Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS)

• Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS)
• 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA

• Naomi M. Steinberger, Administrative Librarian for Public Services and Systems
• phone: 212-678-8982, fax: 212-678-8998
• email: nsteinberger@jtsa.edu

• Vax 6330; VMS 6.01; VAX server
• 256 meg RAM
• 9 Gig disk space
• We are currently connected via serial connections to a terminal server.
• We work on DEC VT-320 terminals with DEC LA75 printers and DEC LN01 laser printers.

Major developments since the last ICAU meeting:

In June 1995 JTS migrated from ALEPH 2.5 to version 3.2_5. The following is a brief installation report. The actual conversion was done from Israel. ALEPH Yissum sent us a tape, we loaded it and they did the conversion from their office. This was followed by a 1-3/4 day visit by Natan Lev of ALEPH Yissum. He attempted to check, correct and tailor the installation. The limited amount of time allocated to JTS made it impossible to complete the task adequately. In addition, there was no "punchlist" given to the systems librarian of items which must be looked at after an installation. This resulted in an extremely disorderly conversion. The new system was up and running without basic checking cleared. For example, our special screens were "forgotten" and had to be retrieved from a backup tape. In addition, there are numerous items which are simply not MARC compatible and do not comply with AACR/II standards. Over the past six weeks we have had to shut down the system for days at a time because of basic problems (title list were duplicating). We have had a steady flow of correspondence with Ex Libris (and ALEPH Yissum). We have had excellent response on simple problems but some of the more complicated ones have taken longer. Further, ALEPH Yissum made some major changes such as in the RLIN holdings program without consulting us as to how we use the program. This has resulted in significant problems in this area.

Major developments planned:

1. We plan on changing our equipment and connection so that each cataloger has a PC workstation. We will be connected via a Pathsworks network. This will enable staff to work on both in RLIN (over the Internet) and in ALEPH from the same station in addition to searching our soon to be networked CD-ROMS. We will transparently download the records from RLIN to ALEPH.
2. As of August 1st we will be [able to] load our records from RLIN via FTP. This will make it both easier and faster. In addition, we will change our load schedule from monthly to weekly.
3. We plan to purchase a image records management program and to link our ALEPH records to the images.

Open problems:

1. Ex Libris set up an office in the US. We are yet to see how this improves our service as no one in the office has worked with ALEPH and is familiar with the system. We do hope that it will sensitize Ex Libris as to needs of US clientele.
2. We are still waiting (5-1/2 years) for ALEPH Yissum to produce a working ALEPH to RLIN program.