A Brief History of the Melvyl® System's Development
History of the MELVYL® System until the formation of the CDL in 1997. For more recent developments, see the Milestones Page.
| A Brief History of the Melvyl® System's Development | |
|---|---|
| Year | Milestone |
| 1977 | "UC Libraries: A Plan for Development, 1978-1988" ("Salmon Plan") In order to support the research mission of UC, established the "one university, one library" concept providing for:
|
| 1979 | Pilot edition of microfiche Union Catalog produced to test record merging; 28,000 records from 8 campuses. |
| 1980 | February: microfiche edition of 610 fiche (equivalent to 75-100 volumes) with imprints from 1976 or later. Approximately 148,000 unique titles. |
| 1980 | August: First demonstration of online version to library staff. |
| 1981 | Second microfiche edition: 1.3 million records; 733,000 unique titles. |
| 1981 | August 17: Prototype declared officially "up" for public use; 750,000 records; a static database. |
| 1983 | Production version with continuing updates. |
| 1984 | California Academic Libraries List of Serials (CALLS) available as prototype Periodicals file. |
| 1987 | California State Library monograph records added. MELVYL MEDLINE® database available in UC health sciences libraries. |
| 1988 | Library of Congress Books tapes matched against the database. Center for Research Libraries records added. MELVYL MEDLINE database available in all UC libraries. |
| 1989 | Current Contents® database available. |
| 1990 | PERIODICALS database available (full-MARC, updatable versions of CALLS). TEN-YEAR Catalog database available. |
| 1991 | Expanded Academic Index® (MAGS), National Newspaper Index® (NEWS), and Computer Database(R) (COMP) available. |
| 1992 | California Academy of Sciences records added. ERIC and GeoRef databases available through cooperative agreement with Stanford. INSPEC database available. Users able to mail search results to electronic mailboxes. |
| 1993 | PsycINFO database available. Congressional Quarterly's Washington Alert database available as a remote system. Users able to update searches for current awareness. Users able to request documents from campus document delivery services via MELVYL system. Full text available for some titles in Computer Database and Expanded Academic Index. |
| 1994 | ABI/Inform database available. Z39.50 client and server developed. OCLC's FirstSearch databases available as remote systems and through Z39.50 client. RLG's Eureka databases available as remote systems and through Z39.50 client. Graduate Theological Union records added. UCLA Film and Television Archive records added. Access to bit-mapped images of Elsevier materials science journals through TULIP project. In joint project with UC Davis and Data Research Associates, MELVYL system displays circulation information for items at UC Davis using Z39.50 protocol. |
References:
"Information Technology and Libraries," December 1982 and March 1983 issues."Information Technology and Libraries," July, September, December 1992 issues.
Robert K. Brandriff and Clifford A. Lynch, "The Evolution of the User Interface in the MELVYL Online Catalog, 1980-1985," "Proceedings of the ASIS Annual Meeting," 1985. pp. 102-105.
University of California, Office of the Executive Director of Universitywide Library Planning, "The University of California Libraries: A Plan for Development, 1978-1988" (Berkeley, The University, 1977), 210 p.
"DLA Bulletin" 12:1 (Spring 1992). Special 10th Anniversary Issue.