Newsline from EDINA
October 2004: Volume 9, Issue 3
by Leah Halliday
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%.
During Phase 1 EDINA has also customised the Aleph out-of-the-box interface - provided by our partner ExLibris - to suit the behaviour and preferences of the UK research community.
Between now and when the service is launched in 2005, the SUNCAT Project team has much to do, particularly in the area of matching records of different quality. Many of the records contributed to SUNCAT by UK libraries refer to the same serial titles. A search result will present the user with only the best bibliographic record, attached to which will be a holdings statement from each holding library. To achieve this, the SUNCAT system must effectively match all records for the same title with one another and identify the best bibliographic record for display (this is known as the 'preferred record'). An algorithm developed for matching records in the California Digital Library catalogue Melvyl is being customised by the SUNCAT team for use with UK data so as to maximise the proportion of records that can reliably be matched whilst avoiding false matches. Throughout 2005, duplication of records will be reduced as libraries check their unmatched records.
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.
In 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.