Library Technology Guides

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Volume 17 Number 08 (August 1997)

ISDN and the Internet

Before contracting for ISDN service with a local telco, be sure that the library's ISP is able to support 128 Kbps access. If it is only able to support a single 64 Kbps ISDN channel, another telecommunications option will be more cost effective.

A number of libraries have turned to ISDN to realize 128 Kbps access to the Internet; unfortunately, many are only getting 64 Kbps data transfer rates because ISPs are having a hard time implementing server software that lets them bond two incoming ISDN channels in their points of presence (POPs) . This means that only one of the two ISDN channels is available to the users, thus cutting the bandwidth in half. The problem is further intensified when too many ISDN customers are competing for too few server ports.

There is a way to achieve near-ISDN speed without the ISDN costs. U.S. Robotics has introduced a LANLinker router that features two x2 56 Kbps modems that can be bonded to send a single data transmission over two analog phone lines simultaneously, thus achieving 112 Kbps data transmission. As there is not yet a standard for 56K bps modems and routers, it is essential to check with one's ISP to make sure that it has compatible equipment (only 325 of 3,000 ISPs world-wide have such equipment). If the ISP's equipment is compatible, the investment in the x2 56Kbps router will not be wasted after the standard is released late this year as U.S. Robotics commits that the product will be upgradable to the standard.

Not all voice-grade telephone lines can accommodate data transfer rates of 56 Kbps, therefore, equipment with that capacity should be purchased with a right of return if it cannot achieve that data transfer rate on the available telephone lines. Testing the line with the actual equipment is necessary because the representations of the telco are not always reliable. We recently tried a 56 Kbps modem on three different telephone lines and got results ranging from 28.8 Kbps to 56 Kbps.

Ameritech's RSS to be released

Ameritech has announced that its new Resource Sharing System (RSS) will shortly be available in general release. This is a standalone product designed to work not only with Ameritech's Dynix, Horizon, and NOTIS systems, but also with automated library systems from any other vendor. The components include a Web gateway for patron access; a staff workstation for managing, mediating, and tracking resource sharing activity; and the RSS server.

RSS is claimed to be the first interlibrary loan product to contain the full ISO/ILL implementation. It also conforms to the international ISO/ILL 10161 protocol, Z39.50, and SMTP-the Internet E-mail standard. Because of its adherence to standards, the RSS product is able to work with almost any automated library system in the library and also with an automated library system in another library or the online system of a document delivery service.

We have seen the product and it is impressive. However, we are concerned with its price tag-an average of more than $20,000. While a very reasonable price for an institution which does thousands of interlibrary loans a year, it is a budget breaker for small libraries hoping to purchase an integrated library system for $150,000 or less and whose ILL volume is only a few hundred transactions a year. We hope Ameritech will develop an ILL module for its Dynix system-a strictly software solution that would run on the same machine as the other modules.

[Contact: Ameritech Library Services, telephone 800-288-8020.]

ARL libraries slow to replace NOTIS

Ameritech recently extended the life of its aging NOTIS product, apparently because libraries with the system continue to find it adequate and are not rushing to purchase Ameritech's Horizon or any other automated library system as a replacement. The few that have replaced their NOTIS systems over the past year have migrated to six different vendors: Ameritech (for Horizon), DRA, Endeavor, Innovative Interfaces, Sirsi, and VTLS.

In the highly fragmented academic research library market only Endeavor has signed more than four contracts in the past year, and those were not all former NOTIS customers. Endeavor's new academic research library clients include Auburn, Guelph and Waterloo, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, and Syracuse.

Eventually the NOTIS product will be phased out. A probable migration route will be to a system utilizing client/ server technology and featuring a graphical user interface. Explanations for the slow move away from NOTIS include: (1) many of the new client/server products are still incomplete, therefore, it makes sense to wait a year or two; (2) all of the new products involve the use of PCs as remote peripherals, therefore, libraries need to invest in them first; and (3) major upgrades in the library and campus networks are needed before client/server architecture-the architecture of the new systems-can be effectively used, therefore, libraries and their campuses need to make those investments first.

