‘Hits’

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Display of Full Record

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Back to Project Planning

• Project manager now transforming ‘indicative project plan’ into an actual project plan (due end of April):• project management structure

• work package leaders• timetable & target deliverables

• project reporting• staff recruitment• contracts & payment• partnership agreement

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Early activities: Report as at 7th April

1. Data model being reviewed• Identification

• Bibliographic description/expression

• Holdings: Indicative/Full statement

2. Hardware already in place

Sun Enterprise 6500, called ‘nevis’: 18 processors & 18 Gb memory

3. ALEPH 500 software now installed

First EDINA/Ex Libris meeting in mid-March, next due this coming Friday

4. Orders have been placed for ISSN database & CONSER database

5. Reaching agreement & endorsement on ‘quality’ & standards

Bibliographic Quality Advisory Group held first meeting on Friday 28 March

6. Establishing web ‘presence’ for SUNCAT

7. Now holding our first meeting with the Phase 1 Libraries …

• nominated contact for each, will follow up with technical enquiries

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‘Quick Start’ data strategy

Install ISSN & CONSER databases as priority

National Library of Scotland database

110,000 records, of which 65,000 are ‘good quality’

longstanding experience of USMARC/MARC21

Libraries at Universities of Oxford & Cambridge as ‘BetaTest’ & ‘proof of concept’ sites

Consider ‘easy-load’ of ALEPH 500 sites

Nottingham, Bristol & British Library

Identify & resolve technical problems with each Contributing Partner

Determine order and procedures for all Phase 1 participants …

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Contact

www.edina.ac.uk/projects

www.suncat.ac.uk to be website URL

EDINA HelpDesk

Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

Tel: 0131 650 3302

Fax: 0131 650 3308

Liz Stevenson (User Requirements)

Leah Halliday (Project Manager)

Peter Burnhill (Project Director)

Chris Awre (JISC Contact) c.awre@kcl.ac.uk