Thanks to the kindness of CF, AL and all the rest of the folks at FLB your humble editor was able to attend the 102nd annual convention of the American Library Association at the end of June in the charming (if not expensive) burg of LA.   Also thanks to BS of LSC for the evening repasse.  Reneski was kind enough to provide lunch on one of those days I really needed it and a whole bunch of folks, too numerous to enumerate, were kind enough to provide liquid refreshment during my stay.  Thankfully for LA they decided to bring me back.  One great  unanswered question still lingers: Who has my toothbrush?

The exhibits, at least for micro hackers were a day late and a dollar short.   The program however, was worse.  I sat through a preliminary session on Saturday and but could not stomach a trip to the panel discussions.  Hopefully someday AASL will get it’s head out of it’s proverbial openings that it is so fond of spewing trivial droppings and do something for microcomputer using librarians.  I am not holding my breath, although the stink is getting perverbially strong.

Exhibit Re-Cap

Four offerings impressed me, and I am at a loss to put them in order.  Micro Library Software, Book Trak, Circa, and Circulation Plus came across extremely well.  But first allow me to relate how the humble editor got fooled by another offering – Data Trek.

Their booth was right next to Scoops, and I caught them at a lull (and the exhibitors found many of them) and was really impressed by the first viewing of the system.  Two things bothered me.  The first was an unbelievably low number of records for a hard disk system and the second was the search ability.  Things kept popping up in my mind: “I’ve seen that somewhere before”.  Only later (at the WLN (Not the bibliographic Utility) social was it related to me that the program in question had merely contracted for the rights to change the screens on a famous DB program.  The reson the record number was low was all the rest of the DB tagging along.  The search was the standard search for this particular program.  I have heard of a lot of bucks for templates, but this is pushing it to the max.  Even the old wired librarian gets fooled once and a while.

Micro Library Software

These good old boy from Tejas (it seems that either Spanish or Japanese is the official language of LA) have come up with a pretty swift catalog with hard disk power and a CPM operating system. It’s still a little rough in spots (what system doesn’t need improvement?) but they have broken new ground.  They have built in a utility for downloading MARC  redords.  The MLS system is still rather crude: a guy down the street has some MARC tapes; they select the ones they want; send the tapes off to be processed and then are returned records they can dump into their data base.

Waive your hands, yes, too sophisticated for many librarians yes, but in time this is going to prove the highlight of ALA ’83 for Wired Librarians.  Definitely new ground; definitely the right direction.

Book Track

Circa I and Circa II

The boys in Fort Atkinson (Highsmith to be exact) are marketing the Circa I and II systems from Utah.  I spent a lot of time with Circa I in Houston, and it didn’t do much for me.  In LA I spent a lot of time with II and came away impressed.  It runs off an Apple III and use the hardware really well.  In talking with the programmers I found they stuck a utility in the program to re-structure the data base.  They don’t shout about this ability to change things around (since it is over the heads of 95% of most librarians) but it is there if you know how to use it.  I kept thinking on the plane how neet it would be to have the data base to use for things other than circulation.  I intend to travel up the Rock River later this summer (and it is going fast) and find out some more about this system.

Circulation Plus

The Library Software Company (LSC for short) has been doing a great job putting utility programs in the field.  Their first entry to use the “big boys” circuit, an online circulation program, is really swift.  5 meg provides 25,000 volumes and 8,000 patrons using bar codes.  It is almost (always be reserved, ESA) as easy to use as their utility programs, and designed with their ever present idiot user in mind.  It should do well.

Other Stuff

LSC also introduced a catalog card typing utility that I will review first in depth in the next issue.  I’ve got to get a copy first.  Patience is a virtue. I was virtuous once.  I think it was 1957.  I was sitting underneath a tree.

I spent a lot time talking with fiche and bar wand producers.  Also there was this guy who was doing a tremendous job of liberating MARC records.  He wasn’t doing anything with them, just liberating them.  Also had an interesting  talk with  the LAMP (Literature Analysis of Microcomputers Publications) and look for an upcoming comparison between it and JW’s Microcomputer Index. 

ALA was a good time. I saw some things worth seeing, but also listened to a lot of bs.  I think I can sum up the trip with an incident that happened the last night of the trip.  As usual we closed down the hotel bar.  I hopped into the elevator and…..It stopped.  An extremely attractive lady got on.  I should have known something was wrong when she didn’t press a floor button.  The elevator gets to my floor and she says:  “It’s awful early for a big boy like you to be going to bed.  They tell me I can tell a mean fairy tale.”

I tried to tell her I was just a good old boy from the cornfields; we didn’t have people like her where I came from.  Besides that I was sure she didn’t take charity cases.  The clincher was when I told her that my mother told me a long time ago that what you pay for isn’t worth it.”

“Your mama was wrong” was her reply.  It’s nice to be back in the cornfields. On to our regular report.

Flash

DB Master version 4: the best is better

Unfortunately for me, I received the latest update (4.01) two days before going to LA.  That blew the next twenty-two hours as I worked it through with the same “gee-whiz” that was on my face the first time I say this program.

Everything you didn’t like about the old version is removed from the 4.01 version.  All old 3.0 files (or later) and Utility Packs will operate with the new version.  100 character alpha fields. Quick “one line”report generation.  Upper/lower case if your hardware has it. Runs 30% faster, sorts I don’t know how much faster.  That garbage about “CTRL-G” allowing you to go to any page you want.  They’ve split the program into two disks: one for daily use and another for file creation.  Now you can flip between pages when creating, and insert fields in creation.  Report generation has been greatly improved, and the new version comes with a sample data base.  Also there are “help” prompts available to aid the novice.

