Subject: JAPANESE CATALOGUING (fwd)

From: Maureen H Donovan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 11:50:44 EDT

I am forwarding the attached message with permission
from the author to post it  on eastlib.  Apologies to
anyone who has already seen it.

Maureen

Forwarded message:
> From [email-masked] Mon Jun 28 08:26:50 1993
> Message-Id: <[email-masked]>
> Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 93 13:20:35 +0100
> Reply-To: "CJKLIB-L  Distribution List" <[email-masked]
ale.Edu>
> Sender: "CJKLIB-L  Distribution List" <[email-masked]
e.Edu>
> From: David Helliwell <[email-masked]>
> Subject:      JAPANESE CATALOGUING
> To: Maureen Donovan <[email-masked]>
> 
> Dear Colleague:
> 
> The Bodleian Library at Oxford is experimenting with the use of
> NACSIS as its principal source of Japanese bibliographical records.
> 
> Through a satellite link via the British Library, we are online
> to Tokyo during the afternoon, when copy records are created and
> both bibliographical and copy records downloaded using a Toshiba
> laptop.  It is possible for one operative to process 100 records or
> more at a sitting.
> 
> The resulting records are then converted into a file that can be
> used by ALLEGRO-C (the library system developed by Bernhard Eversberg
> at Braunschweig Technical University, and already in use in several
> European centres for cataloguing works in Chinese), where they can be
> indexed in all the usual ways: title, author, subjects, &c.  ALLEGRO
> runs on standard, western PC's with MS DOS, and has several hundred
> users, at present mostly in Germany, but with a rapidly growing number
> outside.
> 
> It is also worth noting that although the NACSIS data contains no
> romanisation, this can be automatically produced by the ALLEGRO import
> parameter from the katakana transcriptions in title and author fields.
> A test run of 500 records has shown that this process works faultlessly
> (subject, of course, to the accuracy of the foreign data).
> 
> The Japanese text is displayed and manipulated through a front-end
> processor (FEP) which has just been produced for PC's by Hu Bo in
> Munich.  His "ShihYong CCDOS" is now joined by "JitsuYou JKDOS".
> Text entry is by "Wnn Japanese Input System" (the same as that used
> by NJSTAR).  We are currently testing JKDOS with ALLEGRO, and so far
> no problems of any kind have emerged.
> 
> The advantages of these developments (which, I stress, are still in the
> course of refinement), are:
> 
>   1.  All parts of the software are modestly priced, and run on
>       absolutely standard (and therefore cheap) western PC's.
>   2.  The NACSIS data is free - at least to us in Oxford, and
>       the hit-rate for new materials is almost total, and for
>       retrospective conversion is still very high, though we
>       stress that a so far a sample of only a couple of thousand
>       titles has been taken.
>   3.  Through ALLEGRO, we are in total control of the way in
>       which our database is indexed, displayed, and managed,
>       and can import and export data in any way we choose.
>   4.  Should the facility for downloading records from NACSIS
>       ever cease to be available, ALLEGRO will allow us to
>       import from other sources (J-BISC, for example), and even
>       at worst, to create our own quickly and efficiently.
> 
> For further details of JKDOS, including price, availability &c.,
> please mail Hu Bo directly: [email-masked]
> 
> For specific questions relating to the developments outlined above,
> please contact me: [email-masked]
> 
> David Helliwell
> 28th June 1993
> 
>