ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries December 1987 / 679 Creating a traditional reference tool in the Age of Electronics By A ntoinette Paris P ow ell Director, Agriculture Library University o f Kentucky T he changing art o f bibliography preparation. B ib lio g ra p h ie s are still a convenient, compact Purely horticultural subjects were excluded and re­ . lationships were established among the remaining r terms. The list was reviewed by several senior land­ ­ scape architects and a thesaurus of 121 terms was t­ established th a t included subjects in the hum ani­ ­ ties, social sciences and applied sciences. k The thesaurus was used as a basis for searching g the union catalog in the m ain library at the Univer­ r sity of Kentucky. Each term was searched and the st entries listed were photocopied. Slips were then or­ t ganized by subject and a brief entry was typed into ­ a rudim entary w ord processor. T he listing was e printed out and the Subject Guide to Books in Print ­ was checked to see w hat was available th a t was not i­ held by the University of Kentucky Libraries. An i­ author and title index was com piled m anually, d some introductory text was added and the project was submitted to the Occasional Papers Comm it­ tee of the Library Faculty for review. The m anu­ script was viewed favorably and University o f Ken­ tuc ky Libraries O ccasional Paper no. 3, “ The t Landscape Architecture Book Catalog,” was issued i­ in August 1982 and distributed in the Southeastern ­ United States. In 1984 Oryx Press agreed to publish ­ a revised and updated version of this preliminary a effort.f e How it continued ­ ­ Oryx Press required th a t the entries in the bibli­ t. ography be updated and completed. To make the form at for retrospective information on a topic M odern technology does not diminish the need fo comprehensive bibliographies, although the crea tion of a bibliography can be m ade easier by p u ting some of the technology to work. The intellec tual effort remains, and so does the laborious tas of verification, b ut the mechanics of producin such a work can be streamlined. A word processo can replace the beleaguered secretary who mu type and retype the effort; a database managemen program can aid in the restructuring of the bibliog raphy; and the commercial databases can provid access to collections th a t previously required trav eling to a major collection or poring through var ous bibliographies to find the sources. Such a bibl ography was created between 1977 and 1987 an has just been published by Oryx Press. How it began The project began as a collection developmen survey of campus holdings to respond to an accred tation report by the Landscape Architecture Ac creditation Board of the American Society of Land scape Architects. T he first step was to create subject list to work from by using the Library o Congress Subject Headings List, 8th edition. Th term “Landscape Architecture” was found as a le gitim ate heading, and each reference listed be neath was traced and added to the subject lis 680 / C&RL News COMMONS (direct) NT Mark Mir Pasture, Right of Village communities Zadruga RE Common lands BT Land tenure Public Lands Real property Village communities T=Narrower Term RE=Related term BT=Broader Term Fig. 1. The Thesaurus. N 851. Maki, Fumihiko. Investigations in collective form, 1964.’ Arch 711.4/M2893i 923. Simonds, John Ormsbee. Earthscape: a manual of environmental planning, 1978. Agr TD170.S55 also in Arch. Fig. 2. The Book Catalog. $H2 AMUSEMENT PARKS--BIBLIOGRAPHY $15. $2 Starbuck, James C.\ $3 Theme parks: a partially annotated bibliography of articles about modern amusement parks. $4 Council of Planning Librarians. Exchange Bibliography, no. 953. Monticello, IL: The Council, 1976. 20 p. $1 6. $2 Starbuck, James C.\ $3 Theme park development; 19750-1980. $4 Architecture Series; Bibliography A-590. Monticello, IL: Vance Bibliographies, 1981. 13 p. $1 7. $2’ White, Anthony G.\ $3 Amusement parks, a selected bibliography. $4 Architecture Series; Bibliography A-1052. Monticello, IL: Vance Bibliographies, 1983. $H2 AMUSEMENT PARKS--DESIGNS AND PLANS $1 8. $2 Swanson, Steven A.