ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ Septem ber 1998 / 577 C O N F E R E N C E C I R C U I T Technology exhibits at ALA A look at what’s new by Tracey DePellegrin With 825 companies exhibiting at the Washington, D.C. Convention Center during ALA 1998, just finding the technology- centered exhibits was easier than I’d antici­ pated. Many o f the vendors peddling com­ puter software, automated library catalogs, scanners, and anything hi-tech had floor dis­ plays that were, simply put, huge. Consider UMI, who won an honorable mention for the Kohlstadt award and for the best Island Booth. Their elegant two-story dis­ play highlighted SiteBuilder, which allows cus­ tomers to build their own Web interfaces for UMI’s ProQuest Direct®. Adorned with ren­ ditions of the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s “Sun­ flowers,” the exhibit’s theme was “Create Your Own Masterpiece,” complete with projected slide graphics o f art images morphed into one another, juxtaposed with words such as “Con­ tent.” “We strived to make sure it was still ADA-compliant,” said Ann Curtis, exhibit man­ ager for UMI. “The space on the second floor was repeated on the lower floor, and we had a workstation at wheelchair height.” Curtis explained that they were one o f few vendors who used professional presenters. “It frees up our product managers to do one-on-one demos and talk to customers.” With only a few days to cover the exhibit hall, it was virtually impossible to learn the goings-on with automation vendors. But in­ novations and trends seemed obvious in sev­ eral areas: digital archives and related tech­ nology, full-text databases and article provid­ ers, customizable interfaces, and using the elec­ tronic environment to better serve and under­ stand patrons and users. D ig ita l arch ive s An increasing number of vendors are provid­ ing equipment, expertise, and interfaces de­ signed for creating, storing, and retrieving digi­ tal images as digital libraries and digital archives become all the rage. Many o f the best prod­ ucts seemed to be the result of collaborations between software vendors, publishers, con­ tent experts, and customers. Minolta had an impressive looking dis­ play of several scanners. Launched at ALA, the PS 7000 Face-up Book Scanner features a large scan area of 17" X 23". The demonstration went flawlessly as the scanner processed a page of music notation. The scanner, which costs about $17,000, has an optional support cradle that permits books to be opened to an angle of only 90 degrees for scanning, in an effort to protect brittle spines and bindings. Sirsi demonstrated Hyperion, its new digi­ tal media archiving system. One useful fea­ ture of Hyperion was its integration with the Sirsi Unicorn® online library catalog, where a patron is able to search a phrase and retrieve, for example, a bibliographic record with hypertext links to a media file, including video clips, recordings, photographs, or document images. The user can click a link and view or listen to the media file, depending on its for­ mat. Another noteworthy feature demonstrated at ALA was the system’s ability to help a user navigate a complex collection. Hyperion dis­ plays a classification hierarchy that a patron About the author Tracey DePellegrin is an information analyst a t the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, e-mail: td2p+@andrew.cmu.edu 578 / C&RL News ■ Septem ber 1998 can use to browse documents in a collection. The system also has the ability to display por­ tions of a report, whereby a user can click a link and view a particular chapter, for example. Research Libraries G roup (RLG), a not-for-profit membership organization, is an interesting example of collaboration between content providers, audience, and technical experts. RLG representatives demonstrated an impressive version of their not-yet released image library, the AMICO (Art Museum Im­ age Consortium) project. The project involves a group of 23 museums who have contrib­ uted images of their holdings to a digital im­ age library. At the end of August 1998, 17 institutions of higher education will begin a one-year test to study the AMICO image library as an aca­ demic tool. RLG built the initial testbed data­ base of some 20,000 images and descriptive text, and has extended its Web-based search system, Eureka, to handle images. During the fall of 1999, RLG plans to offer subscription access to an expanded set o f licensed mu­ seum images and related resources, o f which the AMICO library will be a key component. Not to be outdone, UMI announced the Digital Vault Initiative. UMI is scanning and converting from microform to electronic for­ mat their vault-stored collection containing thousands of books, newspapers, periodicals, and other materials. Scanning of the 5.5 billion page images began in May and will continue over the course o f several years. UMI reported that “The first phase of the Digital Vault Initiative will focus on UMI’s collection o f early English literature, including nearly every English-language book published from the invention of printing in 1475 to 1700. This collection, begun in 1938 as UMI’s first microfilm