OACIS: overview of a collaborative project

Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials (for the Middle East)

<http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis>At the ARL German Resources Meeting

Munich, 29 July 2003

Review of project goals:

• To create a freely available publicly accessible web site featuring a continuously updated union list of ME serials– In all formats (including live web links)

• To lay foundations for the future, through:– Expanded cooperation and participation– Document delivery/ILL– Digitization and preservation

OACIS partners:• Cornell University• Ohio State University• University of Michigan• University of Pennsylvania• University of Texas• University of Washington• Yale University• Universitaets- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-

Anhalt, Halle, Germany• Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Tunis, more to come

Why now?

• ME has always been a key part of the world– Historically, economically, politically– Now moreso than ever before

• Scholars and librarians have cooperated for some time – CRL’s Middle East Microform Project (MEMP)– Khoury/Bates Directory, U Washington, 1991

• But no tradition of cooperation in the following:– Technologically supported projects, or – Across national boundaries

Beginnings:

• US Department of Education Title VI program activated TICFIA portion in 1999 (Technological Innovation & Cooperation for Foreign Information Access)

• A series of 3-year projects– Round 1 - 1999-2002 projects: Africa, Eurasia, Japan,

Latin America, South Asia– Round 2 - 2002-2005 projects: Indonesia, Japan, Latin

America, ME, Asia, language teaching, Africa, South Asia, Tibet

– We will reapply in late 2004 for Round 3

Collaborations through:

• Year 1 - Database creation, loading– Database expansion in US, Europe, ME– Assessment of success, refinements

• Year 2 - ILL/document delivery partnerships• Year 3 - Identify future phases (digitizing,

preservation)• Annual internships from ME to work on OACIS

– Enable participation from home library & beyond• Synergies with other Title VI participants• Presentations at conferences, workshops

Today:

• After 10 months, OACIS is “On Target, On Time”• Some travel and internship delays because of

volatile political situation• Just concluded our first full partners meeting:

– Database review has identified key areas for enhancement and new possibilities

– Halle project is very complementary; build links, mirroring, cross-mapping with German pica format

– Offer of full text digitization from one of our partners (Texas)

Next steps:• We decided on:

– Countries, languages– Update modes and frequencies– How to improve searches, interfaces– A number of technical fine points, including subject

headings,

• We will develop documents:– “Participation Expectations and Agreement”– Job descriptions and criteria for ME interns

• We will plan for further fund-raising• Discussions about long-term sustainability

The front door of the OACIS site includes:1. General information2. Funding information – active links concerning TICFIA3. Contact links4. Quick links – including the link to search OACIS

1

2

3

4

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

The default search screen is set to Basic and is displayed in English. By clicking on Advanced Search, the user sees the expanded parameters for searching.

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

By selecting Preferences from the Menu bar, the user may changethe default settings for the language presentation of all displays. Asseen below, the selected language is also used for error messages; in this example, Spanish is the chosen language.

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

At present, the user may enter search strings in English, the Romanized form used by library systems, or Arabic, as in the example to the left. Below, the results page shows the search string in both the page title and the header information. The titles of each item in the Result List are active links which,when clicked, display information on the individual serial.

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

By clicking on a title from the Result List, the user sees a Brief View of the selected serial. The Menubar also permits the user to select a long view or a full MARC record view.

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

Examples of the other possible viewscurrently available to the user. (The MARCrecord shown here is abbreviated in thisexample.)

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003

The Open Source system consists of the following components:          Server operating system: Linux 2.4.18 via Red Hat 8.0           Web server: Apache 2.0.4          Database: MySQL 3.23          Application languages: PHP 4.3.0, JavaScript 2.0, HTML This system currently runs as a test environment on a purchased DELL Precision 350 with Intel Pentium 4 (2.26 GHz).

Technical Specifications

Elizabeth Beaudin, July 2003