ISIS PLUS Chairman's report, December 1996

                   ISIS PLUS Report on 1996

Meetings

This year  ISIS Plus  have held  two meetings,  this being the
second.

The first  was  of  course  the  first  Pan-European  CDS/ISIS
Meeting held  a year ago in this very place.  Many of you told
me how  much you enjoyed it.  ISIS is of course international,
not even European, but either way it is good for us all to see
what is happening elsewhere and I think a large number of ISIS
Plus members  were pleased  to meet users from other countries
and to  hear what  they are  doing.    One  ISIS  Plus  member
questioned me  afterwards as  to why  I had  always said  that
validation in  data entry  in the  DOS version  is  impossible
without rewriting  the data  entry module  when  one  of  last
year's speakers  was clearly doing it.  I had to say that that
was because they had rewritten data entry!

The latest  meeting was  held in June in Manchester, hosted by
Sheila Vaughan  at the  University of Manchester Institute for
Development Policy  and Management.  About 35 people attended.
More had  planned to  come  but  were  deterred  by  transport
difficulties in  Manchester caused by the huge bomb three days
earlier.   Undeterred, we  looked  at  the  latest  beta  test
version  of   Windows,  with  various  members  of  the  group
demonstrating the different functions.  We aimed to report our
findings to  UNESCO, but  I did not get round to this for some
time.   Unfortunately the  version we had at the demonstration
contained some  problems which  meant that  data entry was not
demonstrated very successfully, and this made it impossible to
comment on that area in particular.

Members' activities

Members have  contributed to many activities around the world.
Some of  us, for  example, answer questions posed by others on
the CDS/ISIS  Listserv -- you'll remember the paper on this by
Hugo Besemer last year.  A number of courses have been held in
England with  substantial parts  devoted to  CDS/ISIS.  At the
Institute of Development Policy and management, Sheila vaughan
led a  course on  Effective Library  Information Systems which
included CDS/ISIS  and at the Institute of Development Studies
at the  University of  Sussex  they  had  about  one  week  of
CDS/ISIS in their course entitled Bibliographic Information on
development.  They even included training on using the Windows
version on  a network!   I  made my  first  trip  through  the
Channel  Tunnel   to  give   lectures  in   Brussels  at  Paul
Nieuwenhuysen's course  "Management of  Information in Science
and Technology"  (MIST 3)  at the  Free University  which  was
attended by about 16 people from developing countries.  Though
my lectures  related more  to the  UNESCO Common Communication
Format and  selection of  library automation systems, CDS/ISIS
featured strongly;   in  addition, I  used a  database I  have
created on  CDS/ISIS to display 'overheads':  I had a database
which linked  to  files  containing  images  relating  to  the
lecture, rather like Powerpoint is used.

I have  been involved in a very interesting project  to set up
a directory  of Literature and Art Archives using CDS/ISIS.  A
disk has been prepared containing the CDS/ISIS software with a
CDS/ISIS database  which is sent to archives thought to have a
contribution to  make.   Many of  the people  involved in  the
project,  members  of  the  IFLA  Rare  Books  group  and  the
International Council  of Archives,  would be the first to say
they are  not the  most computer literate of people.  So users
like Ed  Brandon of IDRC, Ernesto Spinak, formerly of the Pan-
American  Health   Organisation  in  Washington  (and  now  in
Montevideo)  and   myself  have   given   demonstrations   and
assistance with  preparing the  disk in London, Washington and
Ottawa to  help members  of  the  group  to  get  the  project
established.   The group  met in Beijing at the end of August;
I was  fortunate  to  be  there  attending  the  IFLA  General
Conference and  so was  able to help set up a demonstration of
the CDS  ISIS database  which had  been  made  up  of  records
prepared remotely  on these diskettes and transferred into one
database using  the Import  function; and  to demonstrate some
World Wide  Web pages  which I  had constructed (by means of a
print format) from the CDS/ISIS database.

It would be gratifying if other organisations set up databases
in a  similar way  so if  anyone wants  more information I can
demonstrate the diskette.

I was  also able to be present at the inaugural meeting of The
International  Association   of  CDS/ISIS   systems  and   new
information technologies  users  and  developers  (Association
ISIS-NIT).  This change of name is intended to reflect that it
deals with  software other than CDS/ISIS.  I also demonstrated
the UNIBASE  disk  there  as  the  question  of  bibliographic
exchange formats  is a  hot topic  at the moment in Russia and
other FSU countries.

I have  also visited  Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt to help
them with their use of CDS/ISIS.


ISIS Plus 1997

Now we  are here  again and  looking forward to 1997. The main
event will  be, we  hope, the release of ISIS for Windows.  We
have here  today the latest version of this software including
a Multimedia demonstration.  There is a rumour that it will be
released soon  but as with all ISIS activities you have to see
it for  yourself before  you will believe it!  The latest beta
test version includes no database definition services so it is
not complete;   at the moment we do not know whether it is the
intention that  users will create databases using the Database
Definition Services  in the  existing DOS  version.  I  myself
would also  like to  see a version for the read only functions
such as  search and  print.  Perhaps a parameter in SYSPAR.PAR
could be set for this purpose.

Recently, on  the LISTSERV, there has been some correspondence
on the  number of ISIS users in each country.  We are awaiting
collation of the final number by Bright Nkhata of the Zimbabwe
Users Group.   I  am pleased to be able to say there are about
160 registered  users in the UK, though some of these may have
lapsed.

All I  have to  say now is that we have been invited to hold a
meeting during their 1997 course in September.  I hope we will
have a  meeting between  then and  now, your committee will be
meeting to decide on this.


Alan Hopkinson
Chair, ISIS Plus, the UK CDS/ISIS User Group