\ $5 ©"Glendale water theme park." $4 Master’s thesis, University of Utah, 1984. Fig. 3. The Electronic File. December 1987 / 681 P O W 1 2 / 2 0 / 8 5 OCLC QUERY 0 0 3 6 NOV 1 9 8 5 1 PUBLIC– LANDS.SH. OR P U B L IC -L A N D S -B IB I$ SH. OR PU BLIC -LA N D S -M AN A G E $.S H . OR PUBLIC– LAN D S -M A P S .S H . OR PUBLIC– LANDS-PROTECTIO N.SH. RESULT 18 Z PUBLIC– L A N D S – RECREATION.SH. OR PUBLIC– L A N D S – UNITED$.SH. OR P U B LIC -LA N D S -V A L U A T IO N .S H . RESULT 6 3 PUBLIC– L A N D S – RECREATIONS.SH. RESULT 6 4 P U B L IC -L A N D S – PROTECTION$.SH. OR P U B LIC -LA N D S -V A LU AT IO N $ .S H . RESULT 2 5 R E S EA R C H -N A TU R A L – AREASS.SH. OR RESORTS.SH. OR RESORTS– DESIGNS.SH. RESULT 1 2 9 6 RESORTS– DIRECS.SH. OR RESORTS– ENVIRONS.SH. OR RESORTS– MANAGES.SH. OR R ESORTS– UNITEDS SH. OR RESORTS– VALUATIONS.SH. RESULT 15 7 R O A D S – ACCESSORIESS.SH. OR R O A D S – GUARD-FENCESS SH. OR ROADSIDE– IMPROVEM ENT.SH. OR ROADSIDE - IM PROVEMENT-ADD5.SH. RESULT 4 4 8 R O ADSID E– IMPROVEMENT-DESIGNS.SH. OR ROADSIDE-IM PROVEMENT -ENVIRONMSSH. OR ROADSIDE– IMPROVEMENT-UNITEDS.SH. OR ROADSID E– REST– AREASS.SH. RESULT 16 Fig. 4. The BRS Search. Unexpected $# in title in line 1 Could locate no $4 in line 2 Missing backslash after a $2 in 3 No $3 or $5 before the $4 in line 5 Fixed missing $1 in original line 5 Error after the number in original 6 Fig. 5. The Error Message. 1M0DERN AMUSEMENT PARKS. 2C0NSULTANTS TO OUTDOOR AMUSEMENT INDUSTRY. 3STEP RIGHT UP! 4MIDWAY: AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF AMUSEMENT RESORTS AND ATTRACTIONS. 5THEME PARKS: A PARTIALLY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARTICLES ABOUT MODERN AMUSEMENT PARKS. 6THEME PARK DEVELOPMENT; 1975-1980. Fig. 6. The ASCII File. Record# NUMBER TITLE 1 2 CONSULTANTS TO OUTDOOR AMUSEMENT INDUSTRY. 2 4 MIDWAY: AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF AMUSEMENT RESORTS AND ATTRACTIONS. 3 1 MODERN AMUSEMENT PARKS. 4 3 STEP RIGHT UP! 5 6 THEME PARK DEVELOPMENT; 1975-1980. 6 5 THEME PARKS: A PARTIALLY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARTICLES ABOUT MODERN AMUSEMENT PARKS. Fig. 7. The dBASE File. 682 / C&R L News bibliography a m anageable size, the decision was m a d e to in clude only E n g lish-language m ono­ graphs and series, the latest edition of each work (with a few exceptions), and no works w ith a geo­ graphical lim itation in th e subject heading. Entries w ould appear in the bibliography once under the first applicable heading. T he m achine file was loaded into an IBM PC from an IMSAI 8080 using the RS232 port. T he entire file w as contained on three double-sided, double-density floppies. U pdating the bibliography w as done electroni­ cally using O C LC EASI Reference on BRS and the C arrollton Press MARC D ata Base on Dialog. Cost estimates for the searching w ere based on a count of entries in Library o f Congress Catalog, Books: Sub­ jects and the final cost estim ate on the database searching was $1,000. To contain the cost of the searches, broad subjects w ere segregated from the thesaurus to be m anually searched in Library o f Congress Catalog, Books: Subjects for 1950-1982, the years for w hich hard copy of the set was readily available. T he thesaurus was then verified against the ninth edition of Library o f Congress Subject Headings and its supplem ents, and later the tenth edition of Library o f Congress Subject Headings, and th e changed term s were incorporated into the thesaurus. T he thesaurus was divided into groups of five for set creation an d the searching began in November 1985. BRS’s O C LC EASI Reference w as the first d a ta ­ base searched and a serious flaw in the search strat­ egy was discovered. Such narrow subject areas as “ am u se m en t park s” w ere easily searched w ith truncation retrieving all th e relevant citations. Us­ in g th e sam e strateg y on b ro a d e r headings re ­ trieved all the entries, including all citations con­ fined to a specific geographic areas. T he citations for such subjects as “Cities and Towns” w ere five times greater th a n projected, and after consulting w ith BRS it was determ ined th a t the only solution to the problem was to do a root on the term s and prin t th a t out, then type in the terms relevant to the bibliography. This doubled the cost of the search, and by the tim e the searching was finished the cost on O C L C EASI Reference alone was over $1,100. T he searching in Dialog’s MARC and REMARC databases posed similar problems: subjects such as landscape architecture, landscape gardening, city p la n n in g , a n d regional p la n n in g could n ot be searched using truncation. A list w as d raw n up based on the LC catalogs and those term s w ere searched individually. T he final bill on the d ata­ base searching was $2,700. To enrich the bibliography, the Library o f Con­ gress Catalog, Books: Subjects