project, includes such works as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Culpeper’s The English Physician, and Shakespeare’s renowned First Folio edition of 1623.” Chadwyck-Healey demonstrated The Digital National Security Archive. Chadwyck- Healey digitized the National Security Archive, which totals over 200,000 pages of documents, including presidential directives, memos, meet­ ing notes, independent counsel reports, brief­ ing papers, White House communications, e-mail, secret letters, and confidential memo­ randa. The frame-based Web interface com­ bines about 20 searchable fields, yet remains visually appealing and well-designed. The product, projected to be available this fall, promises to be a valuable information re­ source; Chadwyck-Healey reported that the National Security Archive has gained a repu­ tation as the “most prolific and successful user o f the Freedom of Information Act.” From any point in the interface, users can read intro­ ductions and view photographs, perform a search, or view a glossary, chronology, and bibliography. From the demo, it appears that each index to a particular collection will in­ clude a view o f multiple thumbnail photo­ graphs for the collection. I viewed several pho­ tos from the Cuban Missile Crisis photo archive. Finally, for help in creating a digital library, call Progressive Technology Federal Sys­ tems, Inc. (PFTS), in Bethesda, Maryland. “We build digital libraries and provide turnkey in­ tegration,” said PTFS President John Yokley. Yokley pointed out that PFTS has expertise in both the technology behind digitizing images as well as library-related issues. When I viewed a demo for a customized digital library using the St. Louis Post Dispatch's database of ar­ ticles, the online help was well written and showed an awareness of user needs and habits. P ro v id in g d ig ita l fu ll te x t As many libraries aim towar'd the full text of articles online, some vendors are capitalizing on the glut of information as a problem even greater than scarcity of information. The most confusing aspect of evaluating the full- text providers was that most representatives I spoke with indicated that their products were inno­ vative, which wasn’t always as obvious to me. Search mechanisms are developing so rapidly that searching multiple indexed fields or hav- C&RL News ■ Septem ber 1998 / 579 ing hypertext links in a bibliographic record, for example, aren’t unique features but a re­ quirement for consideration. Ironically, in an industry where content is so highly valued, packaging and image seem to be out in front when it comes to my first impression o f many vendors. Many touted themselves as “full text” providers, when after some probing I learned that a large percent­ age of some vendors’ databases were only available as abstracts and still had to be or­ dered through a document delivery service; or I found their interfaces to be counter­ intuitive or confusing. Some vendors work with software engi­ neers, librarians, and human factors special­ ists in producing well-honed interfaces that transcend the buzzwords of “user-friendly” and “cutting-edge” to provide the user with tools to access information effectively and efficiently. Other vendors appear to get lost in a mire of features and forget about what users really want, need, and like. Still, many full text pro­ viders are forging ahead. Columbia International Affairs Online, known as CIAO (http://www.ciaonet.org ), was launched in August 1997 with support from the Mellon Foundation. CIAO, from Columbia Uni­ versity Press, offers a subscription- based Web interface whose concept promises to help scholars make the transition from paper to electronic publishing. Columbia University Press touts CIAO as a venue in which scholars can present work in various forms and stages of de­ velopment, thereby decreasing barriers to pub­ lishing “ideas” and increasing feedback from col­ leagues during the process of writing and creat­ ing scholarly outcomes. The interface is sophisticated, with well-placed design elements and an effective use o f color. Their concise online user survey is a much-appreciated rarity in querying users about the impact of CIAO on their work. Fi­ nally, CIAO provides access to the full text of books online, a much-talked-about step to­ ward the future o f electronic publishing. Ovid Technologies, which also had a huge, impressive looking display, boasted that it delivers the full text o f scientific, technical, and medical journals via one database called Journals@Ovid. O vid o ffers several well-designed interfaces, including a Java cli­ ent, VT-100, and a Web Gateway. The repre­ sentative spoke authoritatively about Ovid’s ability to track usage statistics and authenti­ cate, using passwords or IP addresses, areas of increasing concern for libraries. Seamless linking from citations and reference footnotes in an article to other articles allow users to find related information or view related top­ ics. Other distinctive features o f Journals@ Ovid include links to a journal issue’s table of contents, plus overviews, reference, and fig­ ure links for every article— all of which aid user