Among Friends
| CONSORTIUM PROJECT
EXPANDS SCOPE OF BROWN'S COLLECTION |
The Libraryās membership in a group called the 
Boston
Library Consortium is uncommon in several respects (Brown
is the only member institution outside of Massachusetts, for instance).
Now a consortium project that has just gotten off the ground this semester
promises to redefine the scope of the Libraryās collection and its customer
base.
Brown has been part of the 14-member consortium for about five years;
the university also belongs to a consortium of Rhode Island academic libraries.
Membership in the Boston group has expedited the inter-library loan process
for patrons of the member libraries, cutting the time span for courier
service by several days.
But members of the Boston Library Consortium, which includes most of the
major academic libraries in Boston outside of Harvardās, wanted to go
a step further. They wanted to allow users of each library in the consortium
to search all of the librariesā catalogs together, in the fashion of one
mega-catalog. About a year ago, then, the consortium contracted with a
vendor called epixtech to build a computerized system that would simplify
online searches of the consortium membersā collections, said Bonnie Good
Buzzell, ā72, head of the circulation department at the Rockefeller Library.
The service that has been created is being called the "virtual catalog."
It went public on a small scale in February, but a formal announcement
is being delayed until later this spring when more universities ÷ including
the University of Massachusetts system ÷ become part of the virtual catalog.
"This is one of the more cutting-edge projects that weāre involved in,"
Buzzell said. "The result has us asking questions like, `What is our collection?ā
and `Who are our customers?ā" If a patron attempts to use the virtual
catalog, the system searches the database to determine the patronās borrower
category and to verify that he or she is authorized to use the service.
The patron is then able to conduct searches, read descriptions of pertinent
titles in the consortium membersā collections, and determine any sought-after
titleās availability.
The system generates e-mail messages to the patron at different stages
of the process to offer information on a bookās availability status and
location. "The system interacts in a sophisticated way with both the lending
library and the borrowing library," Buzzell said.
Buzzell believes the virtual-catalog system will generate staff efficiencies.
Library staff will not need to mediate the process for a Brown patron
borrowing a book from another library in the Boston consortium. "This
system is patron-initiated."
In addition, the system significantly expands the number of titles available
to Brown patrons, as they now will have quick access to the collections
of many of the largest public and private libraries in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts officials have put money into the arrangement and will bring
the stateās public library system into the mix as well.
Buzzell admits that no one is really sure how popular the virtual catalog
will be, and whether users will go to it as a first option for searches.
But she said that the history for similar kinds of services is that "demand
goes way up."
The virtual catalog is not the only project under way that could change
the way Brown library patrons utilize services. The library plans to conduct
a pilot project with several professors in the sciences this semester
to test the concept of electronic course reserves.
Electronic reserves could give students immediate access to a variety
of materials that a course professor might want them to review, from pertinent
articles to complex mathematics problems. The idea is also to allow professors
to construct course pages on the Web, complete with descriptions and syllabi.
Library staff could then refer to these when helping a student, without
having to ask the student for a copy of his or her syllabus.
Buzzell said the main impediment to having a full-fledged system in place
at this point is the complicated area of copyright regulations for electronic
material. The library hopes to have in place a formal policy governing
use of such material by the fall.
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