AsianDOC Electronic Newsletter 1:2 (June 1998)
by Sandra Henderson
National Library of Australia
The Australian National CJK Service went live in mid-1996 with a Wade-Giles database, followed a couple of months later by a parallel Pinyin database. Records loaded initially included existing CJK records extracted from Australia's National Bibliographic Database, built up over many years from Library of Congress CJK records and the original cataloguing of many libraries around Australia. Since that time LC CJK has been loaded directly into the system, as have RLIN records selected by member libraries, and many original cataloguing records. In mid 1997 the National Library reached an agreement to load National Diet Library records, and after an initial retrospective load these are now being added regularly. Progress is also being made at the time of writing in acquisition of records from the National Library of Korea. The Innopac software on which our system runs is used with MASS or JOIN software for cataloguing purposes, to allow the entry and viewing of CJK characters. WinMASS allows the entry and viewing of characters in searching of the Web version of the database. MASS and WinMASS are from the Star+Globe company in Singapore, who have recently released WinMASS CJK and WinMASS viewer to specifically support EACC-based CJK systems such as ours. JOIN is from the JOIN Computer Corporation in Taiwan. Membership has grown slowly, and now includes a number of universities, public libraries, and a contract cataloguing company which provides cataloguing services to public and other libraries. In recent months we have welcomed the first non-Australian library - that of the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong - to our system. There is interest from additional public and university libraries, even those with relatively small collections, because our system not only offers an opportunity to view the records in script, but also indicates where in Australia items are held. Quite a number of member libraries now provide access to the CJK databases to members of the public, who can search using CJK characters or romanised terms. There are currently over 800,000 records, and almost 300,000 locations for individual items. A gateway from the National Bibliographic Database to the CJK system allows non-members of the service to search and view romanised records and check locations. Replacement software for the NBD is currently being installed, and should provide even closer links between the NBD and CJK. Readers wanting further information about the CJK system can check out the information on the Library's web pages (http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/ncjk/cjkhome.html) or contact us at ancjk@nla.gov.au Sandra Henderson Manager Australian National CJK Service National Library of Australia
URL http://asiandoc.lib.ohio-state.edu/v1n2/dbs/ancjk.html
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