Realization Stages

Preamble

In the recent years due to lack of or extreme shortage in financing of subscription to scientific journals and publications, both foreign and domestic, providing research workers with actual information about the existence of different publications and about the ways to access distributed collections of domestic and foreign literature becomes quite a topical problem.

The realization of the project will allow to draw essentially nearer to the world level of information and reference service in the part of timely use and replenishment of the single distributed collection of scientific literature.

Main Goal of the Project

To achieve the main goal the following objectives are to be realized:

1. A network integration of existing information resources of major Russian libraries and information centres via:

• wide use of client-server architecture and modern relational databases (RDBMS),
• aprobation and selection of typical RDBMS running under an UNIX operation system, environment,
• use of SQL- standards for the query language in order to realize an interaction between WWW -servers and RDBMS.

2. Wide use of existing and creation of new telecommunication resources of domestic non-commercial TCP/IP networks. The LibWeb Project does not provide for financing of:

• Internet connectivity of libraries and information centres,
• purchase of communication equipment etc.

These problems have to be solved within other projects or own budget of participants.

3. Modernization of maintenance and use tecniques of:

• online catalogues of participating libraries and
• the automated system of the Russian Union Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Literature

following the Internet technologies for support of information products.

4. Ensuring user access to online catalogues, bibliographic data and other LibWeb information resources under use of standard WWW client software (Mosaic, Netscape, Explorer etc.); organization of simultaneous search in several catalogues via dispatching of queries to a database server network through intermediate interfaces (Web-DBMS Interface) of the corresponding WWW-servers.

5. Organization of retrospective conversion of card catalogues in participating libraries by modern network and other automated technologies.

As a result of the Project realization there will be created a distributed library network ensuring access to and exchange of bibliographic, technological and other information. An overwhelming majority of LibWeb resources will be available for scientific, cultural and educational institutions and organisations as well as for their (staff) members free of charge.

Within the LibWeb Project there will function a distributed information system securing:

• a direct access to information resources of major Russian libraries for people working in the field of science and technology, culture and education;
• a corporate cataloguing for participating libraries that will allow to reduce substantially labor input and time of documents processing, to guarantee timely and reliable access to information for users;
• organization of national and international interlibrary loan and exchange of publications, providing for a cooperated order.

Stages of Project Realization

I. Development of a technical project including standard solutions for hosts being installed in the libraries delivering basic services. Creation of the pilot fragment of the LibWeb network on the basis of 4 nodes - in the Research Library of the Moscow State University, in the State Public Library for Science and Technology of Russia, in the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the Institute for Scientific Information in Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences. (IV quarter of 1995 - I quarter of 1996).

II. Selection of standard solutions for software and hardware complexes of the LibWeb hosts. Development of software. Delivery and installation of hardware and software in participating libraries included in the first turn of the network development (the list of these 10-15 libraries will be specified during the preparation of the technical project). Working off interaction of the LibWeb nodes. (1996).

III. Experimental exploitation of the LibWeb, increasing the number of the network nodes by introducing the second-turn-participants. (1997).

IV. Experimental and industrial exploitation. Introducing the network in exploitation. (1998.)