Citation
(2005), "UK National Union Catalogue of Serials becomes a reality", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2005.12233aab.018
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
UK National Union Catalogue of Serials becomes a reality
The project to make available the location of serial titles and holdings in the UK has suffered from many false dawns over the past 30 years. At last they seem to be in sight of a working service. Congratulations to the team at EDINA!This (edited) report appears in Newsline, Vol 9 Issue 3 from EDINA
Over the last 18 months, the SUNCAT Project has been developing a National Union Catalogue of Serials for the UK research community. SUNCAT will have two primary aims: it will be a tool for locating serials in UK research libraries, and it will be a central source of high-quality bibliographic records that libraries contributing to SUNCAT may download to upgrade their local catalogues.
Phase 1 of the SUNCAT project has been a period of rich learning and substantial design and development. We now have an agreed architecture and have developed procedures for acquiring, converting and loading serials records from UK research libraries. The SUNCAT database currently contains 3.7 million records. Of these 1.7 million have been contributed by UK libraries; the ISSN Register and the CONSER Database contributed a further one million records each. These records represent a substantial proportion of titles in UK libraries, perhaps more than 90 per cent.
Libraries that contribute records to SUNCAT may wish to upgrade their local catalogues. SUNCAT will provide a facility for downloading the preferred record for a title into the local catalogue using Z39.50.
PilotIn January 2005, Phase 2 of the project will begin. At the same time as delivering a pilot service, EDINA will continue to develop SUNCAT to improve its utility and to accommodate the various cataloguing practices of contributors. The pilot service will be a valuable contribution to the information resources available to UK researchers. Access to SUNCAT is via the EDINA home page.
Source: UK Serial News, 22 October, No. 78