OACIS: Overview of a Collaborative Project

Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials

<http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis>For SCOPA, December 11, 2003

Review of goals:

• To create a freely available publicly accessible web site featuring a continuously updated union list of Middle Eastern serials– In all formats (including live web links)– From 20+ countries (ME as defined by LC)

• To lay foundations for the future, delivering widest possible information access– Expanded cooperation and participation– Document delivery/ILL– Digitization and preservation

OACIS founding libraries:• 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• Libraries in Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Tunis,

Why now?

• ME has always been a key part of the world– Historically, economically, politically– Never more than today

• Scholars and librarians have cooperated on modest projects– CRL’s Middle East Microform Project (MEMP)– Khoury/Bates Directory, U Washington, 1991– (But not across national boundaries or via technology

• Need for a significant set of digital building blocks that don’t exist yet

OACIS beginnings:

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

• All are three-year projects• 1999-2002 projects funded: Africa, Eurasia,

Japan, Latin America, South Asia• 2002-2005 projects: Indonesia, Japan, Latin

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

Collaborations through:

• Year 1: database creation, loading of serial records– Database expansion in US, Europe, Middle East

• Year 2: explore ILL/document delivery partnerships• Year 3: create mirror sites, modest digitizing,

identify future phases (such as preservation)• Year 2-3: internships from ME to work on OACIS

– Will enable participation from home library & beyond

• Synergies with other Title VI participants• Presentations at conferences, workshops (ME, DL)• Assessment by users, measuring success

Today:

• OACIS is mostly “On Target, On Time”• (Some travel and internship setbacks because of

volatile political situation)• Recent accomplishments:

– First full partners meeting (July in New Haven)– Discovered complementarities of Halle project and are

beginning links to it– Offer of digitization by Texas– Prototype launched globally November 10th, 2003

with thousands of bibliographical records– Interns for 2004 selected (Jordan, Syria)

Home Page - http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/

Potential Middle Eastern Participants:

University of Jordan, JordanAmerican University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon

Balamand University, LebanonTishreen University, Syria

Assad National Library in SyriaThe American University in Cairo

Arab Institute for Human Rights in Tunisia

Breaking MARC

Data Display Issues

On the Inside

Encoding 101

System Specifications

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).

http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/

What’s Next?

•Middle Eastern Interns-Interns selected-First intern will concentrate on issues of inputting non-MARC catalog records into OACIS using entry forms.-Second intern will focus on questions of document delivery

•Adding new participant data-Beginning in February we will start adding content from non-partner institutions at a slow and steady pace so as not to disrupt continuous project work.

What’s Next? (2)

•Exploring linking and other synergies with our Halle partner’s MENALIB project

•Fleshing out our thinking and plans for document delivery

•Fleshing out our thinking and plans for digitizing

•Seeking sustainability