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Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 11:13:29 CDT
From:         GILL WESTERA <LWESTERAG@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Subject:      Wilson tagging on CD-ROM: summary of responses

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The following is a summary of the replies I received asking about tagging
of Wilson indexes on CD-ROM.  Thanks everyone for your assistance.

I received 20 responses.  Most people felt that it was deifinitely a worthwhile
effort.  The negative comments generally related to the limitations of the
tagging message you could include.

Advantages:
1. easy to use - the software is easy to understand and implement.
2. allows for custom messages (a limit of 8)
3. updates to the Wilson software do not affect your already tagged holdings.
4. the students love it!
5. the holdings appear in a different colour on the screen - ie are easily
identifiable.
6. worth it as it brings home to the readers that everything on the CD-ROM
isn't in the library.

Disadvantages:
1. only 8 custom messages allowed.
2. limitation of only one line to fit holdings message in (didn't find out
how many characters this amounts to).  This lack of space means that holdings
which are incomplete are difficult or impossible to input in on one line.
3. time consuming
4. training the users to look at the whole screen and to comprehend the
messages resulting from the tags (ie few users would check the catalogue to see
if the issue of the journal they wanted was actually in stock - this library
did not give call number and issue details).
5. some difficulty in matching the Wilson abbreviated journal titles with the
full titles in one's library holdings.

Time taken:
This ranged from 2 hours to 'many' hours.
"The longest part of the job is the checking of the list against your holdings"

Responsibility:
5 responses said that Reference was in charge of tagging
2 - systems
1 - technical services (this covered systems)
One comment said: "serials staff were interested in this responsibility but it
was felt that the automation librarian should ultimately be responsible for
keeping the product updated (it was felt that the training required to instruct
the serials staff on how to keep things updated wasn't practical).

Other comments:
1. one library stressed the importance of including a call number and holdings
if the library has the journal.
2. one library said that they didn't have the time to do the above.
3. one library decided to cooperate with other similar libraries in the area
and so journals not held in the library but held at other institutions were
listed.  This works very well.
4. one library used a program called Super Keys which allowed them to write
macros for some of the information that they used over and over.


Gill Westera
Science Librarian
Curtin University Library
Bentley  6102
Western Australia
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Email:
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