The earliest time for the general availability of relatively complete client/server products is probably mid-1998. It will be even longer before Web-based user interfaces are available for all modules. The best estimate now is late 1999.

DRA reports third quarter financial results

Data Research Associates, which is a publicly traded corporation and required to file quarterly reports, has announced that revenues for the third quarter of its fiscal year ending June 30, 1997, were $8.7 million, down from $8.9 million for the same quarter a year ago. Per share earnings also dropped slightly from $.21 to $.19. For the first nine months revenue was down from $27.8 million to $25.7 million, but earnings rose from $.50 to $.5l per share

DRA's cash position continues unusually strong: approximately $17.1 million. The Board has voted to spend up to $4 million from existing cash over the next twelve months to repurchase common stock.

[Contact: DRA, telephone 800-325-0888; URL http://www.dra.com].

Information Dimensions sold by OCLC

OCLC, Inc., has sold Information Dimensions, the for-profit vendor of BASIS documents management software, to Gores Technology Group. Gores will be acquiring a company with some 2,600 customers worldwide, including several hundred special libraries. OCLC had owned Information Dimensions for a little more than four years and used it in its own special library. OCLC will remain a strategic business partner of Information Dimensions.

A report on Information Dimensions, before the sale, is in William Saffady's library systems vendors industry report in the May/June 1997 issue of Library Technology Reports.

[Contact: OCLC, Inc., telephone 614-764- 6000; URL: http://www.gores.com].

EOS International announces new releases

EOS International has just distributed Release 300 of its T Series, formerly known as the Information Navigator/TINLIB automation library system from IME, the company that was merged with Data Trek to form EOS. The major enhancements are Z39.50 server functionality, currency conversion, reservation requests, and year 2000 compliance. The T Series is in use at some 2,600 libraries worldwide. For that reason, it is available in American English, British English, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, and Swedish. Other language translations are in development.

Progress on EOS' new product was also announced. The cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules of the company's latest product, the Q Series, are going into beta test late this summer. The Q Series is a client/server-based system using Windows NT and the Oracle relational database management system.

[Contact: SOS International, 5838 Edison Place, Carlsbad, CA 92008, telephone 760-431-8400; 800-876-3484; FAX 760-431- 8448.]

SIRSI reports year-end results

Sirsi Corporation, a closely held private corporation, ended its fiscal year on June 30, 1997, with a 30 percent increase in sales. The company sold 114 systems to new customers in North America alone. While most of the systems sold were small to mid-size, the company made several sales of larger systems, including the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

The company reported, "Sirsi has now been in business for over twelve years, and has realized a profit in each of the 50 quarters of its existence."

[Contact: Sirsi Corporation, telephone 205.922-9820; FAX 205922-9818; URL http://www.sirsi.com].

Internet access to micro-based patron access catalogs

We were recently asked if it is technically feasible for patrons of a library which has installed a PC or Mac-based automated library system to access the online patron access catalog from their homes. The answer is "yes," but it requires software support from the vendor.

One vendor of PC-based library automation which offers such software is Follett, the largest vendor in the micro-based market. For an additional $1,595 a library with the company's Unison-Catalog Plus product can purchase Telnet Quick-Line, a solution which allows anyone with an Internet telnet client to search the library's patron access catalog. The search options include not only author, title, subject, series, and call number, but also keyword. Boolean searching is also supported. System security is built-in by giving users read-only access to the library's patron access catalog. Telnet QuickLine is limited to enabling remote users to dial in to the library's OPAC. A user cannot access any other library's patron access catalog with the product. The software requires a Windows NT v.3.51 platform. There is a demo of the product on Follett's home page. Follett does not support z39.50 at this time, therefore, it is not possible to seamlessly link two automated library systems.

