Library Technology Guides

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Volume 5 Number 05 (May 1985)

Annual survey of library automated system vendors (continued)

The following section completes the annual vendor survey published last month (LSN Vol. V, No. 4). The vendors included in that issue offer integrated, multifunction, library systems that include either circulation or online patron access catalogs along with automated support of other functions. Companies offering either turnkey systems or supported software packages were included. A number of other companies that offer significant library automation products or services do not fit readily into either of these categories. These companies, together with companies that have withdrawn from the turnkey and supported software markets, are examined in the following section.

Other Vendors

During the year one company, CTI Library Systems Inc., disappeared from the market and another, IBM, ceased offering regular software maintenance for its DOBIS Leuven software in the United States.

At the end of 1983 CTI had reportedly been supporting 23 installed and accepted systems (nine of them outside of North America), and had had two systems awaiting installation. It appears that most of the CTI users in North America have now become Dynix users. Two of the CTI users have become customers of a new company, the founders of which include a former principal of CTI. The new company, Library Information Systems, is installing its software at Pomona Public Library and the State Library of Alaska, and has three people devoted to software maintenance and development. Its system offers support for cataloging, circulation, online catalog, interlibrary loan and materials booking.

[Library Information Systems, Inc., 840 Irvine Avenue, Suite 5-210, Newport Beach, CA 92663 (714) 631-0784.]

IBM had never revealed how many DOBIS sites it was supporting in the United States, but the editors estimate the number at more than five and less than ten. The DOBIS contracts written for U.S. sites before 1984 committed software maintenance up to December 31, 1984. These agreements have now expired and an IBM spokesperson has indicated that libraries with the software must now pay for maintenance on a time and materials basis. The software is still being made available to potential users, but the company no longer appears to be maintaining a central office for DOBIS inquiries in Bethesda, MD. Libraries interested in acquiring DOBIS are advised to "Contact their local IBM office."

Science Press, which showed its Automated Library System software at ALA in June, is still evaluating its marketing strategy and had not yet made the system available for sale.

A number of other companies were active in the local library systems market during 1984. They have not been included in the main survey for one of several reasons: a product line that includes neither circulation nor full patron access catalog, a system based on regular microcomputers, lack of visibility in the market place, or a product line that does not fit readily into the turnkey/software categorization. The more significant vendors in this group include:

• Blackwell Library Systems which was supporting 16 installed and accepted PERLINE/BOOKLINE periodicals control and acquisitions systems by the end of 1984. Ten systems were sold during the year, and two of these were awaiting installation or acceptance. The functions in operation at various sites were: acquisitions, global authority control, and serials control. Interfaces to OCLC and RLIN were in use and the systems have the capability of interfacing with other systems from the same vendor. Interlibrary loan, word processing and report generator capabilities were operational. Blackwell has 12 staff assigned to software maintenance and development.

  [Blackwell Library Systems, Inc., 310 East Shore Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 466-5418.]

• DTI Data Trek offers support for acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, serials control, patron access catalog, and materials booking through its Card Datalog microcomputer software programs. DTI reported having sold a total of 125 systems by the end-of 1984, with sales of 75 programs during the year. The company has five people committed to software maintenance and development.

  [DTI Data Trek, 121 west E. Street, Second Floor, Encinitas, CA 92024 (619) 436-5055.]

• Carlyle Systems Inc. began offering its TOMUS turnkey system to support data base creation and maintenance and online catalog functions in 1984. During the year the company installed eight systems, the first of which was in the Research Libraries of New York Public Library. All the systems are currently in the acceptance or testing stages of installation.

  [Carlyle Systems Inc., 2930 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94702 (415) 843-3538.]

• Gaylord Systems Division offers libraries a number of automated support options. The offerings range from single- function single user software packages for acquisitions, circulation, patron access catalog and serials control, with products specially tailored for the public and school library markets, to stand-alone minicomputer-based systems to support circulation and/or patron access catalog functions. As of the end of 1984 Gaylord was supporting DEC-based GS 300 and GS 400 circulation systems in 16 library sites and one DataPoint-based GS 3000 standalone online catalog system. Another GS 3000 online catalog system was sold during the year and was awaiting installation. The company has eight staff devoted to software maintenance and development- for its automated products.

