AsianDOC Electronic Newsletter 1:1(March 1998)

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 14:08:25 -0500

This is a progress report on the Union List of Japanese Serials (ULJS)
project which is a part of the AAU/ARL/NCC Japanese Journal Access Project:

http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/ULJS

The Union List of Japanese Serials Working Group conducted extensive email
discussions during the fall, providing valuable input to the design and
programming of the web-based union list at Ohio State.  Members of the
Working Group are:   Lynne Kutsukake (Toronto), Naomi Findley (Hoover),
Eddy Harrison (Washington), Kevin Lin (Texas), Susan Rabe (CRL).  Hideyuki
Morimoto (Berkeley) has been providing technical advice to the Working
Group.

At Ohio State, the staff working on this project include: myself and my
graduate assistants:   Koyo Hasebe (a graduate student in Electrical
Engineering who will graduate this spring), Young Joon Moon (also a
graduate student in EE, whom I have hired as Koyo's replacement), Kiyoko
Yoneyama (a graduate student in Linguistics who has been hired with funding
from the East Asian Studies National Resource Center at Ohio State).  All
of us have many other duties, of course, but the ULJS has a fairly high
priority.  NCC has provided $3,000 in funds to support this project, which
has enabled me to hire Young prior to Koyo's graduation -- thus providing a
smooth transition.   In addition to staff support, Ohio State is supporting
the project with disk space on the web server that was acquired with US
Dept. of Education Title II-A funding in 1994-95.

Based on advice from the Union List of Japanese Serials Working Group, at
Ohio State we began a series of experiments beginning in December to import
data into the union list.  At the same time we continued to modify the
display and search mechanisms.  Over the past three months here's what
we've done:

1.)  Added records/holdings to the union list:

**  24 newspaper records from Harvard-Yenching (downloaded directly from
their web page; encoding problems resolved)
**  1,314 serial records from Ohio State's OPAC (Boolean search collected
from an Innovative Interfaces, Inc.(III) OPAC)
**  271 serial records from U of Oregon's OPAC (Boolean search collected
from an III OPAC; sent to OSU by ftp)
**  195 serial records from U of Toronto's OPAC (MARC records from OPAC;
sent by diskette)
**  375 serial records from U of Illinois' website (downloaded directly
from their web pages; no problems encountered)
**  1, 599 serial records from CRL's OPAC (Boolean search collected from an
III OPAC; sent to OSU as an email attachment)  (CRL records were loaded
into the ULJS just two days ago.)

Summary:  3,774 records were received.  Of these, 338 duplicate
bibliographic records have already been deleted (see below).  Currently
there are 3,436 records in the database.

Thanks to Pamela Dellal (Harvard-Yenching), Bob Felsing (Oregon), Lynne
Kutsukake (Toronto), Kazuko Sakaguchi (Illinois), and Susan Rabe (CRL) for
all their help!!!  Without their hard work and cooperation this project
would never have gotten underway.  They helped us gain experience (what
works/what doesn't), so that (hopefully) the process will be smoother from
now on.  We are now ready to receive data from other libraries (details are
in another message).

Overall, Illinois' data was the easiest for us to use.  Toronto's MARC data
was next easiest (although we could not use the data as it was first sent
to us).  OSU/Oregon/CRL all had similar problems (we accepted the data with
field labels rather than MARC tagging).  Harvard's data was similar to
Illinois' except that we stumbled on some unfamiliar encoding and asked
them to re-input their data.    We gained confidence that we can manipulate
data emanating from various sources and carrying different kinds of
tagging.

In terms of usefulness, the OSU/Oregon/CRL data all include holdings.
Toronto's records do not.  The Harvard and Illinois web sites included
carefully edited holdings information and, thus, proved to be the best
source, in this regard (although preparing such web sites requires
substantial staff time).  Unfortunately, OSU/Oregon/CRL holdings data still
need editing.  Since we successfully linked to the OSU WebPAC directly,
perhaps that would be a better strategy to pursue for holdings information
than inputting/editing the information into the union list itself.  This
topic should be discussed further (see below).

2.) Edited the Database

** 338 duplicate records have been deleted.   The de-duping process is
aided by a computer "match" of identical ISSNs, OCLC numbers, titles -- but
each "match" is examined before a record is deleted.
** Japanese vernacular characters have been added to 1,398 records.
** URLs have been added to some records --  for tables of contents or  full
text (when available); to the corporate site for commercial publishers
and/or to a web site that has input tables of contents.

Editing is ongoing.

3.) Programmed the search interface.

We responded to suggestions about what kinds of searches would be useful by
adjusting screen displays and search mechanisms.

Since OSU recently implemented WebPAC we have linked each OSU record
directly to the OSU WebPAC record.  (This means that the union list
holdings will never need to be updated, since the searcher can check the
online records directly!!   We are interested in doing the same for
holdings from other libraries.)

**************************************
Now that we've come this far, we are ready to move ahead.   For that, I am
seeking wider participation of AAU/ARL/NCC project participants.  In
particular, I invite you to:

1. ) Add your library's Japanese newspaper and serials data to the ULJS.

At a minimum I urge every library to send me your newspaper bibliographic
and holdings data.  Looking at the CEAL statistics, it is clear that the
number of newspapers that each library holds is relatively small.  We know
that researchers are very keen to get access to newspapers for research --
and knowing which years are held where is essential.    For those two
reasons, I am targeting newspapers as the first priority for the ULJS.

*******
Please (everyone!) send me your newspaper bib and holdings information
(current and ceased,if possible) for ULJS!
*******

I also urge each participating library to contribute Japanese serials
bibliographic and holdings information to the ULJS.  Since this often takes
time to arrange, it would be good to start soon.  Whenever your data is
ready we will be able to upload it into the ULJS.

Details about data requirements are in a separate email message.

2.) Join the ULJS mailing list.  This new list has just been set up to
support better communication for the ULJS project.   The mailing list will
be used to set the goals for the ULS and monitor progress toward them.  A
"to do" list will be posted at least once a month, with progress reports on
the various elements in the list.  Priorities will be set in response to
the group's discussions.  As mentioned above, such topics as the usefulness
of direct links to OPACs vs inputting actual holdings would be appropriate
for discussion on the mailing list.

To join this list, please send the following:

subscribe ULJS Your Name

to: listproc@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu

Membership on this list is open to participants in the ARL project and
others who are interested.

3.) Help edit/develop the ULJS database.

Bib info:  We can provide passwords for project participants who want to
help us edit the bibliographic data.

Holdings:  Each library will have passworded access to their own holdings
files for updating/editing.

Home page/help screens/explanation of the project, etc:  No work has been
started yet on any of these.  Volunteers are welcome!

4.) Start using the ULJS and provide feedback (to me directly or to the
mailing list) about problems that you encounter.  Through such feedback we
can make revisions and improve the database and its interface.

with best wishes,
Maureen Donovan
donovan.1@osu.edu

URL http://asiandoc.lib.ohio-state.edu/v1n1/dbs/uljs.html