Winnebago, Follett's leading competitor, has taken a different approach. It has released a separate product called Spectrum which enhances its CIRC/CAT product. The new package uses a client/server architecture, meaning that the server can be Windows95; Windows NT; Windows 3.1; MS-DOS; or Mac OS-based; and the clients may use any of these operating systems, including a different one from that used by the server. The product supports TCP/IP, the protocol used by the Internet, therefore, making Telnet access available. In addition, Spectrum supports Z39.50; therefore, it can be linked with another Z39.50-compliant system, even one from a different vendor. The price for the Spectrum product is a minimum of $3,490.

SIRS Mandarin, yet another vendor of micro-based library automation, offers a Z39.50 option for its basic library automation package. Several other vendors of micro-based systems are working on z39.50 compliance.

Libraries shopping for a product to allow remote access to a PC or Mac-based patron access catalog should inquire about plans for Web-based access before spending money on a telnet product. Web access is generally more attractive to patrons.

[Contact: Follett Software, telephone 800-323-3397; URL: http://www.follett.com; Winnebago, telephone 800-533-5430; FAX 507724-5411; URL http://www.winnebago.com; SIRS Mandarin, telephone 800-232-SIRS; URL http://www.sirs.com].

TLC rolls out ITS.MARC

August 1 was the launch date for the latest offering from The Library Corporation (TLC): ITS.MARC. The new service offers flat rate pricing for remote access to online databases of bibliograghic records, a total of approximately ten million records in eight databases. Sixteen access points are provided, including key words. Libraries will be able to edit records online and/or to download them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The price for the service is based on the size of the library and the anticipated level of activity. There are no royalty charges for capturing records.

While a high hit rate is projected for most libraries, up to 1,000 searches of the RLIN database are available to cover any non-hits.

[Contact: The Library Corporation, telephone 800-325-7759; FAX 304-229-0295; URL http://www.tlcdelivers.com]

Digital launches 600Mhz chip

Digital Equipment Corporation has begun to ship its 600 MHz Alpha chip. The breakthrough will not only cause its com-petitors to speed up the introduction of faster chips (most now are 200 to 300 MHz, although Intel's P6 is rated at up to 451MHz), but will bring down prices of the slower chips. Either way, price/performance of CPUs will once again improve over the next few months.

The Internet survives a bad 48 hours

July 16th and 17th were bad days for the Internet. Major parts of it were down four separate times. It started at 9:17 a.m. Pacific Time on July 16th. There was a power outage at the Metropolitan Access Exchange West, a center where ISPs exchange traffic. Traffic was virtually halted for 45 minutes. Approximately two hours later, a backhoe cut a major fiber trunk between Los Angeles and Las Vegas causing outages and slowdowns throughout the West for more than four hours.

The problems continued at 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time on July 17th. An employee of InterNIC, the company which assigns domain names, incorrectly loaded new domain name files into twelve main root servers around the country. ISPs access these servers when a domain name is not in its own files. The incorrect file load corrupted many domain names with the result that the domain name directories were unusable for four hours, thus leaving millions of messages in limbo.

The next problem came later that same day when another backhoe operator, this time south of Baltimore, tore up a fiber conduit, severing more than 500 D53 lines, each one of which carries 44.7 Mbps of data. Many parts of the East Coast, including almost all of New York, had little or no service the rest of the day.

We have been told that the number of incidents affecting internet service is actually much greater than four in every 48 hours, but that the July 16th and 17th incidents were somewhat unusual in that they affected such large areas. As the number of backbone providers shrinks as the result of consolidations in the industry, the frequency of major outages is expected to increase.

The point of this article is: do not become too dependent on the Internet. For applications which are critical, such as circulation and patron access catalog, rely on dedicated telco circuits. This is important not only because they are more reliable, but because they will provide much faster response times. Have a dial-up back-up option for very important applications such as cataloging. Consider an alternate ISP for a staff PC on each reference desk so that they may be able to access the Internet.

[The contributing editor has two accounts, one with a local company in the Washington, D.C. area and the other with a firm in West Virginia. The former is for unlimited service; the latter is for just five hours per month. On July 17th, the local firm lost almost all of its capacity due to the break near Baltimore, but the West virginia firm was fully operational. However, a score of e-mail messages had to be printed out and send by fax as they were destined for New York and Pennsylvania.]