  [Gaylord Systems Division, Box 4901, Syracuse, NY 13221 (800) 448-6160.]

Several other companies offer libraries automated support for a range of functions including acquisitions, circulation, patron access catalog and interlibrary loan using large time-sharing systems. Among the companies promoting these capabilities are Auto-Graphics and Brodart.

Address Changes

A number of the organizations which produce systems and services regularly featured in LSN have recently changed addresses. The companies and their new addresses are:

Blackwell Library Systems, Inc.
202 East Main Street, Suite 105.
Huntington, NY 11743.
(516) 351-1611 or (800) 645-5359

DTI Data Trek.
621 Second Street.
Encinitas CA 92024.
(619) 436-5055

Information Management Consultants, Inc.
225 West 34th Street, Suite 1105.
New York, NY 10001.
(212) 244-5440

Innovative Interfaces.
1409 Fifth Street.
Berkeley, CA 94701.
(415) 527-5555

Library Information Systems, Inc.
1691 Browning.
Irvine, CA 92714.
(714) 261-7425

NOTIS retains its address, but has changed its phone number to (312) 491-7004.

OCLC telecommunications system redesign

OCLC is implementing a new telecommunications system as part of its ongoing enhancement of the OCLC Online System. The redesign of the telecommunications network was prompted by the rising cost of leased telephone lines and a desire to be able to use the network for a wider range of applications.

The present OCLC telecommunications network supports over 6,000 dedicated terminals that utilize a telecommunications protocol unique to OCLC. The network consists of 280 leased lines operating at 2400 bps (bits per second). Each line supports an average of 22 dedicated terminals. The present network does not support other types of terminals, nor does it support other services such as facsimile or electronic document delivery.

There are a number of ways in which the objectives of lower unit cost and greater flexibility can be achieved in a telecommunications network. Opening the network to a higher level of activity can reduce unit costs. A network can encourage this increased activity by broadening the range of devices it can support and by increasing its capacity to accommodate a higher volume of transmissions. OCLC will widen the range of terminals and other equipment its network can support by moving away from the current proprietary protocols and adopting the national and international standards promulgated under the Open System Interconnection Reference Model. Capacity will be increased by the use of higher capacity transmission channels, rather than by increasing the number of channels.

Introduction of national level protocols will also provide the network with the capability to select from a wider range of telecommunications options. This will maximize OCLC's ability to take advantage of various transmission technologies provided by different carriers, enabling use of the most appropriate and most economical facilities International telecommunication-which requires conformity to international standards-will also be facilitated.

New high-capacity telecommunications channels are becoming increasingly available. The present telecommunications network of the U.S. consists of 1.4 billion circuit miles, AT&T alone plans to spend about $1.3 billion by 1988 to construct nearly 1.7 billion additional circuit miles. MCI plans to spend $500 million on 650 million additional circuit miles. Several other carriers are increasing their capacity. Most of the new construction will be fiber-optic systems that are able to carry up to 400,000 calls simultaneously over a single cable less than an inch in diameter. It is hoped that the OCLC's new telecommunications system's flexibility to accommodate a wide range of transmission technologies will enhance the utility's ability to "bargain hunt" among telecommunications carriers using different technologies.

In addition to building a network for transmission of messages over long distances, OCLC also plans to provide access from devices which are at some distance from a major network node. This will be accomplished by the use of relatively inexpensive packet assembly/ disassembly (PAD) equipment that performs the necessary protocol conversion, alleviating the necessity to provide this function in the local parts of the network itself. The network is also being designed to utilize other local facilities such as cable TV, microwave links, etc.

Neither is the switched telephone network being ignored. High-speed dial access over the switched telephone network at speeds of 9600 bps in full-duplex mode is now possible and the provision of local switched telephone network speeds up to 56 Kbps has been announced by several telephone companies.

