[661] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
PACS-L & OPAC talk
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charles Hildreth)
Thu Jul 2 10:47:54 1992
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1992 09:43:37 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: Charles Hildreth <hildreth@eagle.sangamon.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ernest Perez has consented to my forwarding his thoughts about the
3rd Gen. OPAC discussion on PACS-L. The following comments were in a
message sent directly to me. I think they are deserving of a public
"airing". -Charles Hildreth
> To get a bit more feedback from the List, you might try to identify
> main themes that have shown up in your responses so far, and in prior
> work. I'm really surprised that there has been so little traffic thus
> far...I mean this list is supposed to center upon Public Access
> Computer Systems! And some of the discussions that turn into endless
> meandering babbles are really a bit peripheral to this topic. I mean,
> archive vs. distribution library functionality, the propriety of
> distribution of agricultural topical resource lists to multiple lists,
> advertising ethics, virtual libraries....
>
> I do support and recognize the need for your study of online catalog
> functionality. We are in need of intelligent consideration of where
> we're going; not just remaining subject to what Dynix, NOTIS, GEAC, etc.
> decide will give good ROI. I hope that the study will result in not just
> a study and report, but in a "guidelines" or "minimum functionality"
> document.
>
> My reasoning: I remember my 20 years in newspaper libraries, coming in
> right at the beginning of the industry thirst for "computerized morgues."
> I also remember that the biggest advance in the full-text applications
> available to newspaper libraries came about after the S.L.A. News
> Division issued a "minimimum specifications" standard. We distributed it
> to the then-current prospective vendor community: NEXIS, VuText,
> DataTimes, BASIS, INQUIRE, etc. It had quite an impact upon the
> functionality of system offerings. The developers finally had a
> consensus goal to aim at, and not just a collection of 'druthers from
> isolated shoppers.
>
> I assume you are keeping copies of email responses to your invitation for
> discussion of E-3-OPAC. I hope you will distribute a summary of responses.
> For that matter, if you'd like, send me a full copy of the response set,
> and I can hypertext it and ZIP it. You could announce availability of the
> collection for interested vendors, as well as put it on the FTP sites
> maintained by Barron and Nickerson.
>
> Cheers,
> Ernest
