2 hours to a Clone and It Won't Boot

   We just got a clone shipped into the office and I spent two hours putting the pieces together. Two boards with a cable to get color video and all of the cards the size of TI 99 slapped in this heavey metal case. My biggest scream was socketing 36 RAM chips in to get 512. Even after all my efforts the sucker still wouldn’t produce a video signal. The only machine I have ever sent back to a dealer ‘cause it wouldn’t work out of the box. And everyone wants me to go this way for the rest of my life?

ALA annual meeting in the Windy City

     I grew up in Chi and haven’t spent ten days there since I graduated. It was hot and the usual lakeshore breeze disappeared. If I hadn’t of recognized some of my old watering holes I would have sworn I was back in Dallas.

     It started with the PLA micro preconference. From what I understand it was a real financial flop, but what do you expect when you 1) hold a meeting on July 4 and 2) do stuff AASL has been doing for three years. Real DeJaVu hear – it was like Houston all over again. The different sects of the cult must wake up and see there needs to be cross fertilization and just because somebody is in another division if we work together on this micro stuff we all would be a lot better off. Stan Moreo * we must be also report his passing and the death of Catalyst*he’s into real estate these days*know how to throw a micro conference that cut across the sainted lines and ALA ought to hire him to do the same for the library world. Susan Rappaport, from NYPL, was the best conference had to offer.

     The PLA directory is in big trouble – they got less than 400 responses for a nationwide directory of micro using librarians. Some of the other stuff I couldn’t believe was the dogged belief  that blue was the only way to go; that you should only circulate “public domain” software (my question was do  you – the  public library – only circulate public domain videos, records and books?; and a presentation that required a question from yours truly when the speaker failed to mention backing up hard drives and loading copy protected software onto those puppies (an Iowa phrase).

     I challenge the gods of ALA to address our micro problems regardless of our denominational slant and gives us the support we look toward a professional association for. We join things that do stuff for us. We ignore things that do things just to do things cause that’s the way they’ve always been done. Antediluvian Lords Association.

The Show (ow why we usually go)

     The exhibit hall was a mess. Anytime they invoked the author ritual *a real common feat* you couldn’t even walk through the aisles. The grapevine said 280 exhibitors were turned away, it was hot (just the press of flesh) and they used tow separate halls. You had to make four separate turns to find some of the booths (assuming you were on the right floor) and those responsible should have their ROM’s examined. After two days I gave up, it just wasn’t worth it.

     The most exciting new product was Professional Bibliographic Software from Vic Rosenberg in Ann Arbor. I won’t take space here – read more on the Mac page.

     Next came Joe Ward’s triple blue Circulation Plus.  Joe, now the code wizard for Follett, set up the data base on AT, wired an XT and a PC to it, and did multiple processing to the amazement of us all. Follett also announced a unique demo version of Circ Plus; it comes on a pair of floppies, is not copy protected, and has text files so you may print our your own demo manuals. Unlike other demos with nominal fees, this package is entirely free. He intends to have Apples hooked into his network “within three months” and you can mix or match. Definitely slick.

     Grolier was demoing it’s new Americana software (more, later) and a videodisk version of their encyclopedia. In some ways it was neet, but was all text and a rather lackluster application of the technology. It used a remote tv-type controller (more on this later as well) without a keyboard. Much more exciting was a lengthy demo of their yet to be released “Information connection” a telecommunications primer with it’s own telecom software. It played well and I’m anxiously awaiting the betas.

     I stopped to see Sci-Mate for ISI. It’s a canned data base that allows you to dump citations from other sources in and manipulate them at your offline discretion. The one thing that have going is a “front end” so you only learn one set of commands to serach a half dozen services. I gagged at the price of $540 for the data base and $440 for the searcher-although t hey will give you a deal of $880 if you buy both. I can buy a very decent motherboard for that.

     Midwest Library Service was demoing thier “Midwest Auotmated Technical Services System (MATSS)” a micro based series of packages including cat card, fund accounting, and order production. Again way overpriced modules ran $300 for cat card plus andother $150 for lablels, $800 for fund accounting and $300 apiece for order, manual data entry and their bib utility communications interface. I can’t believe they publish the fact that they do catalog cards from downloaded OCLC records. Blue only (and priced like it too!) Their only saving grace is they were demoing it using a CD ROM player with Bibliofile records.

     The good old Kansas connection, Data Phase – known of late for hassling WLN: not the bibliographic utility for our claims they are no-ware – had a beautiful booth. Actually it was a poster, warm bodies were nowhere to be seen. Who has the credibility problem here? Point proven.

