Oberlin College Library Perspectives

A Newsletter of the Oberlin College

Number 11, February 1995

Celebrating the New Online System

On January 18 faculty, staff, students, and Friends of the Library gathered in the Main Library to celebrate the installation of the new Oberlin Bibliographic Information system (OBIS). The celebration, entitled "OBIS: The Next Generation," featured a demonstration of the new system as well as remarks by Director of Libraries Ray English, Associate Director Alan Boyd (who coordinated the system installation), and Provost Sam Carrier.

The new OBIS, which became available to the public at the beginning of the new year, is the library's fourth-generation automated system and the first to integrate all essential library functions and incorporate new networking technologies. Manufactured by Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a leading academic library automation vendor, the new system has a variety of features that markedly improve user access to the library's collections and to external bibliographic databases.

Users of the new OBIS follow a straightforward menu structure to navigate rapidly throughout the catalog, taking advantage of a variety of search features. These include the capacity to define and limit searches in order to achieve precise results, to browse book titles as you would on a shelf, and to locate easily titles on similar subjects. The new system also provides direct access to the FirstSearch service, to Uncover, and to other external databases. The installation of the new system is the first step in the library's plan to join the OhioLINK system of statewide resource sharing.

The new OBIS represents a major phase in an ongoing process of utilizing electronic information technologies to improve access to library resources, a process that began at Oberlin in the early 1970s. A pioneer in the process of library automation, the Oberlin library was a founding member of the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC); it installed one of the first automated circulation systems in a liberal arts college setting (in 1978); and it automated acquisitions and serials functions in 1983. The library used the previous Geac 9000 online catalog and circulation system since 1988.

The best way to appreciate the capabilities of the new OBIS is to try it out! Those living off-campus who have Internet access may search the system by telnetting to: obis.lib.oberlin.edu.

Table of Contents Library Perspectives, no. 11

Return to What's New at the Oberlin College Library

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