ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


College &  Research 
Libraries news No. 3, M arch 1972

A C R L News Issue (A) of College & Research Libraries, Vol. 33, No. 3

Joint Project Between Dartmouth and OCLC
A significant and novel approach to the ad­

vancement of library technology, combining 
inputs from such geographically separated 
points as Washington, D.C., Columbus, Ohio, 
and Hanover, New Hampshire, will be under­
taken during the next six months. Part of a 
joint endeavor of the Dartmouth College li­
brary and the New England Library Informa­
tion Network (N E L IN E T ), a project of the 
New England Board of Higher Education, the 
experiment involves the practical application, 
through long-distance operation and testing, of 
a computer-based system designed to achieve 
a cheaper, more efficient production of cata­
log-card records for library use.

The 725-mile gap between Dartmouth in 
Hanover and the Ohio College Library Cen­
ter (O C L C ) in Columbus, Ohio, where OCLC 
has facilities for producing library catalog cards 
from magnetic tape input to a computer, will 
be spanned by a special telephone line. At 
the Dartmouth end, in the college’s Baker li­
brary, will be a cathode-ray-tube computer 
terminal, and at the Ohio end will be OCLC’s 
Xerox Sigma 5 computer. Stored in the OCLC 
computer are cataloging data from magnetic 
tapes prepared by the Library of Congress in 
Washington, covering all English-language 
books published since 1969, approximately 
200,000 in number.

An operator sitting at a typewriter-like key­
board in Hanover will ask the computer for 
desired cataloging entries for new acquisitions 
in one of three ways: By use of the Library of 
Congress card-identification number for the

volumes, by typing the first three letters of the 
author’s name and the first three letters of the 
first word of the book’s title (disregarding ar­
ticles), or by inputting the first three letters of 
the first word and the first letters of the next 
three words of the title. In a matter of seconds, 
the cataloging information will be relayed from 
Columbus and flashed on the “screen” of 
Dartmouth’s cathode ray tube. The Hanover 
operator can then signal Columbus that he 
wishes to be supplied with catalog cards for the 
particular item being displayed. Through com­
puter programming tailored to the precise needs 
of the Dartmouth library, the requisite number 
of cards, arranged for filing directly into the 
library’s catalogs, will be produced at Colum­
bus and promptly dispatched to Hanover. 
Catalog cards may also be obtained when a 
record is not already present within the OCLC 
system, simply by Dartmouth’s inputting its 
own cataloging, according to prescribed for­
mat, thus enlarging the OCLC data base and 
thereby benefiting other libraries in the Ohio 
program.

The six-month test at Dartmouth began on 
January 1. OCLC has for some period of time 
been operating a remote-access computer ser­
vice for an existing consortium of approximate­
ly fifty academic libraries in Ohio, Indiana, and 
Pennsylvania, and the Dartmouth link repre­
sents the farthest long-distance tie outside 
Ohio. The present experiment is being made 
under a grant to N ELIN ET of $53,589 from 
the Council on Library Resources in Washing­
ton. ■ ■

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News e d ito r : M ich ae l H erbison, L ib ra ry , U n iversity o f C o lo ra d o , C o lo ra d o  S prings C e n te r, C o lo ra d o  Springs, 
C o lo ra d o  80907. E d ito r: Richard M . D o ugherty, School o f L ib ra ry  Science, Syracuse U niversity, Syracuse, N.Y. 
13210. President, A C R L: Joseph H . Reason. Executive Secretary, A C R L: J . Donald Thomas, A L A .