Library automation in the Netherlands and Pica
| Published date | 01 February 1984 |
| Date | 01 February 1984 |
| Pages | 87-99 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb044615 |
| Author | Anton Bossers,Martin Van Muyen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
THE ELECTRONIC LIBRARY
Library automation in the
Netherlands and Pica
Anton Bossers and Martin Van Muyen
Abstract: The Pica Library Automation Network originated from a research project on
catalogue automation on behalf of some Dutch research libraries in the years 1969-1975.
The name Pica derives from this project: Project for Integrated Catalogue Automation.
Since 1976 Pica has been a non-profit-organisation, sponsored by the Dutch government,
for the realisation of an online automated library network in The Netherlands, based on a
centralised bibliographic database in which information
is
stored only
once.
Satellite library
systems as well as other associated systems are provided with information from this central
database. Duplication of efforts needs to be eliminated. In
1983
the following Pica-systems
became operational:
—online shared cataloguing system
—circulation control system
—acquisition system
—online Dutch union catalogue with interlibrary loan subsystem
They form a network based on a central Pica database in connection with local databases for
circulation control and, in future, the online public access catalogue. This article gives the
state-of-the-art of library automation in The Netherlands within the scope of Pica.
1.
The Pica conception of library automation
The Pica Library Automation Network
is
based on the principle that "a publication
in The Netherlands will be catalogued only once and then only if its title is not
available from a national bibliography, which data are stored in the central Pica-
database", quote from a statement of the Minister of Education in 1977 on the
governmental policy on library automation in the Dutch research libraries.
As a result of this policy, a shared catalogue system using a central database
accessible to all participating libraries was the starting point of the Pica Library
Automation Network. As a matter of fact two networks, using one central data-
base,
can be seen:
— a network for entering title descriptions, as a part of
the
shared cataloguing
activity [figure 1].
— a network for putting out title descriptions, supporting other library activi-
ties [figure 2].
The
authors'
address
is:
Pica-Bureau,
Prins Willem
Alexanderhof 5,
2595 BE
's-Graven-
hage,
The
Netherlands.
Vol.
2, No. 2,
April 1984
87
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