LC becomes more active in ILL

The Library of Congress, still only a modest level ILL participant with 40,000 ILL transactions last year, is becoming more involved. Effective July 1, 1997, it became an online provider of ILL requests to WLN member libraries. LC's Loan Division has asked WLN to encourage its online members to request materials directly from LC by means of the ILL system when no location has been identified in the WIN database. It is no longer necessary for the WLN libraries to "exhaust local and regional resources," a protocol which had been interpreted to mean that one had to search beyond the WLN database before initiating an ILL from LC.

Internet delivery of current contents

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has announced the availability of a Web-based implementation of FTP delivery of Current Contents. Subscribers will be able to access the weekly data issues ahead of the time that they normally are available on diskette by mail. There will be no difference in content between the Internet and diskette editions.

[Contact: ISI, telephone 800-336-4474; FAX 215-386-2911; URL: http://www.isinet.com]

SilverPlatter offers pay-per-use searching

While most libraries appear to have a strong preference for paying for CD-ROM reference services on an annual subscription basis, SilverPlatter is betting that there are some libraries-especially small ones that cannot justify the cost of annual subscriptions on account of low usage and therefore would prefer to pay for each use. Using a new technology that meters the use of CD-ROMs, it has launched a new service called "Search by Search."

Databases which will be available through Search by Search include: AgeLine, AIDSLINE, Applied Science and Technology Abstracts, Art Abstracts, AV/Online, BIOETHICSLINE Plus, Biography Index, Biological and Agricultural Index, Book Review Digest, Business Abstracts, CAB HEALTH, and Cumulative Book Index.

[Contact: SilverPlatter Information, Inc., 100 River Ridge Drive, Norwood, MA 02062; telephone 617-769-2599; FAX 617-769-8763.]

Federal statistics and scholarships on the Web

Federal statistics are scattered across hundreds of Web sites, but finding them is no longer a problem. There is now an index to federal statistics at http://www.fedstats.gov/. The site offers not only an index, but also a search engine. Searches must be carefully constructed in order to avoid being drowned in data, therefore, librarians will want to familiarize themselves with the site before promoting its use by patrons.

http://www.fastweb.com is a database of more than 180,000 scholarships. Searching it is free. Search results, and future updates, are deposited to a personal mailbox.

EDIFACT gets another boost

Innovative Interfaces and Blackwell's Book Service reached agreement in late June to implement EDIFACT online order transmissions beginning in the first quarter in 1998. EDIFACT is the international standard which replaces both BISAC and EDI x.12.

A majority of vendors of automated library systems are still bidding BISAC and EDI x.12. While both are usable, they will be phased out. Libraries should, therefore, protect themselves by insisting that the migration from the superseded standard to the new EDIFACT standard will involve no additional software license fee.

Auto-Graphics subsidiary purchases ISM'S library services division

A-G Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Auto-Graphics, Inc., has purchased the Library Information Services Division of Information Systems Management, one of North America's major bibliographic utilities. The bibliographic utility may be recognized by some as the former UTLAS. The bibliographic database acquired by A-C Canada contains in excess of 57 million records and has an associated PC-based ILL system.

The major advantage of the acquisition for Auto-Graphics is strengthening its position in Canada and giving it a substantial number of academic library clients to complement its current customer base of public and school libraries. For libraries, especially U.S. libraries, it may offer an attractive alternative to OCLC, RLIN, and WLN.

[Contact: A-G Canada, 3300 Bloor Street West, 9th Floor, Centre Tower, Etobicoke, Ontario, M8X 2X3; telephone 416-236-7171; FAX 416-236-7489; URL http://www.ag-canada.com].

Mac PC compatibility card released

Apple Computer has just released a PC coprocessor card to allow PCI-based Power Macintosh users to run Windows NT, Windows95, Windows 3.1, and DOS applications. The card is priced at $899.

