1. OACIS: Overview of a Collaborative Project Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials Presentation by Simon Samoeil OACIS Project Manager, Yale University

2. Review of goals To create a freely available publicly accessible web site featuring a continuously updated union list of Middle Eastern serials –In all formats (including live web links) –From 20+ countries (ME as defined by LC) To lay foundations for the future, delivering widest possible information access –Expanded cooperation and participation –Document delivery/ILL –Digitization and preservation To create a Union List of Middle East Serials

3. OACIS Advisory Board Cornell University Ohio State University Universitaets-und Landesbibliothek of Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle, Germany University of Pennsylvania University of Michigan University of Texas University of Washington Yale University

4. OACIS Participating Universities Balamand University, Lebanon Princeton University University of Jordan, Jordan Tishreen University, Syria

5. OACIS Advisory Board Members Ali Houissa - Cornell University Jonathan Rodgers – University of Michigan Dona Straley- Ohio State University Abazar Sepehri – University of Texas Mary St. Germain – University of Washington Lutz Wiederhold - Universitaets-und Landesbibliothek of Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle, Germany William Kopycki– University of Pennsylvania

6. Why now? ME has always been a key part of the world –Historically, economically, politically Scholars and librarians have cooperated on modest projects –CRL’s Middle East Microform Project (MEMP) –Fawzi Khoury and Michele Bates Directory, The Middle East in Microform, University of Washington, 1991 –Projects have not been across national boundaries or via technology Need for a significant set of digital building blocks that don’t exist yet

7. Origins of OACIS US Department of Education Title VI program activates TICFIA portion in 1999 (stands for Technological Innovation & Cooperation for Foreign Information Access) All are three-year projects 1999-2002 projects funded: Africa, Eurasia, Japan, Latin America, South Asia 2002-2005 projects: Indonesia, Japan, Latin America, ME, Asia, language teaching, Africa, South Asia, Tibet

8. Years of Collaboration Year 1: database creation, loading of serial records –Database expansion in US, Europe, Middle East Year 2: explore ILL/document delivery partnerships Year 3: create mirror sites, modest digitizing, identify future phases (such as preservation) Year 2-3: internships from ME to work on OACIS –Will enable participation from home library & beyond Synergies with other Title VI participants Presentations at conferences, workshops (ME, DL) Assessment by users, measuring success

9. Today OACIS is mostly “On Target, On Time” Some travel and internship setbacks because of volatile political situation Recent accomplishments: –First full partners meeting (in July at Yale University) –Discovered complementarities of Halle project and are beginning links to it –Offer of digitization by Texas –Prototype launched globally November 10 th, 2003 with thousands of bibliographical records –Interns for 2004 selected (Jordan, Syria) –Potential intern for 2005 (Lebanon)

11. Home Page - http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/

44. Potential Middle Eastern Participants American University of Beirut Assad National Library in Syria American University in Cairo Arab Institute for Human Rights in Tunisia National Library of Egypt

45. Breaking MARC

46. Data Display Issues

47. On the Inside

48. Encoding 101

49. System Specifications The Open Source system consists of the following components: * Server operating system: Linux 2.4.18 via Red Hat 8.0 * Web server: Apache 2.0.4 * Database: MySQL 3.23 * Application languages: PHP 4.3.0, JavaScript 2.0, HTML This system currently runs as a test environment on a purchased DELL Precision 350 with Intel Pentium 4 (2.26 GHz). http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/

50. What’s Next? Middle Eastern Interns -Interns selected -First intern will concentrate on issues of inputting non-MARC catalog records into OACIS using entry forms. -Second intern will focus on questions of document delivery Adding new participant data -In February we started adding content from non- partner institutions at a slow and steady pace so as not to disrupt continuous project work.

51. What’s Next? Exploring linking and other synergies with our Halle partner’s MENALIB project Fleshing out our thinking and plans for document delivery Fleshing out our thinking and plans for digitizing Seeking sustainability