Cover Story

Power of SUNY

Features

SUNYCatalog

Rethinking Collection Development

SUNYLA 2010

Next Generation Library Systems

SUNYConnect Updates

How to Contact Us

Linkable Links

OLIS has announced a new catalog interface for the library collections of the State University of New York. SUNYCatalog will be replacing the Aleph union catalog later this year.

The Aleph union catalog is running on software no longer supported by various vendors. As a result, OLIS and S.A.C. sought an alternative catalog system to replace the existing union catalog.

The decision was made to develop that replacement in-house and utilizing the capabilities of the WorldCat application programming interface (API). The in-house programming effort is part of a shared initiative that also involves the IDS Project and provides a new model for sharing expertise around SUNY. The IDS Search tool also uses the WorldCat API, and programming skills from OLIS and IDS campuses were put to the task of IDS Search and SUNYCatalog. Ed Rivenburgh, (Geneseo), IDS, Mike Curtis (Broome), Nathan Fixler (OLIS) and Carey Hatch (SUNY) deserve special attention in regards to these efforts and the sharing of SUNY resources and expertise.

"One of the unique approaches to the development of the IDS Search was involving several programmer and technologist talents from across New York Libraries; Adam Traub (St. John Fisher College), Mike Mulligan (Upstate University Health System), Mike Curtis, Project Manager (Broome Community College), Nathan Fixler (SUNY Office of Library & Information Services) and some of the IDS Project Team members from SUNY Geneseo."

The SUNYCatalog includes features and functions considered integral to next generation library catalogs. These include:

• facets that allow limiting results by format, language and year of publication;
• a relevance-based display order;
• citation assistance;
• streamlined approach to saving, emailing results;
• easy access to related subject terms.

Linking, and other features expected in web-based systems continue to be available.

SUNYCatalog accesses the WorldCat database and returns search results for SUNY libraries holding the material. The bibliographic information is from the OCLC master record for that material. If a library has not marked the record in OCLC as being part of their library holdings, then it will not show up via SUNYCatalog. As described in the April 2010 issue of SUNYergy, this provides another impetus for campuses to go through the OCLC reclamation process.

Next steps for the development of the more extensive SUNYSearch initiative include investigation of:

• adding other SUNY data sources (repository data, for instance)
• SOLR search engine used in many open source applications.

Decisions made on next steps will be based on the results of those investigations and implications for what it
would take to move forward on one or both initiatives.