textfiles/magazines/PACS/news03.12

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              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.
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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For more information, contact Tam Dalrymple, OCLC, (614) 761-
5054.
 
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Public-Access Computer Systems News is an electronic newsletter
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SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name.  PACS-P subscribers also
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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
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