from 1950 was con­ sulted and photocopies w ere m ade of the pages containing entries for a few subjects, including city an d regional planning, landscape arch itec tu re, and gardening. T he C arrollton Press’s REMARC databases for pre-1950 m aterials w ere searched an d T he N ational Union Catalog Pre-1956 I m ­ prints w as consulted to verify older entries. Preparing the bibliography Com piling th e bibliography began w ith the pho­ tocopied slips th a t form ed “The Landscape Archi­ tecture Book C atalog.” Entries not in scope w ith th e b ib lio g r a p h y a n d d u p lic a te e n tr ie s w e re searched for m anually an d deleted. T he rem aining entries w ere checked against the original slip and the im print inform ation was added along w ith the ty p e se ttin g codes. A bout 700 en tries w ere dis­ carded from the “Book C atalog” and 2,500 entries w ere completed. T he printouts from the database searches and photocopied sheets w ere reviewed an d relevant entries w ere earm arked for inclusion. A code was devised to indicate th e original source of th e e n try an d added w h ere th e nu m b e rin g w ould eventually go. T he entire process took 10 months. As the file grew so did the num ber of diskettes, and the logistics of finding entries became a pro b ­ lem. In D ecem ber 1985 a 20 MB h ard disk was added to the PC to allow the bibliography to be loaded as one file. F atigue became a problem in en­ tering the items in the bibliography, and later a high resolution color graphics monitor w as added to aid in the production. W orking w ith the entries out of L C Catalog, Books: Subjects also proved to be an obstacle as the type size was extremely small and the photocopies tended to be fuzzy. A lighted m agnifying glass was secured to aid in this effort. The clean-up O nce all the entries w ere in the database, the clean-up began. D uplicate entries continued to be a problem and the search began for a w ay for the machine to catch the duplicates. A database m an­ ager, dBASE III+ , was investigated and p u t to use. A BASIC program w as w ritten to num ber the bib ­ liographic references, look for coding errors, create an error file, strip off initial articles from the title, strip out the entire title and entry num ber, and p ut the entries in a form at acceptable to dBASE for al­ phabetical sorting. T he program took about six hours to do the clean-up work. O nce the dBASE file was created it was scanned for possible duplicates, and entry numbers w ere re­ corded to be checked. T he entire bibliography was printed on a 700-page printout; the suspected d u ­ plicates w ere checked and marked for deletion, and 622 duplicates w ere removed from the d a ta ­ base. T he BASIC program to look for coding errors and to renum ber the bibliography was run again, and an error file was created. T he error file identi­ fied the irregularity for each entry th a t it found, a n d a 17-page, single-spaced, double-colum n printout was generated for entries to be checked. O n O ctober 30, 1986, a total of 8,298 entries w ere transferred to nine diskettes and sent to Oryx Press. In D ecem ber 1986 page proofs w ere returned from Oryx Press and th e onerous task of proofread­ ing began. A list of about 500 questions was sent D ecem ber 1987 / 683 from the editor a t Oryx Press and another 2,700 w ere g e n e ra ted d u rin g th e pro o fread in g . T he proofreading required m atching each original en­ try w ith the page proofs, and the questions were typed into a laptop com puter and uploaded to an IBM w hen the memory was full, then printed out for checking. O ne hundred pages of corrections w ere generated. To simplify proofreading, entries for the database searches w ere cut a p a rt an d filed w ith the core entry slips. T he same was done for some of the photocopies from the LC C atalog, but an additional step was added because the entries w ere so small they had to be stapled onto 3 x 5 slips of paper for filing. In order to check the anomalies, screen prints w ere obtained for each questionable entry and they were verified either w ith the origi­ nal source of the entry or th e O C LC record. M any entries from the O C L C EASI Reference search w ere difficult to interpret because of th e form at chosen for the printout; others w ere C IP records and had to be verified in O C LC . Some of the en­ tries had to be verified in the National Union Cata­ log Pre-1956 Im prints and in some cases the book itself had to be obtained to verify th e bibliographic inform ation. T he proofreading