November 7, 1997

Loyola gets new online library system

I am happy to report that after careful study and evaluation, the library has selected and begun implementation of a new automated system. The new system is being purchased from SIRSI, Inc.

The heart of the new system is an online catalog, which offers many more capabilities than LUCI currently does. The new catalog will have a graphical interface and be web-based, meaning that it will have the appearance of a sophisticated web page and can be searched using a web browser such as Netscape. Hyperlinks in the catalog will carry searchers from a citation to other works by the same author or on the same subject. The catalog will even provide links to the library's electronic resources and Internet sites and the ability to search multiple databases concurrently and combine results into one set of records. In this way, the SIRSI system becomes not just a catalog of library holdings, but a gateway to a world of information resources.

Librarians call the kind of system we will be implementing an integrated library system, meaning that much of the internal information that the library collects and tracks will be integrated into the system and available to the user. For example, students and faculty will be able to find out which issues of a journal or newspaper have been received by the library, which journal issues have been sent to the bindery, and the titles of books that are on order. Users will also be able to review the list of items they have checked out and place holds on materials that are checked out to someone else. They will be able to renew materials online and download information to a disk or e-mail it to themselves for later use.

One of the most intriguing features of the SIRSI system is that it offers us the ability to add graphics, video, and sound clips to the information provided by the library. It is interesting to think about not just providing a bibliographic citation to a rare book in Special Collections, but also displaying an image of a watercolored drawing from one of its pages. Images from the library's slide collection, clips from its video collection, and sound from its music CD collection all could enhance the catalog.

Over the fall the library will be converting data from our old to our new system. In the meantime, we will be installing new Windows workstations in the main, Miller, and music libraries. The addition of 26 new computers in the main library reference room and in other public and staff areas of the three libraries will enhance Internet use and provide expanded access to the new system as it comes fully online in the spring semester.