Thanks to a program developed by the Office of Library Services, today's students and faculty are increasingly able to use the University libraries as a single system. According to Marsha Ra, University Director for Libraries, the Integrated Library System (ILS) coordinates vital library services across all CUNY campuses, greatly benefitting patrons while permitting libraries to maximize staff usage and lower costs for software maintenance and subscriptions.

Library Integration Begins with CUNY+

Until recently, the only way to determine a library's holdings was to visit the library and use its card catalog. However, since the first of CUNY's college libraries went online in 1988, researchers have been able to browse CUNY's holdings from a single database.

CUNY+ (cuny-plus) is CUNY's version of an online public access catalog, or OPAC. Originally tied to CUNY holdings only, CUNY+ is so named because it accesses CUNY's holdings, "plus" it allows access to other indexes and databases (see below). Today it is in place at 19 CUNY campuses, the Central Office library, and Hunter High School, and is accessible from any campus, office, or home terminal.

Online Catalog for CUNY Holdings ("DPAC")

There are 3.8 million records in CUNY's online catalog, and the number gets larger every month. Online searches of the CUNY catalog are conducted through a database labeled "DPAC." Searches can be made by Title, Author, Subject, Keyword, or Call Number. For each item found, CUNY+ provides essential information such as author, title, publisher, call number, and description (number of pages, illustrations, etc.), as well as the number of copies and their locations (i.e., which libraries own the title).

For all but four of the campuses, CUNY+ provides a holdings circulation status. Without visiting a library, users can tell if an item has been checked out or if it is on the shelf and available for use. Further, about half of the campuses post acquisitions to CUNY+, so that items currently on order are included in the online search.

Serial holdings are also cataloged online for about half of the CUNY campuses, providing the title, location and issue level (most recent issue received) of journals or periodicals. Soon 19 colleges will be fully online, providing complete serial, circulation and acquisition information for all holdings.

Other Databases

Other useful databases residing on CUNY+ include the General Periodical Index "DPER"), which contains citations from periodical indexes produced by the H.W. Wilson Company: Readers Guide Abstracts, Humanities Index, Social Science Index, and General Science Index. These four indexes cover about 800 journals. There are presently over 1.8 million citations in DPER, dating from 1983. A Newspaper Index ("DNEW") produced by UMI also resides on CUNY+. DNEW cites articles from 27 U.S. newspapers from 1989 to the present.

A "hook to holding" feature allows the user to see which CUNY libraries receive the above journals or newspapers. (Note: All services except DPAC are restricted, by licensing agreement, to CUNY faculty, staff and students.)

Remote Databases

CUNY+ is connected via the Internet to databases at other universities. For example, a Dissertation Abstracts ("DDIS") database resides in a computer at SUNY/Stonybrook. DDIS is a comprehensive source of dissertation information covering the years 1861 to the present. The database covers more than one million doctoral dissertations and master theses and includes all academic disciplines.

Medline ("MEDL") is produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Over 3,500 journals are indexed covering all areas of medicine, including clinical medicine, experimental medicine, dentistry, nursing, and many other topics.

ArticleFirst ("AFIR") and ContentsFirst ("CFIR") contain table of contents information from individual issues of more than 11,000 journals in science, technology, medicine, social science, business, the humanities, and popular culture. AFIR contains records that describe items listed on the table of contents page, while CFIR contains the complete table of contents page.

In addition, those libraries that pay for the subscription have access to ABI Inform, an index to business journals loaded on the SUNY Binghamton mainframe.

"ERIC" is the index to the Educational Resources Information Center, a federally-funded national information system that provides access to an extensive body of education-related resources. It is loaded on the Buffalo machine, and is the most recent addition to the expanding family of remote databases available via CUNY+.

Future Expansion

"The number of databases available through CUNY+ will continue to grow" says Director Ra. She suggests interested parties watch the CUNY+ screen for information on new databases as they are made available.

-- by Larry McCue