ICAU Request databases

Status report 1996

Inger Hoey Nielsen

At the 6th ICAU meeting in Prague 1995, the ICAU members agreed to continue running the ICAU databases at DTV. It was also decided that the ICAU secretariat should send 2 invoices out, one to be paid to Prague for the ICAU secretariat administration and for the ICAU newsletter and one to be paid to DTV for the administration of the ICAU databases. In addition the steering committee was requested to work out the general procedures concerning the ICAU databases (time schedules, voting procedure etc.).

During the month of May 1996, DTV was informed by the secretariat that the following was agreed upon in the steering committee:

the time schedule for the submitting of requests and voting procedures
the databases and voting should include the 1996 requests and the 1995 requests again.
all ICAU members had the same number of votes (1000)
only ICAU members that had paid their ICAU membership for 1995 or new members were eligible for access to the databases and voting.

DTV proceeded therefore with the implementation of

the CLIENT database
the REQUEST databases for 1995 and 1996
the ERROR database.

The letter of May 28th, 1996 was sent out to the eligible ICAU members with instructions on how to access and use the databases and information about how to submit new requests to the database. DTV urged the ICAU members to check the information about themselves in the CLIENT database and to forward revisions to DTV as quickly as possible.
A timetable for the submitting of requests and voting was included.

Shortly after the letter was sent out, ExLibris informed DTV that the time schedule could not be upheld because of vacation period in August where ExLibris was supposed to be determining their comments to the requests. ExLibris suggested October 1. as the deadline for their comments. The time schedule was subsequently revised according tto ExLibris’ wishes.

The REQUEST database

DTV received 115 new requests from 16 ICAU members. They were usually sent by fax or e- mail. The requests were keyed into the REQUEST database as they arrived. DTV has not attempted to identify duplicates or edit the requests in any way. We apologize for any misprints or reading errors we have made.

At the end of June (letter of June 25th,1996) DTV sent out again to all the eligible ICAU members,

an indexed list describing the requests received for 1995 and 1996
a voting slip with the system numbers of the requests and a revised timetable. There has been amble time for voting.

Voting was terminated and at the end of August. 61 ICAU members have voted. After consulting with ExLibris, the voting results were sent to ExLibris by FTP in system number as well as in number of votes order for commenting.

On October 1st, 1996 at the deadline for delivery of their comments, ExLibris informed us that they would not be able to uphold their agreement, nor could they finish before the ICAU meeting later in October. They could however send a list af fulfilled requests. After contacting the ICAU secretariat in Prague, it was decided to send out the voting results and the list of fulfilled requests to the ICAU members. This material could then be included in the discussion at the ICAU meeting.

The CLIENT database

This database has, since it was uploaded, been revised many times in collaboration with the secretariat in Prague. The CLIENT database is used to document membership payments and the member addresses for mailing lists. It includes all ExLibris clients, not only ICAU members.

The ERROR database.

This database is only hosted by DTV. The data comes from ExLibris and is updated by ExLibris by sending new versions. DTV has only received and uploaded the data once in 1996. It should perhaps be renewed more often. It can be used by the ICAU members to check on status of known errors and check for terminology and for ways of reporting errors.

Finance

STATEMENT OF THE BALANCES OF THE DANISH ICAU ACCOUNT

	Expenditure		Receipts
	DKK	XEU	DKK	XEU

Balance per 10.09.95				-1.403
Payments received from ICAU members from 11.09.95 - 04.10.1996			36.141	4.976
Payment received from ExLibris, Luxembourg			28589	3.937
Transport ICAU meeting	3500	482
Assistance from DTV edb department 23 hours of DKK 503 each hour	11.569	1593
Administration 99,75 hours of DKK 503 each hour	50.174	6909
Postage for 3 issuing	5966,75	822

Totals	71.210	9805	64.730	7.510
Balance per 04.10.1996				-2.295

EXLibris has again this year contributed to the financing of the ICAU database administration with 5000 USD as promised at the 4th. ICAU meeting in Madrid.

Problems

2 institutions keeping track of addresse and payments in the client database is not very efficient
some ICAU members send payments to the wrong institution. Some payments are very difficult to connect with the correct ICAU member because the payment information says nothing of the ICAU institution.
1 fax page with an ICAU request did not get through to DTV.
One member institution had changed its name and contact person and therefore missed the opportunity to vote.
One member reported not being able to connect to the ICAU databases through telnet and asked for a URL. No WWW interface/server has been developed for the ICAU databases. Should there be?
the ERROR database is not current.

Suggestions for the future if the ICAU databases are to be continued:

The invoicing and payment procedures are technically working well in Prague. I suggest that the invoices in the future to be sent out from and paid directly to the secretariat and that the invoice includes the membership/subscription fee and the ICAU database fee. The secretariat sends the agreed payment to the database host later in the year, after the fees have been paid by the members. The secretariat should have online/catalogueing access to the CLIENT database and thereby access to update this information in the database. This would be more efficient - for the secretariat, for the database host and for the members.
The ICAU databases are only available to ICAU members who have paid their ICAU membership fees for that year.
Invoice for the coming year could be sent out in December with deadline for payment in January.

The timetable should be revised and established so that the procedures are terminated before July and well before the next ICAU meeting.

Example:
December:	Invoice sent out
January :	Deadline for payment
February:	Information letter about submission of ICAU requests to the members who have paid.
March/April:	Deadline for submission of requests
April:	Voting slips sent out to ICAU members who have paid,
June:	Results sent to ExLibris for comments
July:	Voting results sent to ICAU members with comments

The REQUEST database should again be split up into smaller entities as originally planned.
1. The current database for voting
2. Archive databases for documentation and searching
  1. 1995 unfulfilled
  2. 1996 unfulfilled
  3. Fulfilled all.
Unfulfilled requests can be resubmitted to the current request database for renewed voting.
All Request databases can be searched in total.
The ICAU meeting should in principal accept the requests ExLibris has fulfilled in order to move them to the fulfilled database.
The error databases should be updated frequently to be current and complete. It would be better to have access directly to the original ERROR database at ExLibris in Israel.

Inger Hoey Nielsen
October 4th 1996