navigation. “Get More o f the Who, What, When, Where, & Why” boasts century-old H. W. Wilson about their full-text references. From the looks of it, Wilson is trying to be all things to all people. They provide full-text abstracts on the Web, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, or— through “inform ation partners” like SilverPlatter— OCLC, UMI, Dialog Corporation, and Ovid Technologies; “E-Connection,” an online source for library-related trends, re­ views, and tips; breaking news flashes in the library community; and a pretty thorough prod­ uct support section on their Web site. Wilson’s display and their shopping bags bearing the theme “Celebrating the future, Commemorating the Past” is appropriate as they celebrate 100 years in business, but I somehow left their exhibit a bit over­ whelmed. P a y in g m o re atte n tio n to users' c h a n g in g needs The Web is old hat. Virtually every organiza­ tion has a URL and many libraries have online catalogs via the Web. But some innovations appeared among the technology exhibits at http://www.ciaonet.oig 5 8 0 / C&RL News ■ S e p t e m b e r 1998 ALA. Many software vendors offer customizable interface options for library catalogs and data­ bases, including the flexibility for customers to radically change the look and even the func­ tionality of search mechanisms. Likewise, a few vendors are providing interfaces and material in multiple languages. And an increasing number o f governmen­ tal organizations are realizing the benefits of the electronic environment and seem to be marketing their content to libraries in an ef­ fort to increase the reach o f information. CARL Corporation was one o f a few ven­ dors I spoke with who was not only cogni­ zant about but proactive in terms o f interface design in multiple languages and sensitivity to readers with special needs “Access for all” is one of their themes, in fact. Their Web OPAC, CARLweb, accommodates large print display and works with text-to-speech synthesizers. CARLweb also allows users to toggle be­ tween English and another language without losing the search context, with individual li­ braries able to customize translations. Their language translation interface has been devel­ oped to support any language, including non-Roman alphabet languages such as Chi­ nese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Russian, and Ara­ bic. CARL reported that they are also devel­ oping a Unicode database option to store data in the vernacular from publications in non-Roman alphabets. According to a recent issue o f the online newsletter, @CARL‚ “This development will greatly extend the range o f materials which can be stored, indexed, and retrieved; it will have a direct impact on research libraries, on public libraries who serve multilingual popu­ lations, and on CARL’s database products, such as UnCover and Dialog@CARL, CARL data­ bases ultimately will include bibliographic records from all non-USMARC formats, as well as tables o f contents and article level data from serials and journals o f all languages.” The Galileo Reading System by Robotron, is an image scanner that reads the material aloud in what their literature describes as a “high-quality” voice. It can read items at up to two pages per minute in English, French, and Spanish. As with their other products, Galileo is designed by Robotron, who develops prod­ ucts primarily for the vision-impaired. The U.S. G eological Survey (http:// www.usgs.gov) had a small booth set up to promote their digital National Atlas (http:// www.atlas.usgs.gov/). “In 1970, we published the National Atlas,” said Jay Donnelly, Project Manager. “It was 400-pages and cost $100. Now, we’re publishing the digital National Atlas. It shows broad distri­ bution and patterns across the country, and is a good way to access information most people don’t know about.” The National Atlas’ Web site points out that the version published in 1970 was designed primarily for educators and gov­ ernment organizations. With the proliferation o f Web-based access, the new version is designed for “individuals who own powerful home computers.” As such, the Atlas’ creators have gone to great efforts to understand their users. “We’ve tested pro­ totypes on focus groups,” said Donnelly, “and are looking for perspective federal and pri­ vate sectors partners.” The site also features a detailed user survey that probes for user pref­ erences about map themes (for example, bi­ ology, energy resources, history, social and cultural information) and possible uses (pro­ duce dynamic maps that change over time, measure distance and determine area, select and use my own map symbols). The digital version includes maps illus­ trating the distribution o f birds, complete with images and songs. Users can watch a series o f satellite images that illustrate vegetation growth in the lower 48 states dur­ ing 1995. Still in development, the atlas will include data on soils, boundaries, volcanoes, and principal aquifers. Crime patterns, popu­ lation distribution, and incidence o f disease will also be included in the altas. http://www.usgs.gov http://www.atlas.usgs.gov/ C&RL News ■ Septem ber 1998 / 5 8 7