Templates Anyone?

I have been crusading for a template clearinghouse, and in a previous issue even offered to do the job myself.  Well fruition may be just around the corner, for I believe I have found a company actively involved in the library market willing to underwrite the expense.  At the present no firm details, but it appears as though we may be out of the pan and hopefully not headed for the fire.

If you have any templates you would like to share, I would appreciate it if you could forward same to Micro Libraries.  When this thing gets rolling will send you a complimentary set or two.

Zen and the Art of

Dewey Decimal Classification

Contrary to the announcement in a previous issue concerning the aforementioned title release has been delayed slightly by another happening.  I haven’t signed on the dotted line (but shook hands) with some high power folks concerning two works that may not be very valuable to you, but might be used by the 70,000 libraries who have not yet crossed the automation line.  The first work will be entitled The Wired Librarians Visicalc ™ Primer and following right on the heels of this smash will be The Wired Librarians DB Master ™ Primer.  These will be light and easy guides, complete with templates, to help those with trouble helping themselves get started with those powerfull management tools.  Details later.

Track 03 Contest

Contests do not seem to be my reader’s bag.  One last shot: “What’s the best thing you can do with K-12’ Catalog Card and Label Printer?  First place will be a two hour tour of Freeport.  Second place will be an all day tour.

Smithy’s Corner

You’all must not be worried about cracking stuff open.  Here’s the only addition we have to the arsenal this month:

HiRes Mastertype

9=0   10-96    1F=D5    21=BF

These are Copy II Plus parms

Our Special Thanks

To AD late of EL now of White Plains; and CM of DLS for the Ronnie Reagan inflation fighters. Also to RAA for her wonderfull folding/stapling of the last issue and Mama Val for the expertise she displayed in licking/affixing the postage on Track 02.

Some Short-shorts

(We’d rather have bikini’s but that would be sexist.)

Have discovered and used with great success the Dictionary from Sierra Online.  Extremely easy to use and change.  Runs like a bunny.

Just received Visiblend from Micro Lab. Early trials indicate it’s neat; no firm report as of yet.

Jim Deacon’s Library Useage Skills is really first class.  Management plus three levels of difficulty for $75.  Will be useful in Public Libraries as well.

Track 04: Next Issue

Speaking Visicalc (or any other program)

No Longer Waiting for Godot: My print buffer has arrived

Up On The Soapbox

(a new feature)

We’ve come a long, long way into turning these terribly inept 8 bit processors into powerful management tools.  We still have a long way to go, and a lot of windmill’s to attack.

Although I do not understand the desire for everyone to make big bucks (and perhaps this is why Microcomputer Libraries is so broke) but it would seem very sensible to me for the producers to band together to solve some of the technological problems.

Why not, for example, join together to really make downloading of MARC records a simple as pie maneuver?  Everyone could employ in their own systems and librarians would get better technology quicker.  It seems silly to always be re-inventing the wheel.  Then you’all could develop a standard bar-code format (so it would be easy to add bar-code labels to standard book processing) and you could start working on mass-storage problems.  Wouldn’t it be funky if libraries were the first places where read-write video disk were available?

A note to some

You may be, have been, or will be one of the may editor’s I’ve worked with.  None of the material in WLN (Not the bibliographic Utility) should be considered for publication.   If you want product descriptions, contact the producers.

65535

HG, the librarian at ANL (and has he got gigabytes to play with!) shared this comment with me a long time ago. It concerns the first time he ever showed computer produced catalog cards (and we’re talking in the neighborhood of 20 years ago) to another librarian.  She inspected his work and made the comment: “You know, there is only one thing wrong with these cards.  The subject headings should be printed in red.”

Statement of Responsibility

The Wired Librarian’s Newsletter: WLN (Not the bibliographic Utility) is produced by and the responsibility of Microcomputer Libraries of Northern Illinois.  It is published whenever we feel like it at 145 Marcia Drive, Freeport, IL  61032.  All opinions expressed are solely those of Eric S. Anderson (and not “To whom it may concern” as the university folks keep sending in their subscription requests.)

VC tells me the bank balance is $286.41 but it doesn’t yet know of the LA expenses nor the postage and reproduction of this issue.  Face it boys and girls, moms and dads, and those who are not sure, WLN (Not the bibliographic Utility) is broke.  In fact we are worse than that.  Heck I charged my room in LA on the plastic and it will take at least another twenty days for the bill to arrive and who knows, by then I may have to sell my daughter into white slavery, hock the piece of fruit or get some more contracts.  Product names are of course the registered trademarks of those who own them, but we know you already figured that out.

Contributions are appreciated but not expected.  If you have some Ronnie Reagan inflation fighters (usually they come in books of 20/$4.00 but rolls are cool too) they could be well used.  Spare change or computer supplies are also appreciated.  We were forced to return the dancing girl sent by LD in response to our last issue.  She didn’t like sleeping in the office; she couldn’t keyboard any better than my six year old daughter; wouldn’t let me smoke in the office; and ate too much.  Maybe we ought to take negotiable securities?

Dedicated to Robert Elliot Purser

An Index to the Online Issues

1983 - When there were four microcomputers at the ALA show

December 1984

1985 - wow we've got hard drives !!!