News from SUNCAT

EDINA to lead SUNCAT ( 12 February 2003 )

EDINA will lead a two-year, 700k project with Ex Libris and Edinburgh University Library (EUL) to set-up and deliver SUNCAT, the national union catalogue of serials data for the UK.

Funded by the JISC and initiated as part of the Research Support Libraries Programme, SUNCAT will help researchers and students find serial publications held in libraries other than their own. As a centralised source of high-quality records about serials, SUNCAT will also allow library staff to upgrade their own local catalogues, assigning the ISSN and improving the bibliographic description, all important in joining-up libraries within the UK s digital library.

EDINA will be working with Ex Libris, one of the world s leading suppliers of library systems. SUNCAT will be a deployment of their software, ALEPH 500, the basis of a growing number of national union catalogues throughout the world and of the new catalogue for the California Digital Library Catalogue, Melvyl.

SUNCAT will be designed to help end users, staff and students. We also aim to make co-operation with the library community a high priority. Liz Stevenson (EUL) will take the lead on user requirements, working with and building upon work done by Tony Kidd of Glasgow University, which together with the National Library of Scotland are associate partners. Comparable active involvement in the early stages of the project is anticipated from the large deposit libraries of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. As ever, the EDINA HelpDesk and User Support will be first port of call for enquiries.

The SUNCAT database will be a centralised catalogue with the ISSN world database as its spine, the CONSER database and discrete catalogues of contributing libraries providing the source of bibliographic records. SUNCAT records will be created from the highest-quality data from each of these contributors, accurately indicating the locations of journal titles in UK libraries whilst providing the richest possible bibliographic expression available from CONSER and ISSN.

SUNCAT will be developed in three phases, for a total of over 1 million across a four-year period. In Phase 1, 2003-04, a critical mass of current STM titles will be created from twenty large UK university and research collections. We intend to launch a pilot SUNCAT service in Autumn 2003. Phase 2, 2005-06, will increase coverage of libraries to about 200, with focus on specialist collections, including older and rarer materials. By the end of 2006, SUNCAT will be the first port of call for information about serials held in UK libraries. Phase 3 (2006 - ) will be a period of consolidation to ensure the long-term stability of SUNCAT.

You can contact us directly via the EDINA Helpdesk. The primary contacts for information about the SUNCAT project are Dr Leah Halliday (Project Manager) and Peter Burnhill (Director).