Version 3.2_5 was installed in January 1996. We opgraded to patch 11 in June 1996. Both tasks were accomplished without major problems, aside from the usual errors and the awkwardness of changes in known
In 1996 we converted the Danish article and review base to Aleph and established the bases in an independent global library. There are ca. 700,000 bibliographical records, which we previously had installed in an entirely different, independent library system. These bases are opdated weekly with ca.1,000 records.
We performed the conversion and installation of the bases ourselves, and in generel it was accomplished according to plan.
We are happy to be able to offer this service, together with tables of contents from foreign journals from Swets-Scan, in the same environment as our library system in general. This is not entirely problem free. See the explanation under Open problems.
At the moment we are thesting a program which collects mailing addresses for the day's loans to users with letter status D. These are printed out centrally once a day as post labels. This seems to function well.
In connection with the centralization of foreign journal subscriptions and the management of these chiefly by one supplier (the Dutch firm SWETS), we are planning, together wit SWETS, to investigate the possibility of direct electronic transfer of Cardex information from SWETS to ALEPH. Whether this is at all possible remains an open question.
Aalborg University has a new branch in Esbjerg (300km. from Aalborg). This branch will be established as a logical base / sublibrary in Aleph with all that this entails, including conversion of bibliographic records from Esbjerg's current PC system, staff training, etc. We expect to complete this within a couple of months.
We hope very soon that various problems with WWW interface will be solved, so that the server can be opened for daily operation. Errors have been corrected in the various new versions /patches, but in turn new, previously unknown errors, have appeared. These errors are all so detrimental to practical functionality, that we have decided to delay opening the server. At the very least, search and request functions should be satisfactory, so that www users are not advised in a given screen to use a telnet connection if they want to continue.
Regarding the transition to Aleph-500, we are delaying our decision until the concept is far better described and tested.
Links
While installing the external bases in Aleph, we confronted major problems regarding Aleph's handling of the capability of bibliographic links as holdings links across the various Aleph levels (GBL/LOCAL/BASE).
Holdings links with LKR field can only be made on the system number level. Links cannot be made with a specific year/vol/issue, but only on a general level, LK-links only work within the same global/local library.
Guided Search can not be used practically when bibliographic links are made with LKR.
WWW does not support links at all - neither LK nor LKR links - in consequence external bases cannot be offered via WWW.
To a great extent it will be Aleph's functionality - or the lack of it in these aspects - which will determine how we can structure the individual bases, even if this mandatory solution in all other contexts is the most impractical.