OBS OCLC COMMITTEE
	Susan Chinoransky George Washington University schinoransky@burns.nlc.gwu.edu

Pre-Conference Institute on Knowledge Access Management

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend the three-day OCLC Institute, “Knowledge Access Management: Tools and Concepts for Next-Generation Catalogers,” presented prior to the annual conference in Washington, D.C. This was truly a consciousness-raising experience! The institute faculty consisted of Erik Jul, Associate Director of the OCLC Institute, and Ann Sandberg-Fox, Cataloging Consultant and Trainer. Erik Jul presents a scary yet exciting picture of opportunities that currently present themselves for knowledge access managers (librarians) in today’s electronic environment. We can influence the way in which electronic resources are organized, or by inaction and lack of vision, we can become marginalized and eventually left behind. Ann Sandberg-Fox is among the first line of policy makers in the cataloging community. Her presentations were pragmatic in approach, offering the participants an opportunity to better understand the similarities and differences between MARC and Dublin Core (DC) information.

On Day One, we learned about several alternative methods for creating metadata (in addition to MARC and DC), including: TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), EAD (Encoded Archival Description), and GILS (Government Information Locator Service), all of which use SGML. During the second day of the institute, Erik Jul presented us with an in-depth discussion of RDF (Resource Description Framework) which he considers one of the most important current developments in the organization of electronic resources. On Day Three, the class participants broke into groups to give presentations on concerns and actions to be taken by various factions within the library community. All in all, I came away from the institute with a much better understanding of the issues involved in the organization of materials on the World Wide Web and how libraries can influence the ways in which the Web should be organized.

OCLC has vastly increased the number and type of institutes offered.

They now include the following:

Þ Knowledge Access Management for Reference Librarians
Þ Continuity and Innovation in Resource Sharing
Þ Using Metadata for Knowledge Management
Þ Knowledge Access Management Tools and Concepts for Next-Generation Catalogers
Þ Knowledge Access on the Web: Metadata Applications
Þ Technology Planning in a Time of Rapid Change: A Workshop for Academic Library Directors

For more information see http://www.oclc.org/institute/index.htm.

Y2K Status Report

While in the exhibit hall at the AALL conference in Washington, D.C., I happened to see a demonstration of a Y2K status report service at one of the larger vendor stations (yes, I earned my cool bag!). It contained a list of that vendor’s products and services and their Y2K status. So, I got to wondering, does OCLC have such a list? Sure enough, they do! Not only that, but they have an entire portion of their Web page devoted to Year 2000 concerns. According to K. Wayne Smith (remember him?), “Fixing the Year 2000 problem will cost the world at least a trillion dollars and OCLC at least $8 million.” Dave Morris, project manager of OCLC’s Year 2000 effort and manager, OCLC Reference Offline Products, says, “OCLC intends to have all of its software compliant in time to allow additional end-to-end testing of its systems before the deadline arrives.” Most valuable is the product and service status report at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/y2kserv.htm, which lists each product/service and its state of readiness. I found most of these to be either Y2K compliant or obsolete. One of the notable exceptions is OCLC Passport for Windows. Its note states:

Users are required to check all macros utilized with the software to ensure that the dates used with certain commands contain four-digit year representations. Details are available in a written statement available from OCLC Legal. Requests for this written statement should be directed to:

George Buzash
OCLC Legal Department
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, Ohio 43017