I would like to present an outline of the Horizon system, its history, environment, and state of implementation at the Nicholas Copernicus University Library in Toruñ at the moment, and the situation in the Map Department. Horizon is a third generation system (i.e. one of the latest of several library management systems) marketed by Ameritech Library Services, a subsidiary of the Ameritech Corporation, one of the world’s largest communication companies. The new system Horizon was built on the Marquis, Dynix library system, and is being developed by Ameritech Library Service in collaboration with the University of Chicago and Indiana University. It was first introduced in the USA in 1991. By August 1998, Horizon had been installed in about 570 libraries, located in the USA, Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, China, Saudi Arabia and many European countries. The first library in Europe to use this system was Technische Fachhochschule in Berlin.
The Nicholas Copernicus University Library in Toruñ was the first library to purchase the system in Poland. At present Horizon has been installed in 54 Polish libraries: Poznañ has twelve sites, nine of which are universities; Lódz has ten sites, eight of which are universities. The Polish Academy of Science purchased this system for all its branches in Poland, and now over twenty research libraries at Warsaw use this system, as well as the Pedagogical Universities in Bydgoszcz and Olsztyn and the University Library in Toruñ. The provider of Horizon system in Poland is Dynix Deutschland, a Hamburg and Berlin based company, which supports all Ameritech Library System sites in the German speaking and East European countries. In Poznañ they established a Polish office with six specialists to help Polish libraries using this system and for better marketing.
Horizon is a fully integrated client/server library management system, providing a graphical user interface for the library, and offering the functionality and standards required for an open system, including Web access, Z39.50 standard for information exchange, the TCP/IP communication standard, UNIX and Windows NT for portability. Horizon uses the SQL database management system, available from Sybase or Microsoft.
At Nicholas Copernicus University Library the main hardware is a SUN computer Sparc Server 1000 with a UNIX Solaris 2.5 operating system. The library staff works with PC-DELL running OS/2 for Horizon and Windows 95/Windows 3.1, 3.11/, and DOS for ISIS (which was the system used as a temporary system for cataloguing and for the preparation of bibliographies) All these applications can run simultaneously.
The version of Horizon that we have installed is 4.2 including the following major modules: acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, OPAC, serials.
Ameritech released version 5.0 and 5.1 and since February 1998 has had version 6 in offer for central catalogues and Inter Library Loan. As version 5.0 and 5.1 need Windows software instead of OS/2 that is in use at the Cataloguing Department, we plan to skip version 5 and jump directly to version 6 after purchasing Windows software for cataloguing workstations.
Why have we chosen Horizon? A few years ago, when the library’s managers were looking for an automated library system, they wanted to start with the most recent system, and they wanted to give the staff the possibility of using an up-to-date system with a friendly interface, and the best information service for users. It is easy to use (after appropriate training), it provides many options for retrieving information, both for staff and users. We hope that it will be sufficient to satisfy our needs for a long time.
It is obvious that the centre of any library system is the cataloguing module. Consequently, the staff of the Cataloguing Department began the implementation of the automation system in the middle of 1994. They started off by cataloguing books in the ISIS programme, in BN MARC - format used by the National Library and they used this system until June 1998. But at the beginning of the year, after long discussion about the US MARC format used by libraries with the VTLS system, and also after obtaining a copy of authority files with about 150,000 records, and receiving training in co-operation with the Centre for Authority Files at Warsaw, Horizon was introduced as the main software at the University Library in Toruñ. And until the end of June in the Cataloguing Department we had two systems operating at the same time. The cataloguers have a lot of experience in ISIS and they still use it to import bibliographical records from the National Bibliography. Up to now all the books have been originally catalogued in Horizon and all the bibliographic records are created on a PC.
The Cataloguing module is used:
Cataloguing and Authority Control contain the bibliographic database used by all Horizon modules. The Horizon Cataloguing module stores bibliographic information using US MARC standard. Three types of records exist in the Cataloguing module: bibliographic records, authority form records and item or holdings records. Where bibliographic records contain an authority form, the authority record for that form is attached to the bibliographic record. If it is not present in the database, librarians create a new authority record, send it for validation to the Centre of Authority Files, and after few days, when joined to the main database, it can be used for cataloguing. Until now at the Nicholas Copernicus University Library more than 4,000 authority records have been prepared.