took four months. A fter the proofs w ere sent back w ith all the an­ swers, the w aiting began. In April 1987 the index pages arrived for proofreading and some problems w ith the program th a t generated the index were discovered. Several potential problems w ere also found but w ere ironed out w ith little difficulty. In late July th e bibliography w ent to the printer, 20 m onths after th e initially projected com pletion date. The aftermath Technology does not lessen the intellectual effort required to produce a bibliography—b u t it can re­ duce the m anual effort and speed of the production of it. In th e early years, having T he Bibliography of Landscape Architecture, E nvironm ental Design and Planning in m achine-readable form was an oddity, b u t in the ten years th a t it was in produc­ tion, technology had moved swiftly. If such a proj­ e c t w e re b e g u n to d a y , t h e e n tr ie s c o u ld be dow nloaded using such program s as Bibliolink and form atted w ith something like Procite. T he inter­ m ediate step of keying into the bibliography w ould be bypassed as searches could be form atted and then scanned to delete irrelevant entries. T he for­ m atting could be checked an d rearranged for en­ tries th a t did not m eet the standard, and the re­ m ainder could be read into the electronic file and coded. W ith desktop publishing, localized bibliog­ raphies could be printed in-house and distributed at a low cost. The Bibliography o f Landscape Architecture, E n v ironm ental Design and Planning depended heavily on technology to become a reality. In the early days th e w ord processor replaced the secre­ tary w ho w as not available to type it. T he photo­ copier played an im portant role w ith the copying of the catalog cards, reducing the am ount of tim e needed to begin the work. W hen it was tim e to pre­ pare th e m anuscript for Oryx Press, once again technology was invaluable. T he need to transfer th e core da ta to an im proved w ord processing sys­ tem w as filled by basic com munications software. Accessing commercial databases brought in a wide range of sources th a t only several years ago w ould have required trips to several collections. T he deci­ sion to code the work for Oryx allowed for local control of the au thor an d title index. Using dBASE III+ to create a local searchable title index, and the error handling program w ritten in-house (literally as it was w ritten by my husband) were invaluable in the clean-up of the manuscript. Technology can also create its ow n set of prob­ lems, and m any times during the work on this bib­ liography it was cursed. S tructuring the database searches to keep the cost dow n and retrieve rele­ v an t inform ation was frustrating. M uch of th e searching w as done early in the morning, and al­ though BRS seems to be up before 6:00 a .m ., sev­ eral times the password stuck and BRS had to be called after 8:00 a.m . to secure credit. O n one oc­ casion the corrections disappeared in the uploading from the laptop com puter to the IBM and th e hard disk crashed on th e PC taking all 1.4 MB of infor­ m ation into oblivion. (Fortunately a backup was created on floppies after each editing session so nothing was lost). Occasionally the save feature w ould not be used after an editing session and all the w ork for th a t session w ould not go into the file. T he bibliography still has its place in the Age of Electronics. Technology can be harnessed to aid in the production but the intellectual effort remains. W hile the w ork is still tedious, the finished product is rew arding. T he challenge lies in making technol­ ogy do w hat you w an t it to do and not altering the product to conform to the technology. ■ ■ ACRL Candidates’ Forum Everyone is invited to h ea r the tw o candi­ dates for ACRL Vice-President/President-Elect a t 8:30-10:00p .m ., Saturday, January 9,1988, at the ALA M idw inter Meeting. This will be an opportunity to hear the candidates’ positions on issues affecting ACRL an d to ask the candidates about your concerns. T he forum will be held in the Regency Ball­ room (Center) a t the H yatt Regency San Anto­ nio. A reception, sponsored by Ebsco Subscrip­ tio n Services, w ill im m ed iately follow the Forum . T he tw o candidates are W illiam A. Moffett, director of libraries at O berlin College, and D avid B. W alch, dean of library and audiovi­ sual services a t C alifornia P olytechnic S tate University, San Luis Obispo. Elizabeth H am ­ m ond of M ercer University will m oderate the discussion.