OCLC has made an initial investment of $2.6 million for a state-of-the-art private distributed packet-switched system employing existing and emerging standards for open system interconnection. The system consists of off-the-shelf hardware and software, as well as custom software to support existing OCLC polled- protocol terminal equipment. It will provide service alternatives to the present multi-drop leased lines and their associated costs, and enable dial access using the OCLC network for users near network nodes rather than through value added networks such as Telenet.

The new network will also serve as the backbone of the OCLC Systems in Dublin, Ohio, enabling distribution of processing and storage and serving as a conduit between the various systems elements including computers, other telecommunications networks, and terminals and workstations.

The new telecommunications system is centered around the CP9000 Series II Packet Network system, provided by M/A COM DCC, Inc., of, Germantown, Maryland. This off-the-shelf system provides standardized international X.25 interfaces, X.75 gateways, and X.121 addressing. It supports both terrestrial and satellite transmission links.

Each of the planned communicating network nodes will consist of a hierarchy of several communicating computers, each complete with software, memory, etc., providing modularity, flexibility, efficiency, and redundancy. Accommodation of special protocols (e.g., the OCLC polled protocol) is made through software resident in the various distributed switching computers.

The new system provides extensive and sophisticated operations support capabilities. These include improved statistics gathering, performance monitoring and alerting, diagnostics and troubleshooting, optimized traffic routing, and many more. Moreover, the human interface to the network will be vastly improved, making network operations easier, faster, and more efficient for the personnel involved, and more productive overall.

The new network is being implemented in stages to assure a smooth operational transition. The first stage is installation of the new network configuration in the Central OCLC location in Dublin, Ohio. It is anticipated that this part of the system will be operational at OCLC headquarters in the fall of 1985. After approximately six months of evaluation and training, migration of the nodes into the field will begin. The project is expected to be completed during 1986.

Future expansion of capacity and node locations is easy to accomplish and will be an ongoing activity as circumstances dictate. The initial network configuration-the geographic location of network nodes and the user populations to be served by each-will be determined by many factors, including the results of detailed traffic engineering studies which have not yet been completed.

And a restructuring of OCLC prices

In another initiative, OCLC recently issued a report on changes in the pricing structure that will be introduced in January 1986. The major changes announced in the document are: the introduction of credits for original cataloging supplied by online participants; the introduction of credits for libraries which lend materials using the OCLC interlibrary loan subsystem; and the introduction of search charges for searches in excess of a threshold of four free searches for each online transaction. In addition, the cost of first time use and update transactions will be lowered. Special pricing policies have been introduced for libraries which participate in national or special programs through which the size and quality of the OCLC data base is enhanced. The programs slated for such treatment are: the enhance program, CONSER, major microform sets, library schools, and the U.S. Newspaper program. A full statement of the changes in pricing policy "OCLC Price Changes: Towards a More Equitable Structure; A Report to the Membership" is available from OCLC.

[Contact: OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-0702 (614) 764-6000.]

Videodisc and optical digital disk

In recent months, there have been a number of developments pertaining to the application of videodisk and optical digital disk in libraries

• The Council on Library Resources has published Videodisc and Optical Digital Disk Technologies and Their Applications in Libraries, a state-of-the-art report it commissioned from Information Systems Consultants, Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland. The report is available for $6.00 (prepaid) from the Council at 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036.
• ALDE (Applied Laser Disc Efficiencies) Publishing demonstrated its full-text laser videodisc edition of the United States Code (USC) and Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at the Federal Office Systems Exposition in Washington, DC. ALDE markets the product in a package that includes the laser disc encoded with data, an off-the-shelf industrial videodisc player, a disc controller, and proprietary retrieval software. The purchaser supplies the other required element-an off-the-shelf personal computer with 256KB of memory, a 10MB Winchester disk drive, and the UNIX or MS-DOS 2.0 operating system. The single-sided video-disc, which stores 864MB of data per side is reissued avery six months.

  Between disc updates, monthly updates are distributed on floppy disk or down-loaded over the phone lines.

