+ Page 1 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- Public-Access Computer Systems News Volume 3, Number 12 (1992) ISSN 1050-6004 Editors: Dana Rooks (LIBL@UHUPVM1) and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. (LIB3@UHUPVM1). Issued on an irregular basis by University Libraries, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-2091. ----------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS NEW SERVER ACCOMMODATES 14 CD-ROM DRIVES, 1 ENGINEERING CITATIONS DATABASE ON CD-ROM, 2 NEW NETWORK GUIDE AVAILABLE, 2 UNC-CHARLOTTE AND VTLS ENTER PARTNERSHIP, 3 GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES FROM DYNIX, 3 CUADRA/GALE DIRECTORIES MERGE, 4 ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM COMPACT CAMBRIDGE, 4 VTLS TEAMS WITH PBS, 4 RLIN ADDS SCHOLARLY RESOURCES, 5 A MATTER OF FACT AND DISCLOSURE ON OCLC, 5 NEW SERVER ACCOMMODATES 14 CD-ROM DRIVES CBIS, Inc. has announced the CBIS CD Server 2000 Series that, dependent on model, can accommodate up to 14 CD-ROM drives in a single tower. When configured as a two-unit server system, network users can access up to 28 CD-ROMs (more than 15,400 megabytes of digital data). Four different configurations are available in the 2000 series. The servers can run on a variety of LANs including Novell NetWare, CBIS' Network-OS Plus, and most other NetBIOS compatible LANs. CBIS' new CD Server 2014 features 386 or 486 processors and high- speed Hitachi 3750 CD-ROM drives to significantly enhance access time. Access time is further enhanced because of the server's usage of a 16-bit SCSI host adapter and disk caching. CBIS is located at 5875 Peachtree Industrial Blvd., Bldg. 100/170, Norcross, GA 30092, (404) 446-1332. + Page 2 + ENGINEERING CITATIONS DATABASE ON CD-ROM Dialog Information Services has announced the availability of DIALOG OnDisc Ei Page One, providing bibliographic citations to worldwide engineering and technology literature from over 4,000 journals and conference proceedings. All branches of engineering are covered, including aerospace, automotive, biological, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, electronic, energy, environmental, geologic, mechanical, metallurgical, mining, and robotics. Each Ei Page One disc covers the most recent two years, and it is updated every two months. Annual subscriptions are $995. Full text of all citations included can be ordered directly from Article Express International, Inc., online through DIALOG SourceOne, or from Engineering Information Inc. For more information, contact Dialog Marketing, 3460 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304, 800-3-DIALOG. NEW NETWORK GUIDE AVAILABLE Crossing the Internet Threshold, available in late September, is a much revised edition of the workbook that supported June 1992 workshops of the same name. It is addressed to two categories of reader: (1) the person who has access to the Internet and wants to learn how to take advantage of its vast resources, and (2) the person who wants to teach Internet skills to others. Written by Roy Tennant, John Ober, and Anne G. Lipow, with a forward by Clifford A. Lynch, Crossing the Internet Threshold: An Instructional Handbook is published by Library Solutions Press of Berkeley, CA. Special features include a bibliography; an index; exercises in e-mail, telnet, and FTP (for beginners and advanced learners); glossary and "fact sheets" (single-page summaries of major network systems and services, from Archie to Z39.50); sample overheads (for trainers); and network maps. Pre-publication price (valid to November 1, 1992) is $40.00, plus shipping and handling (prepaid or charged to Visa/MasterCard). List price (after November 1) is $45.00, plus shipping and handling. For more information, contact Anne Lipow at alipow@library.berkeley.edu. + Page 3 + UNC-CHARLOTTE AND VTLS ENTER PARTNERSHIP The Library of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and VTLS, Inc. have entered into a partnership agreement to co- develop new and enhanced features of the VTLS online public access catalog. The first project involves migrating from the VTLS InfoStation (a multimedia front-end system to the VTLS OPAC that runs on a NEXT computer) to Sun workstations and later to other vendors' workstations. As a graphical user interface, the InfoStation allows access to synchronized sounds and images, animation, and full-motion video. It allows users to create hypermedia links between any two multimedia objects in the digital database. It also accepts natural language queries, and it can learn new vocabularies. The development of a digital image database is the goal of the second joint project. The database will contain 35mm photographic color slides as well as black and white pages from manuscripts. The project will explore cost effective ways of achieving high quality images. The database will be accessible from the VTLS OPAC and other client-server software. For more information, contact Gail Gulbenkian, VTLS, Inc., 1800 Kraft Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24060, (703) 231-3605. GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES FROM DYNIX GeneSys, a new division of Dynix, will distribute, service, and support CD-ROM products from FamilySearch and Automated Archives Incorporated. Available products include the Ancestral File, which represents 10 million linked individual records, pedigrees, family groups, and descendancy charts. Other products include The Family History Library Catalog of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the International Genealogical Index, the Social Security Death Index, the Military Index, and others. A complete product catalog may be requested by calling (800) 222- 3766. + Page 4 + CUADRA/GALE DIRECTORIES MERGE The Directory of Online Databases, the Directory of Portable Databases, and Computer-Readable Databases will merge to form a new directory titled Gale Directory of Databases, to be published by Gale Research in the fall of 1992. An advisory board of information industry, business, and library professionals is consulting on development of the directory. For more information, contact Beth Dempsey, Gale Research, 835 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit, MI 48226, (313) 961-6041. ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM COMPACT CAMBRIDGE Compact Cambridge has announced several new enhancements to its Version 4 CORE Software which make it faster, allow changes to be made more quickly and easily, and permit customers to create their own tailored user interfaces. New products include the MEDLINE Cumulative Index, which allows users to either search all 27 years of MEDLINE in four steps or to search all years in one step with a single search set; WasteInfo; and the Complete YEAR BOOK Collection-CD. Compact Cambridge has been selected by the Chemical Abstracts Service to produce its 12th Collective Index and its companion citations and abstracts on CD-ROM. This product is expected in early 1993. Compact Cambridge may be contacted at 7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814, (800) 843-7751. VTLS TEAMS WITH PBS VTLS Inc., has announced it has developed an option for its VTLS Intelligent Workstation software that allows direct transfer of MARC bibliographic records from a VTLS database into records formatted for a Pro-Cite 2.0 database. Pro-Cite software allows users to create and print different types of bibliographies and indexed lists for records in its database. Current users of the VTLS Intelligent Workstation will be able to upgrade to the Pro-Cite option at no cost. New VTLS-IW customers may purchase the software with or without the Pro-Cite transfer facility. For more information, contact Gail Gulbenkian, VTLS, (703) 231- 3605. + Page 5 + RLIN ADDS SCHOLARLY RESOURCES Two important scholarly resources have been added to the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN): over 900,000 citations representing the Rigler and Deutsch Records Index (RDI) and over 75,000 citations for art catalogs from the University of California at Santa Barbara Arts Library. RDI is a union catalog of pre-LP discs held as of 1981 by the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and Stanford, Yale, and Syracuse Universities. RDI cites approximately 90% of all pre-LP discs produced in the U.S. from the 1890s to the 1950s and a significant part of the global output for the same period. The UCSB Arts Library catalogs, broad and international in scope, cover art of all types and periods and come from museums, galleries, institutions, foundations, and individual private collections throughout the world. The library has catalogs from as far back as the mid-18th century, but its collection is strongest in catalogs from the last 25 years. For more information, contact the RLIN Information Center, (800) 537-RLIN, or e-mail: BL.RIC@RLG. A MATTER OF FACT AND DISCLOSURE ON OCLC Pierian Press and OCLC announce the availability of A Matter of Fact, Pierian's database of statistical data, on the FirstSearch Catalog and the EPIC Service, OCLC's online reference services. A Matter of Fact contains over 42,000 abstracts from more than 300 periodicals and newspapers published from 1984 to 1991. Since the actual statistical data is included along with the bibliographic citation, the needed information is often available without consulting the entire article. Disclosure Corporate Snapshots, a database of business and financial information on thousands of publicly-owned American companies, is also now available on the FirstSearch Catalog. Disclosure contains company name and address; FORTUNE number; description of the business; SIC codes; a five-year summary with sales figures, net income, earnings per share; two years of key financial statements and ratios; subsidiaries; a listing of SEC filings; corporate officers; and selected stock prices, earnings, and dividends. + Page 6 + For more information, contact Tam Dalrymple, OCLC, (614) 761- 5054. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Public-Access Computer Systems News is an electronic newsletter that is distributed on BITNET, Internet, and other computer networks. There is no subscription fee. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet) that says: SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name. PACS-P subscribers also receive two other electronic serials: Current Cites and The Public-Access Computer Systems Review. Public-Access Computer Systems News is Copyright (C) 1992 by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights Reserved. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computer conferences, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collection, in electronic or printed form, at no charge. This message must appear on all copied material. All commercial use requires permission. -----------------------------------------------------------------