CAFS AS A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CATALOGUE SEARCH FACILITY
| Pages | 14-20 |
| Published date | 01 February 1986 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040349 |
| Date | 01 February 1986 |
| Author | JL Beck,JD Craig |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
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CAFS AS A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CATALOGUE SEARCH FACILITY, by J L Beck
and J D Craig*
Background; Library
Glasgow University Library (GUL) has a Geac 8000 system Which includes
MRMS for data entry and the online public catalogue
(OPC).
By the
early summer of 1986, the master bibliographic file (MBIB) contained
in excess of 250,000 MARC records which could be searched online at
any of more than 40 public enquiry terminals by author, title,
author/title, title keyword, subject or subject keyword. The system,
however, remained deficient in two respects which the Library found
particularly disappointing. Firstly, the keyword indexes were much
less useful than they would have been had users been permitted the
range of manipulation techniques associated with the standard Boolean
operators.
Secondly, Geac's Community Access Module permitted remote
access via X-25 to not the OPC files** but to the bibliographic data
associated with the Circulation system, with the results that the
advantages of using full MARC records and a fairly sophisticated user-
friendly catalogue system were lost on those of our readers who
preferred to utilise the campus network to check our catalogue from
the comfort and conveience of their own offices. It was because the
CAFS facility appeared to address both of these deficiencies that the
Library expressed an interest in it, and responded positively to a
suggestion that a development project on a library application should
be undertaken in the University's Computing Service Department.
Background: CAFS
Glasgow University's Computing Service Department runs an ICL 2988
mainframe computer under the VME operating system. In addition to a
wide range of batch processing
jobs,
the computer frequently supports
50 terminals attached online, and sometimes over 80. The CAFS
(Content Addressable File Store) unit, which is an ICL product, is a
hardware based "search engine" attached to the computer. The unit is
capable of very high scanning speeds, which compare with data transfer
rates, at least partly because it can read different parts of the data
store simultaneously. Associated with the hardware is some software
which provides the interface with the user. The most flexible
routines are contained in the Direct CAFS Interface(DCI). These can
be invoked by any of the high level languages such as Pascal, COBOL or
FORTRAN. The hardware is controlled by this interface, and for as
J L Beck is Programmer, at Glasgow University Computing Service
Department, and J D Craig is Sub Librarian, at Glasgow University
Library.
A facility designed to provide
this,
and called "VUCAT", is in the
process of development.
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