The library system at the University of Pittsburgh has had various levels of automation for its services since the late 1960s. Therefore when GPO offered selection for various electronic products, we selected most series... looking forward to our users getting data from the 1990 Census, and especially access to data only available in government files (i.e., FT series on imports and exports).
We subscribe to various SilverPlatter products, including the GPO Catalog. Following the usual relocations, the CD-ROM terminals are now in our Database Users-Lab and part of the "CD-NET," our in-house network. The CD-NET includes 3 "towers," with 12 titles, using 32 CDs, connected to 9 terminals in the Users-Lab, 1 at the reference desk, and to 6 departmental libraries. This Users-Lab is limited to Pitt users with current IDs, and therefore is not useful for general public access to the GPO depository disks.
Currently 2 public use CD-ROM stations provide access to 33 CD titles, including 12 from GPO. I will not describe the procedures dealing with the 5 basic problems of user access to electronic products. Instead, I will review those points which could be improved by being connected to a LAN network, like the Oakland Library Consortium project. These include easier levels of security against pseudo-hackers on the equipment, multiple-user or files accessing, to dial-in access from researchers using their own in-house statistical programs at their work-stations.
For more information, contact:
M.B. Miller
Govt. Publications Office
Hillman Library, G-8
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-648-7717
Fax: 412-648-1245