  ALDE can supply the full USC and CFR on disc, or subsets of any combination of the titles covered by these codes. The techniques it uses in the production of these products can be applied to any U.S. Government Printing Office product, and to other files of machine-readable information.

  The retrieval software supports keyword and Boolean searching, and includes features such as adjacency and truncation. ALDE claims a maximum retrieval time of 18 seconds for any search on a single videodisc.

  The cost for the software, the disc player, and the disk controller is $6,000. The videodisc edition of Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations (the tax code) is $2,000, plus $100 per month for updates. A set of videodiscs containing the full CFR, all 50 titles, costs in the region of $10,000. A multiple videodisc player controller is also available. This configuration can support up to four videodisc players.

  The proprietary processes used to prepare the machine-readable data for videodisc mastering and disc replication in the ALOE product reportedly differ significantly from those used by companies such as RTI and LaserData. The encoding, premastering, and mastering of the videodiscs and the development of the videodisc controller and software used by ALDE were undertaken by TMS Inc. an Oklahoma corporation. Details of the process are proprietary, but promotional literature suggests that their machine- readable data is transferred directly to the videodisc master without being processed through an intermediate stage on videotape. Mastering of multiple copies of the videodisk occurs at the producer's site. It is not necessary to use a remote commercial mastering facility. TMS claims that its techniques produce a more reliable and less expensive disc than do the techniques of other companies. The availability of a third option for machine-readable data transfer to videodisc is important as it will allow users of products using the different techniques to assess whether or not the formatting and mastering process has a significant effect on data reliability and access times.

  [Contact: ALDE Publishing, 7615 Metro Boulevard, P.O. Box 35326, Minneapolis, MN 55435 (612) 835-7051. TMS Inc., 110 W. 3rd Street, P.O. Box 1358, Stillwater, OK 74076 (405) 377-0880.]

• The number of companies offering turnkey optical digital disk storage and retrieval systems for office applications is increasing. Such systems typically combine: a digitizing document scanner with an input resolution of 200 lines per inch; an input/display terminal to key machine-searchable data, handle word processing, and image retrieval and display; a magnetic disk storage buffer; an optical disk drive which records (writes) the data on optical disk and retrieves (reads) data from the disks; a jukebox for the storage and retrieval of multiple optical disks; and a high speed printer to produce hardcopy of the stored documents. The first such configuration offered in the U.S. was Philip's Megadoc. It has been joined by the FileNet Corporation's FileNet system and, most recently, by 3M's Electronic Document Image System (EDIS).

Battelle and PHILSOM offer new options for automated serials control

Readers tracking the options for automated serials control will be conscious of the high level of activity in this area over the past twelve to eighteen months. [Developments have been so rapid that the Editors are currently preparing an update to their study "Serials Control in Libraries: Automated Options" published as Library Technology Reports Vol. 20, No. 2 (March-April 1984). The update will be published later this year in LTR.]

Noteworthy developments in this field since the announcement of OCLC's SC35O (see LSN Vol. 5, No. 2, page 12) include Battelle's development of a separate serials control system, STACS, and the availability of a standalone version of the PHILSOM system.

The Battelle Columbus Laboratories has developed a Serials Control and Tracking System (STACS) which may be configured as part of its BASIS Technical Library Package or as a standalone serials control system. STACS handles checkin, claiming, routing, and ordering. The system predicts the enumeration and expected date of receipt of future issues of a journal and allows single keystroke checkin when the item in hand is that expected. STACS can be mounted on a variety of hardware including DEC VAX, DEC 20 and DEC 20; IBM 43xx, IBM 370 and 30xx series, the CDC Cyber and 6000; and Wang VS. The software is priced at $30,000.

The Periodicals Holdings in Schools of Medicine (PHILSOM) system developed by the Washington University School of Medicine has operated in a network environment since its introduction in 1963. In the latest version of the software, PHILSOM IV, all operations are performed online and the system has also been made available for standalone operation on an IBM PC XT or AT and for DEC PDP/ll and VAX minicomputers. PHILSOM provides support for checkin, based on prediction algorithms; gap identification and claiming; binding; subscription management; and routing.