User’s Group Meetings

     Three important gatherings took place. The fifth Wired Librarian’s Intellectual Development and Social Hour gathered some 80 folks through the night to my room to talk about where the micro is and where it is going in our libraries. The highpoint was Rick Thomas demonstrating PBS on the MAC and this year the crowd had a lot more questions than answers. As always it was a pleasure to meet folks who had only been subscription labels, re-meet folks I had not seen for a while, and see more of the vendors who had been unable to get booth space.. This was a much calmer evening than the Atlanta affair; we were done shortly after one AM; did not have a single visit from hotel security, and save for a Dugan induced ERIC / MAC attack passed the evening in peace. Too bad you couldn’t make it.

The IBM gathering was interesting as long as Alan Pratt was talking about IBM and the problems they are having getting the ALA character set into their hardware. The 40 attendees thined quickly to 20 as soon the latter half of the meeting, the consideration of the bylaws, began. I have never belong to a user’s group with them (I guess there is a first time for everything)  and they were real mired in them. They took theirs from an OCLC user’s group (I can’t beleive the only blue use in a library is for OCLC) and it really seemed to be an OCLC, not a micro meeting. I hope they can get out of the rut they have set and make this group what should be – a place to share.

     The ALUG group was completely different. Monica began by giving a history of the group, and then Fred Bockman (aka Red Frockman to WLN: not the bibliographic utility readers) from the Apple Chicago office gave some insight into recent changes, the near future, and answered questions from the audience for about twenty minutes.

     After a break –where everyone was running around like mad saying hi and such – about a dozen different problem solving groups got going. All over the place there was a buzz as folks helped each other solve problems. They had to actually her us back to the room to get back to the agenda (short vendor talks) and we could have taken a good part of the day in this sharing. Hey blue boys, this is what a user’s group is!!!!

Meckler Videodisk Conference

     It almost killed me, but I stayed one day after almost everyone else left for a post conference in Videodisk, sponsored by Meckler. I was glad I did, for it was just about the best part of ALA (save the user’s groups).

     It was an informative display of the movers and shakers with both optical and compact sides represented. I kept saying to myself “in the old days they all told us Sony U-Matic video would be the standard ad they never said  VHS” but all technology needs a shakeout to see who will end up on top of the heap.

     A great deal of discussion centered on the software standard that needs to be developed so that software can be used across storage. When you think what a million full marc records laying out on a single CD ROM it is enough to blow you away. Brower Murphy gave the best straight out info session (aka Bibliofile) while Parke Lightbowen gets the points for style. For intent Ashor Mathur from Time Management sounded like A. Kay with his devotion to the user interface. For all the grief I give Meckler they get four gold stars for this.

Library Micro News

     Betty Costa (the grande dame of library microcomputing) sent me a very nice note asking me to warn my readers about some planning concerns oft forgotten. The first is backup hardware – what are you going to do when the micro running your circ system goes down –and Betty suggests a priority list  for pulling pieces to keep the system up as well as manual plan for each task. Right in this turf is a concern I keep hearing from all t he vendors: “I’ve got trouble” (pleads the user) “Well does your backup work?”  (replies the vendor)  “What backup?” responds the user.

     Cathy (Columbia gem of the graduate schools?) Murphy shared with me a survey she is doing on online –like the sound – public access catalogs. It’s quite detailed and should provide some interesting results. I am sure you’ll read about it first here at WLN: not the bibliographic utility.

     Jean Polly at the Liverpool (2ne and Tulip, NY 13088) public library shared with me some of her BBS stuff they have up and running. If you send her a SASE large manila envelope with a buck’s postage on it she send the Liverpool with their software holdings list and the stuff they do to prepare stuff for the shelf. A legal sized envelope with three Ronnie Reagan inflagion fighters ($.66 for the untuned) willl get you her BBS stuff.

     Reneski, at the bible of lisci, shared with me this heavy duty letter from the president of a rather mediocre software company. He in shotgun form was chastising software reviewers for having high standards and objected his software being called a workbook on a screen. He rants and raves about software “is meant to supplement” classroom instruction. There were lots of times at dear old OPRF I wanted to supplement my HS education with an afternoon at Wrigley field. Unfortunately that wasn’t part of the program (but as my reader’s can tell they failed to transmit even the most basic rudiement of spelling of ESA). Hey Thorwald (not you brent) how about a mastery lesson on biting the bullet?

     Lewis Cox at East Tennessee State Unov shared with me his masterful subject index to the Archives of Appalachia (Sherrod Library, Box 22450A, Johnson City, TN 37614) done with DB Master 4plus and an Apple ][ plus. There sharing it –along with a 126 page user’s guide for $7.50. God love em for it.