The first impression the cataloguers had about this module was that it was very complicated in comparison with the easier ISIS. But after gaining more experience it looks quite easy because the Cataloguing module provides a full-screen editor for updating MARC records, and editing features are simple to use. They include:
We can work in many records simultaneously, we can look through a few different remote databases, but now we can import existing records from the database and CD-ROMs of the Library of Congress. In the near future, after necessary agreements we plan to import records from the libraries with VTLS, because Horizon as another modern system, is software Z39.50 compliant, allowing open systems types interconnection between all of the different software types. In addition, we are working on implementing the Web OPAC software, and this should be available for use from February 1999. Two months ago we installed version 4.2, which will allow us to exchange records at first with Horizon’s libraries, later with National Union Catalogue. (NUKat). But now all libraries with the Horizon system can use our database (the biggest) to import records to their libraries.
Poland has already initiated the arrangement to prepare the National Union Catalogue, which is the database for all types of print. It is intended to be accessed by VTLS, Horizon and Innopac libraries at first instance, later other libraries will have a chance to join. The main focus in this enterprise will be the National Library and the biggest research libraries in Poland. The schedule of implementation of the National Catalogue seems to be quite promising. This huge project will contain four stages of activity. Three of them include:
The last stage will involve transferring data to the central database and gradually adding libraries into the Central Catalogue. The anticipated start date is 2002.
Up to now about 179,000 volumes have been catalogued in ISIS, and over 5,000 originally catalogued in Horizon. However, the Horizon database now holds about 30,000 bibliographic records, because the Automation Department has already started to convert records from ISIS to Horizon. In addition, the database contains over 200,000 authority records.
In July the OPAC and Serials modules were introduced. On 1 October 1998 a very significant and interesting stage commenced, namely, Open Stack Access (not very popular in East European libraries). In the first stage it contains literature from the English speaking countries, and the German language literature. The Acquisition and Reserve Bookroom are under preparation. Now we are looking forward to the next very important stage, which will be Closed Stack Access. This module prepared on request will be tested from January 1999. If we do not find any serious problems, it can be introduced very soon. The remaining modules as Acquisition (partly) and some sections of the Special Collections still operating in ISIS.
The Map Collection is also in this group. Automated cataloguing started on maps about a year ago. It began by creating a description of new maps currently arriving into the department. It refers just to the maps printed since 1800. The old printed maps are still catalogued with paper cards. The map collection covers almost 11,000 maps and atlases. The number of computer catalogued maps is over 1,200 copies. While cataloguing maps in ISIS in our Map Department the Polish bibliographic standard for books is used. This is because the Polish standard for bibliographic description of cartographic documents is not yet ready. Now a team at the National Library in Warsaw is preparing the standard. The Polish standard was elaborated on the grounds of the International Standard Bibliographic Description for Cartographic Materials, ISBD (CM), and Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition (AACR2), with some detailed points added by the Polish team. This version has passed through a first reading in the Standardisation Committee. The next working meeting will take place in March 1999. If everything is done well and fast enough, the anticipated date for confirmation of the standard is June 1999.
This also affects conversion. The maps are in the same database as books, but they could not be converted together - because of the lack of the bibliographic standard. Due to that reason Horizon will probably be used in the cataloguing of books at the reference library in the Map Department, rather than maps. It will start in the beginning of the 1999. When we finally start cataloguing maps in Horizon, we hope our connection with the databases of other libraries will work on a regular basis and we expect to have opportunity to co-operate with them easily.
Generally speaking, the main points of plan in Nicholas Copernicus University Library have been successfully realised. The progress is visible. Since September 1998 new modules have been implemented and tested. In the opinion of our users they work quite well. Of course, problems arise from time to time, and sometimes they are quite troublesome, but they are solved on a daily basis.
Lucyna Poplawska
Nicholas Copernicus University Library ul.
Gagarina 13
87-100 Toruñ, Poland
L.Poplawska@bu.uni.torun.pl