Subject: tc-list Gremlins and OCLC

From: [email-masked] (William L. Petersen)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 20:21:21 +0200

Two brief items:

Thanks to those who offered suggestions as to the Gremlins.  As to the
problem, I figured a bit differently, noting that the odd/garbled
characters in Lincoln's "paste" from the OCLC (accents, umlauts, etc.) came
through OK, all three times (in his original post, and my two truncated
replies), but my new text (without any special characters), which followed
his "paste" from OCLC, was lost.  I wonder if there is some hidden
character(s) at the end of his paste from OCLC that aborts transmission,
for that is where my message was cut off in both of my replies--but not,
N.B., when Lincoln sent it out originally, where his signature followed the
"paste."  (Software engineers take note....)

On OCLC:  I'm still curious what this is.  If Lincoln is out there, I'd
appreciate a clarification.   Rod, are you sure this is the Ohio system,
augmented?  At Penn State, we have access to "RLIN" (the acronym is
something like "Research Libraries Interlibrary Network"), which is what
our Interlibrary Loan Dep't uses.  It has a very broad sweep (only American
libraries, however, but all the big ones), but its format is clearly
different from that of OCLC.  It seems odd (and a waste of resources) to
maintain two, essentially identical, catalogues (OCLC, RLIN, and whatever
else may be out there [Worldcat, Library of Congress, etc.]).  Is OCLC on
the web and, if so, what is its address?  TIA.

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.,
Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies.

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From: "Roderic L. Mullen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 16:27:04 -0500

To the best of my knowledge, OCLC is a closed system independent of the web.
I'd agree that there seems to be a tremendous duplication of effort, but
then many of the individual library catalogues online look like custom
designs anyway.  For instance, does it make sense to have catalog terminals
at UVA set up to require a campus i.d.?   --Rod

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From: "Richard D. Weis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:21:18 +0000

Dear Colleagues,

Some hazy memories from the archives in response to William 
 
> the web and, if so, what is its address?  TIA.

Both OCLC and RLIN are at least twenty years old because I first met 
them as a grad student at that time.  If memory serves, both were 
supported on central mainframes that one dialed into from dedicated 
terminals.  RLIN started off with an emphasis on large research 
libraries (hence the name), and thus included only collections of a 
certain size and depth.  I had the impression that OCLC got started 
as a comparable catalog and ILL service for everybody else.  So 
originally these were parallel, but not overlapping, networks.  As to 
their current relationship, I couldn't say.

Regards,
Richard Weis
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Richard D. Weis                                          [email-masked]
New Brunswick Theological Seminary        phone: 1-732-246-5613
17 Seminary Place                                       FAX: 1-732-249-5412
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1196 USA
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From: "GLINCOLN @ LBC * GLINCOLN" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 11:03:00 -0500

The "O" in OCLC originally did refer to Ohio but after several name 
changes, including O=Online, they are back to only the acronym.  The RLIN 
network does duplicate and overlap OCLC to some extent.  Most if not all 
the research libraries that belong to RLIN are also a member of OCLC.  The 
groups were originally created for shared cataloging (the first library 
that cataloged a book entered the record for the other libraries to use).  
OCLC member RLIN libraries should be placing the record of their holdings 
onto OCLC as they catalog.  All Library of Congress (and several other 
national library) records are automatically loaded onto OCLC.  It is a vast 
union catalog of the holdings of all the member libraries in one place.  
Its reason for being is to eliminate as much as possible the duplication of 
effort and lower the costs of library operation.

The Worldcat is another name for the union database used by OCLC under 
their FirstSearch service designed for public access.  It is available at 
most college and university libraries for searching.  The Web site is 
WWW.OCLC.ORG but you would need a password.  I did turn in a suggestion 
that they create individual accounts for searching but have not heard that 
they have it available.  If more individuals would send in the suggestion 
they might recognize the need.

In regard to the pasting of the bibliographic records, it is possible that 
there could have been a special character.  There is a special mapping for 
the ALA character set in order to transliterate any script into the Latin 
alphabet and a combination from it may have caused a problem.  I apologize 
for any problems with the pasting of the bibliographic records.

Gerald E. Lincoln              *****************************
Library Director               Voice (717) 560-8250 Ext. 362
Lancaster Bible College        FAX   (717) 560-8213
901 Eden Rd.                   e-mail  [email-masked]
Lancaster, PA 17601            *****************************