Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER

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Map cataloguing in the PICA environment

Martin Feijen, PICA Project for Integrated Catalogue Automation

© LIBER and author
Published from: Bulletin Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, 28(1986)

At the start of this year, the PICA cataloguing system was upgraded to include a facility for online map cataloguing. Today, I would like to present to you a general view of the PICA organization, its systems and their development, to give you an introduction to the cataloguing system with an example of a typical session, and, finally, to present an overview of future developments.

First of all, you ought to know the meaning of the acronym 'PICA': Project for Integrated Catalogue Automation. It is a cooperative project, initiated at the end of the Sixties by the Royal Library and a number of large university libraries. As a first result an online cataloguing system was implemented in 1975. This system has been expanded and improved and today it is the largest bibliographic utility in the Netherlands, used by the original participants, by public libraries, special libraries and library institutions.
Apart from the offline cataloguing system, PICA has developed systems for acquisition, circulation control, interlibrary loans and an online catalogue. Presently, systems for acquisition and circulation control have been implemented at five locations, while the online catalogue system will be implemented as a pilot project at two locations. The PICA-office, currently employing forty people, is responsible for systems development and maintenance, user support (e.g. training, manuals, help desk) and research.
Cataloguing is the oldest of the PICA systems. The first version, developed by a commercial software house, became operational in 1975, and was followed by a second version in 1981 written by PICA 's own staff. At this moment, a large project is under way for the conversion of the cataloguing system software in order to make it suitable for use on a brand new Tandem computer configuration by the spring of 1985.

The cataloguing system was developed according to the following principles:
  1. the system is an online system
  2. cataloguing takes place according to two important principles:

The system consists of three major components:
  1. a batch input subsystem. To increase the efficiency of the system and to reduce the workload for the cataloguers, PICA uses LC and BNB records, available on magnetic tape. The tapes are converted to the PICA format, compared with the database and stored in the database when no record exists for the particular object.
  2. an online cataloguing subsystem, used for input/update of descriptive records and authority files.
  3. an output subsystem, where records can be batch selected, sorted, and presented in various forms: library cards, lists, books, COM, tape.

The cataloguing system uses two formats for efficient copying of the bibliographic information into the database: an extern al format, structured according to ISBD punctuation principles, and an internal format, based on MARC. In both formats, three levels of information can be distinguished:
  1. the general bibliographic level
  2. the local level
  3. copy information level
The first level is subject to the principle of shared cataloguing, whilst the other levels are only relevant for each library separately. The database structure is based on the same principles: there is only one large file for all level one information, and one file for each library containing level two/three information. Today, the central file contains 2.5 million records and the local files 1.5 million records in total. It must be stressed that although the central file is dominated by records for books, it also contains al large number of records for serials, films, video, music, letters and maps.
There are four shared authority files and eight local authority files. The latter are used by single libraries only, mostly for subject headings. The shared files are for personal names and subject headings, and there are two separate files for maps regional names, and thematic subject headings. These files contain 0.5 million records altogether.

The present state of affairs concerning map cataloguing in PICA is as follows.
  1. At the beginning of 1984 certain modifications were made to the map cataloguing systems including:
  2. Recently, the DUMC-database (Dutch Union Map Catalogue) and authority files have been included in the PICA files. The results of this integration will be evaluated before the end of this year.

Pending the conversion project for the Tandem computer, PICA will not start any new developments until the spring of 1985. This also affects map cataloguing, as there are a number of projected improvements to the system in this area, but implementation of them must wait. This gives us time to use the system as it is now, to test its strength and weaknesses and to develop new ideas for future improvements. Areas requiring further development include:
  1. Special search keys to locate map records in the database, based not on title information but on the scale and the year of publication.
  2. Evaluation of the function of authority files, especially in combination with future online retrieval.
  3. The relationship between map records and other records, their overlap, and contents.
  4. The realization of DUMC via PICA or elsewhere, with regard to retrospective cataloguing of the large Dutch collections.
  5. The tuning of user efforts, system performance and system demands to produce results that can be cost-effective.

I'm confident that PICA will be able to implement these ideas whilst maintaining close collaboration with its users, and that map cataloguing in PICA will have a prosperous future.

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