Aspecto Físico – Natural

LASER (London and South-Eastern Library Region) is another bibliographic service in the UK, the main aim of which is to provide bibliographic and inter-library lending support to all types of libraries. According to Hendrix (1992: 8), LASER is an independent company within the University of London, which supports bibliographic searching, inter-library lending (ILL), electronic messaging, and transportation of ILL materials.

LASER is the principal organization for library co-operation in London and the South-East o f England and is the network host and central database o f the national and international VISCOLTNT interlending an d bibliographic records service (LASER, 1993).

LASER was established as the result of an amalgamation between the London Union Catalogue (LUC), established in 1929, and the South-Eastern Library System (SERLS), established in 1933 (Plaister, 1990: 291). This merger was proposed by the 1961/2 working party on Interlending Cooperation in England and Wales and took place in 1969. The original functions of these regional systems were to facilitate the inter-lending of books among libraries within a area and via the National Central Library, to act as centres of bibliographic information, and to main union catalogues (Hunter, 1987: 181). This, LASER started life with a focus on inter-lending and resource sharing, rather than on cataloguing (Rowley, 1993: 296).

According to Tedd (1993: 79), LASER converted its union catalogue into MARC format in the mid 1970s. This work was undertaken at the request of member libraries that

were eager to make use of these records retrospective catalogue conversion projects. At the request of the British Library, this became the official retrospective conversion of BNB back to 1950.

LASER network activities began in 1970 and had involvement not only with inter­ lending but also with cataloguing and witli other technology such as the viewdata system (Hunter, 1987: 181).

LASER Services and Facilities

LASER offers a range of services to its members including the following: a large bibliographic and inter-lending database known as VISCOUNT, a record supply service, a transport scheme, a specialist Indie language service, and retrospective conversion.

VISCOUNT

VISCOUNT is an inter-library communications network. “The original initiative for the creation of database and development came from LASER. LASER pioneered the automation of library holdings, or location, for direct interlending between libraries” (LASER, 1994a).

VISC O U N T began in August 1985 with the aim o f providing a nationally co-ordinated interlending and bibliographical network. The VISCOUNT database and network has developed from the long established United Kingdom interlending infrastructure which comprises ten library regions and the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLD SC) (LASER, 1994b).

There are almost 4 million bibliographic records on VISCOUNT generated by a number of sources:

The British Library UKMARC Database 1950-date BLDSC Current Serial Holdings

Book stock o f BLDSC 1980-date LASER Extra-MARC 1901-date

CILLA database (catalogue o f Indie language material). SEALS database o f European fiction

LCMARC and OCLC MARC - for titles held by VISCOUNT libraries. Whitaker records (partial file).

LASER continuing process o f producing machine readable records for material published pre-1901 (LASER, 1994a).

Bromley and Allot (1992: 30) state that access to VISCOUNT services can be achieved from viewdata terminals or IBM-compatible PCs. Tliese not only allow preparation of inter-library loan requests and bibliographic checking, but also use of a store and forward electronic messaging system for sending and receiving requests to and from other VISCOUNT users. In fact, VISCOUNT also provides a range of services to its member libraries including on-line searching, locating and obtaining materials, the VISCOUNT database and network (used primarily for item and location identification), inter-library lending, and the union catalogue. LASER record supply services cover a range o f sources including the British Library, OCLC, and in-house catalogued extra-MARC material. The collection of extra-MARC material dates back to before 1900 and provides cataloguers with full MARC-standard records for any item with no other machine-readable record (LASER, 1994c).

LASER is one of the participants of the ION (Interlending Open Systems Interconnection Network) project, which links the inter-lending systems of the UK, the Netherlands (Pica), and France (Sunist). Smith and Hendrix (1992) point out that LASER is the leading organization of the project and that BLDSC participates as a major document supplier and also through its involvement in the planning of the UK services available to Dutch and French libraries. “ION went fully operational in November 1993 and the UK has 12 public, 9 academic, and I special library using the international link” (Hendrix and

Patterson, 1994). Harries (1993; 130) notes that ION aims to demonstrate the capabilities of the Open System model for supporting inter-lending and, in particular, to gain experience of using the Inter-library Loan Protocol and the Search and Retrieve Protocol; and to create stronger links between the European national information infrastructures in doing so. Moreover, Hendrix and Patterson (1994) mention that the ION project has the fblloAving three objectives:

1. To achieve inter-connection between three computerized library networks in the UK, the Netherlands, and France in order to support and develop international inter-lending and service messaging.

2. To demonstrate the capabilities of the OSI environment for inter-lending services by the inter-connection of computerized networks with different teciinical characteristics. 3. To improve the efficiency of international inter-lending services.