     Bob Ericson (32 Ferncrest Blvd., N. Providence RI 02911) sent over Notes for Appleworks which he’ll ship to your for $10. It looks like mac output and is nicely done. In one sense it is a paper based tutorial full of tips and hits logically arranged. Appleworks junkies and those supporting Appleworks should make the investment and if he sells 10,000 maybe we can get him to put it in the public domain. Seal of approval here.

     I saw in Library Hotline an unusual offering that the Jackson – George Regiona Library (Pascagoula City Library, 3214 Pascagoula St, Pascagoula Mississippi 39567) will share with you their evaluation of nine big time vendor systems for the mere cost of $4. This is usually big time proprietary stuff, and if you are looking for criteria for system consideration this is outasight.  Well worth $4.

In the real world (Worth stuff from other Journals)

     John Dvorak spoke highly: “The infamous Wired Librarian’s Newsletter rates an honorable mention:  It really raps bad products” in the First Annual Newsletter Awards in his InfoWorld Column of 3 June 85. We finished behind Monica Ertel’s Apple Library User’s Group Newsletter.  I can handle second behind her.

     In the Online Newsletter of May 85, Richard Huleatt spend more than two pages on an editorial he entitled “New Does not mean better”  Some great stuff here: “If the product requires you to attend a $400 seminar in a remote city – rest assured (especially true for software) that the product is much too cumbersome and unwieldy for the average user. The key to using software is adequate documentation –not seminars.”…”AS a last thought – just how worthy is it to attend conferences when the cost of one conference mauy be just the same amount that you could purchase another (or your first) micro.”

     Virginia Levert in the Mar-Apr issue of Software Review did a piece on Library-Specific Microcomputer. It’s absolute trash, relies on a few vendors for all of the information, but worst of all leaves the two biggest players (Follett and Winnebago) out of the piece. These two firms have been in the action since  almost day one.

The Mac Page

Only in the Wired Librarian’s Newsletter

     The first of anything always scores lots of points, and Victor Rosenberg of Professional Bibliographic Software gets the nod for producing the first piece of library specific software for the Mac.  Not only is it the first, it’s outasight.

     Stuff has been ported over (PBS runs nicely on the Apple ][ and MS-DOS hardware already) but it takes something special to take the user interface of the Mac and make your software user. PBS does this, and does this better than a majority of the Mac stuff I’ve seen. Victor should have put “Wizard” on Rick Thomas (the programmer’s) business cards for Rick has taken the do it to it attitude of PBS and melded it ever so nicely to the Mac.

     PBS does bibliographies, It does them according to the ANSI standard and gives you about twenty different formats to choose from. It nicely formats the entries, provides the correct punctuation, and gives you index terms so that it is to some extent a dedicated data base. The other versions have been on software’s greatest hits for good reason, the Mac version blows both of them out of the water.

     Let me make a couple of comparisons. On the ][ version you select the type of citation you are going to make and from a menu and the program gives you the format. It was one of the first programs not to use field lengths but available RAM. The editor was competent and after an hour with the program you could turn out some decent bibs. Enter Mac.

     Some of the options screens are the most intense I’ve seen on any  Mac application. Your bibliography for example can be ANSI standard or user defined, you can add a header, control the margins, and toggle on  / off a dozen different print commands. Searching on PBS Mac is a trip because you can choose the sort key (index terms) or full text, jump to the beginning or end of the file, and choose to search alphabetically or by record number. You’ve got your three Boolean operators, plus the option to just search fields.

     The “small version” merely displays certain fields, and you can toggle these on / off with the click of the mouse. If you don’t care for ANSI then it is relatively easy to set up your own punctuation file. When your’e bib is ready to go you can select the entire file, select by search criteria, select what’s left of your file or just the selected record and then see the puppy right then and there. You can toggle options for bold, italic and underline fields and pull a little file structure magic off.

     The version I was working with did not support differing fonts and sizes, something that is considered standard on the Mac. Rick told me he had it all ready to roll and we should see it real soon. I did not find this as a real problem because you can take any file over to something like MacWrite or Word on the clipboard and get as fancy as you want. PBS with a LaserWriter ought to shake a few trees.

     The manual is also outstanding, and I found the reference section, Pt. 1 “the menus” to be something every Mac manual ought to have. Here in one place is all of the menus with full text descriptions for each option. Outasight! The version I used did not have Bibliolink, the PBS download utility for OCLC, BRS, Dialog and ALIN connected but it is coming soon.

     If you do bibliographies, you have to have PBS Mac.  I would even say it would be worth going out and getting the Mac, but then again my opinion is slanted.

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 !!!