ISI's Electronic Library Project up

Abstract

The Institute for Scientific Information's Electronic Library Project is now operational; training of departmental staff is ongoing at the first installation of the project, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The project, which provides the tables of contents, bibliographic data, and abstracts for around 1,350 scholarly journals, is discussed.

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) announced in October that its Electronic Library Project is now operational. The first installation of the project, at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, was completed on schedule, and training of departmental staff at Thomas Jefferson University is ongoing.

The Electronic Library Project provides the tables of contents, bibliographic data, and abstracts for approximately 1,350 scholarly journals indexed in Current Contents/Life Sciences, with the addition of the full images of those journals for which publishers have agreed to allow electronic storage and delivery. It provides for seamless integration at the pilot site through a network-based client/server system that can be added to and can coexist with the site's current local area network (LAN). ISI's Electronic Library Project is designed to test the economics involved, to weigh the need for security vs. access, and to measure and assess usability.

More Sites Soon

ISI will continue to adhere to an aggressive installation and testing schedule for its Electronic Library Project. This fall, four other North American pilot sites will be operational. Early in 1996, the Electronic Library will be installed at two sites in Europe and at an additional North American site. Testing at each site will last for approximately 18 months. During this period, usage statistics will be electronically collected, aggregated, and analyzed by ISI and shared with the participants on a quarterly basis. Each pilot will receive data that is exclusive to that site, along with aggregated user and journal reports. Each of the publisher participants will receive reports based directly on their journals but aggregated over all sites and consolidated journal and end-user usage reports.

ISI is also working closely with the international publishers who provide the content on which ISI's Electronic Library Project is based. Starting in 1993, ISI met several times with representatives from many of these primary publishing organizations to discuss the development of an electronic library prototype. Response to these discussions was enthusiastic. ISI then sought permission for the right to electronically store and deliver subscriptions of the journals indexed in Current Contents/Life Sciences to the pilot sites as part of this corporate research and development initiative.

Concurrently, ISI vetted--and was vetted by--several organizations in North America and Europe in its search for pilot sites. In this initial selection process, ISI sought institutions that were located within a reasonable geographic proximity to ISI's Philadelphia headquarters or its U.K. office. Besides Thomas Jefferson University, the North American sites include Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lehigh University, The New York Public Library, Purdue University, and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals R&D. The European sites are Glaxo Research and Development, Ltd. and University College London.

Partnering with IBM

Parallel to other partner discussions, ISI identified International Business Machines (IBM) as a technology partner in late July 1994. ISI and IBM formed an alliance and work started immediately. Computer scientists at the IBM Almaden Research Center (ARC) are experts in relational database management and high-volume storage capabilities that support information storage and retrieval in a distributed client-server environment. This group has been key in deploying an IBM Digital Library solution.

IBM has been responsible for evoking the relational database model and enhancing the client/server architecture. The IBM Almaden Lab played an integral part in building the prototype and will participate in its evaluation and support over the next two years.

Additionally, IBM Global Network has agreed to work closely within the framework of ISI's corporate research and development initiative. IBM Global Network will provide dedicated T1 lines between the server installed at the North American pilot sites and ISI's central server for the delivery of that data, and it is in the process of exploring the technical options for the installation of dedicated lines for ISI's European pilot sites.

Working with Lotus

ISI also identified other technology partners. Lotus Development Corporation (recently acquired by IBM), which developed Lotus Notes, a groupware standard, is providing a client-server platform that offers a secure user interface environment that can work with all leading computing platforms--including Windows, Macintosh and OS/2. ISI and Lexmark International announced a cooperative arrangement in July of this year. In support of ISI's Electronic Library Project, Lexmark will make available an Optra L laser printer at each pilot site for the duration of this project, in order to afford optimum ability to print the scholarly articles that have been viewed through ISI's Electronic Library prototype.

For more information about ISI's Electronic Library Project, contact ISI in Philadelphia at 215/386-0100; e-mail: jtrolley(at)isinet.com.