Ovid to release Java client

Ovid, an online reference service in the STM markets (science, technical, and medical) , has announced that it will shortly release a Java-based interface. It has already been tested at several universities and research institutions. The test results suggest that as a synthesis of Windows and Web environments, the new interface offers robust searching capabilities combined with greater ease of use and data retrieval speed even when using budget-end PCs or network computers.

The Ovid announcement is further evidence that Java is beginning to play a significant role in library automation.

Ovid has also announced that it has significantly lowered the access fees for its online service. The nearly 50 percent decrease reflects both the increasingly competitive market and the lowering of costs due to higher volume.

[Contact: Ovid Technologies, Inc., 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001; telephone 212-563-3006; FAX 212-563-3784]

PC prices tumble

PC prices dropped significantly in the first three weeks of July. Compaq, Dell, Digital, HP, and IBM all lowered their prices by 10 to 24 percent. Nearly all 200 MHz machines were reduced by more than 20 percent to as little as $1,185 without the monitor or printer. This round of cuts was the fourth in the past seven months.

A factor in the price cuts is Intel's rapid reduction in prices for Pentium chips. In May a 200 MHz chip sold for $252, by late July the price had dropped to $125, and the price is scheduled to drop again in November to $115. Chips rated at 166 MHz were $205 in May, and are scheduled to drop to $95 in November. It is realistic to expect further adjustments in PC prices after the November Intel chip prices go into effect.

Canon Ink-Jet can function as a scanner

Canon Computer Systems, Inc., has released a new ink jet printer that can be transformed into a scanner. With the BJC 4304, users can swap out an ink cartridge and replace it with a scanner engine. Users can scan in 24-bit color at 360 dpi (dots per inch) resolution. The printer is priced at $239; the scanner engine adds another $99.

Microfilm to PC

We have been asked whether there is any equipment which can digitize information on microfilm. The answer is yes, but most of it is very expensive-typically $55,000 to $100,000 per scanning system. There is at least one relatively inexpensive product on the market: the Fuji M Drive. Unfortunately, it is designed to work only with 16 mm microfilm. The PC-based system scans a 16 mm film roll in a standard ANSI cartridge and digitizes the image for display on the PC. The image can be viewed, edited, stored electronically on the PC or uploaded to a multi-user system, and printed. The total package is priced at $20,000. If the system proves popular, it is likely to be modified to accommodate 35 mm microfilm and microfiches. Other vendors may also enter the market.

Currently, the lowest-priced multi-format (film, fiche, and aperture cards) scanner is the SunRise ProScan, a $55,000 system which includes a multi-resolution (4 settings) camera, Pentium processor, ScanFlo imaging software and Windows NT 4.0.

[Contact: Fuji Photo Film USA; telephone 800-755-3854; SunRise Imaging; telephone 510-657-6250.]

HP replaces its topselling LaserJet 5L

Hewlett-Packard has replaced the HP LaserJet 5L with the LaserJet 6L. The new printer is priced at the same $399, but its speed is six pages per minute--50 percent faster than the very popular LaserJet 5L.

Ricoh shows CD-RW hardware

Ricoh has been showing its new MP 6200S CD-Rewritable (CD-RW) drive at hardware conferences around the country. The $599 unit is the first to offer rewritable capability and a SCSI-2 interface. The finished CDs produced on the system are compatible with existing CD-ROM players, and will also be forward-compatible with future DVD players.

[Contact: Ricoh; telephone 800-955-3453.]

Windows 9x on the way

According to a letter sent out by Microsoft's Organizational Customer Unit, Windows 9x will be released in Beta before the end of August. Its major features will be a Microsoft Explorer front-end and advanced plug-and-play. Production is scheduled to begin in mid-October and shipments to retailers may begin as soon as November 1. If the schedule holds, the product will be designated Windows97; if it slips, it will be Windows95.

According to Infoworld, a trade newspaper, Windows95 is now installed on 28 percent of all PCs worldwide. Windows 3.1 still is installed on some 34.4 percent of PCs, and MS-DOS on 14 percent. Windows NT trails with only 1.5 percent. All other desktop operating systems together, including Mac OS, account for 19 percent of installations.

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