Two different pricing structures apply to libraries wishing to acquire PHILSOM for a standalone system: for single-user systems, the prices range from $2,000 for the IBM PC, to $3,000 for the DEC PDP/ll. The MIIS operating system is also required. For multiuser systems, the software carries an additional levy which is dependent upon the number of users. A 20 percent surcharge is levied for two users, plus an additional 10 percent for third and fourth users, and a 50 percent surcharge for more than four users. The annual software maintenance charge for either single- or multiuser software ranges from $1,200 to $1,800. PHILSOM staff estimate that the hardware for an IBM PC XT-based single user system with 10MB of disk storage would range from $5,000 to $10,000 excluding hardware maintenance.

[Contact: Battelle Software Products Center, BASIS Marketing Office, 505 King Avenue, Columbus, OH 43201-2693 (614) 424-5508 and PHILSOM Coordinator, Washington University, School of Medicine Library, 660 South Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110 (314) 362-2788.]

Laser scanner vs. light pen for automated circulation systems

Libraries preparing specifications for the automation of circulation control frequently ponder the relative advantages of laser scanners versus light pens as data collection devices for capturing the barcode or OCR labels affixed to patron cards and items in the collection. The following pointers are drawn from the Editors' experience in assisting libraries in the selection of automated systems.

It is generally agreed that in most operational situations there is little to distinguish between the two devices in terms of their data collection capabilities. The laser scanner automatically makes multiple scans of the label-approximately 100 scans per second-which may reduce the need for the operator to rescan. However, throughput is more a factor of the physical handling of books and the interchange between patrons and staff, than the speed of the electronic data collection device. In addition, the scanner does not come into physical contact with the label which may reduce wear and tear on the labels and thus increase their lifespan. However, in addition to the substantially higher cost of laser scanners-as much as triple regular terminals with light pens-there are other issues which diminish the importance of these potential benefits.

• Few of the major turnkey automated library system vendors currently offer laser scanners as a regular part of their systems configuration. Thus libraries which mandate the use of laser scanners in their systems risk the possibility of disqualifying other vendors from consideration, or of incurring additional expenses in meeting the requirement.
• Light pens are simpler devices than laser scanners and more versatile in that they can be readily attached to a wide range of terminal types. Laser scanners are generally available only as an integral part of more sophisticated, expensive terminals. The interchangeability of light pens means that a library can carry a stock of spare light pens and immediately replace one that is faulty; it is a more expensive proposition to maintain a backup supply of $5,000 laser terminals.
• Laser scanners are difficult to repair in the field. Average downtime is, therefore, longer than for simple terminals and detachable, field replaceable light pens.

Gaylord offers "total solution"

In the final part of the annual review of the year-end position of the various automated library system vendors published elsewhere in this issue of LSN, mention was made of the family of automated system components offered by Gaylord. In a recent press release, the company announced the selection of its ARMS system for the automation of multiple functions in the Fountaindale (Illinois) Public Library District. ARMS is a systems-integrated combination of Gaylord's online circulation control, catalog management with online patron access catalog, MARC/technical services, and acquisitions capability. Gaylord will provide the hardware for the system- and tailor the software to meet the Library's needs. Staff support and training will also be provided under the contract.

[Contact: Gaylord Information Systems, P.O. Box 4901, Syracuse, NY 13221 (800) 448-6160.]

TBG purchases CL Systems, Inc.

CL Systems, Inc. has announced that it has joined TBG family of companies. TBG (formerly Thyssen-Bornemisza) is a privately-held corporation with annual revenues in excess of $1.7 billion. Richard Goldberg remains as President and Chief Executive Officer of CL Systems, Inc., and the company will continue to serve the library automation market exclusively. The association with TBG is expected to provide CL Systems, Inc. with additional resources with which to expand its operations.

[Contact: CL Systems, Inc., 1220 Washington Street, West Newton, MA 02165 (617) 965-6310.]

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