H-ASIA: New Library resource (fwd)

[Shemina Keshvani]

FYI
 
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 09:40:40 -0700
From: Frank Conlon <conlon at u.washington.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list H-ASIA <H-ASIA at msu.edu>
Subject: H-ASIA: New Library resource
 
                                H-ASIA
                             May 31, 1996
 
New Library Resource
(x-post from H-JAPAN)
*************************************************************************
From: "Philip C. Brown" <pbrown at magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
 
COPAC: a new national Online Public Access Catalogue
 
What is COPAC?
COPAC is a new nationally accessible Online Public Access
Catalogue. Based at the University of Manchester, COPAC provides
searchers with centralised access to the online catalogues of some of
the largest university research libraries in the UK and Ireland. COPAC
is normally available 24 hours a day 365 days a year and access is
free of charge.
 
 
What does COPAC contain?
The COPAC database currently contains approx. 2.7 million
records. These represent the merged online library catalogues of:
 
Cambridge University
Edinburgh University
Glasgow University
Leeds University
Oxford University
 
The records from a further nine university library catalogues will be
added during 1996/97 and there are plans for the incorporation of
material from further libraries in the future.
 
These large research libraries have many older documents, specialist
collections and particular strengths, such as foreign language
materials, which make COPAC a very valuable resource for the
researcher. COAPC contains records for materials ranging from 1100 to
current. At the moment approx. 3% of the database consists of
materials published pre-1900 and the proportion of older materials is
growing. Similarly, whilst the English language predominates, some 27%
of COPAC records represent foreign language materials, including
minority languages such as Welsh. This proportion is increasing as
records for foreign language collections are brought online.
 
Most of the COPAC records are for books, reports etc. but there are
increasing numbers of records for other materials such as printed and
recorded music, and video. Records for journals and other periodicals
make up some 4% of the COPAC database.
 
 
COPAC: database updating
The COPAC database is continually growing as libraries add new records
on a regular basis.  In addition, as the libraries $BC  (Jcollections
change, records are deleted and corrections to existing records are
made, ensuring the maintenance of database currency and quality.
 
 
How do you access COPAC?
Two easy to use interfaces are available for accessing COPAC:
 
1. A WWW Interface available at: http://copac.ac.uk/copac/
 
2. A Text Interface:
  Telnet to: copac.ac.uk
  username: copac
  password: copac
 
Searching is possible using title words, author and organisation
names, subject words, date and language. Results can be displayed and,
in the text interface, records can be emailed to your local system in
a format which can be accepted by personal bibliographic software.
 
Help and Advice
Online search assistance is provided on both the VT100 and Web Interface.
 
Postscript versions of the User Guides for both interfaces are
available for downloading at:
  http:28/05/96/copac.ac.uk/copac/userguide/
 
The Web User Guide is also available as a Web page at:
http:28/05/96/copac.ac.uk/copac/webug.html
 
For further assistance or information contact:
  The COPAC Helpdesk:
  Tel: 0161 275 6037
  Fax: 0161 275 6040
        Email:  copac at mcc
 
--------------------------------
COPAC Help Desk (copac at mcc.ac.uk)
CURL OPAC Project
National Services Group, Manchester Computing,
Computer Building, University of Manchester,
Oxford Road,  Manchester M13 9PL,  United Kingdom
Fax:  0161 275 6040           Tel:  0161 275 6037
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