ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 42 | December 1999
NLA is year 2000 ready
The National Library is committed to ensuring that all its computer-based systems will be operational in the year 2000. To achieve this, a Year 2000 Project was established in April 1997 to identify, assess and make all reasonable efforts to rectify those Librarys services which are vulnerable to the year 2000 date problem. The Library is now year 2000 ready.
The Library relies on its suppliers to provide year 2000-compliant products and has made appropriate enquiries of its existing suppliers. The Library has a program to independently verify vendor compliance statements in the context of the Librarys services.
Kinetica
Service
The Kinetica Search & Cataloguing Service is based on the AMICUS
software developed and used by the National Library of Canada. The system
is being supplied to the Library by IBM Global Services Australia, which
has warranted that it is year 2000 compliant. The Library has
independently verified that the current release (version 3.1) and the next
release (version 3.2) of the AMICUS software are year 2000 compliant.
The Kinetica Downline Loading Service is based on the Remote TPSDLL software, developed by the Library. This software has no date dependencies and is therefore technically year 2000 compliant. However, the Library cannot guarantee the year 2000 compliance of this product operating on the library management system of Kinetica customer libraries, as the Library has no control over possible code changes made by library management system vendors when installing the product. A statement from such vendors should be sought. Customers should also note that this product provides a two-digit year date in the header record so any end user developed software which reports on this information should be checked for compliance.
The Kinetica Document Delivery Service is based on the VDX software supplied and configured by Fretwell-Downing Informatics Limited. The supplier has warranted that the software will correctly provide full operation and full functions during the year 1999, the year 2000 and after the year 2000. The Library has independently verified that the current release of this software is year 2000 compliant.
The Ariel Document Delivery software will be retained and integrated into the Kinetica service for use with the interlibrary loan subsystem. The developers of Ariel, the Research Libraries Group (RLG), released a new version, which is certified year 2000 compliant and this was made available to Kinetica customers during 1999.
National
Chinese, Japanese and Korean (NCJK) System
This service is based on the Innopac library management system supplied
and maintained by Innovative Information Inc. (III). Both the Innopac
library management system and the Digital Unix operating system on which
it runs have been upgraded to year 2000-capable versions.
As the National CJK system is fully managed by III, the Library will be relying on that company to ensure continuity of the service in the year 2000. The Librarys year 2000 testing was limited to ensuring that all imported and exported data is fully compliant.
The WINMASS software used in conjunction with CJK has been declared year 2000 compliant by its developers. They have however highlighted that a problem exists with the code that controls the product licence and they will be providing a correction for this in a future upgrade.
National Library
Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)
All components of this service have been certified year 2000 compliant by
the vendors. Integration testing undertaken at the Library has confirmed
this.
National Library
World Wide Web Services
All the National Librarys World Wide Web services (including
Images1, the ILRS Directory, PANDORA, Australian Libraries Gateway, RAAM
and PADI) have been successfully tested for operation in the year 2000.
Further
information
The year 2000 co-ordinator at the National Library of Australia is the
Assistant Director-General, Information Technology, Dr Warwick Cathro.
Tel.: (02) 6262 1358; Fax: (02) 6273 3648; Email:
wcathro@nla.gov.au
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au