Ex Libris MELvyl Tells (EL Mel Tells)!

Volume 2, Number 4, July 2003

In this issue:

Legacy Melvyl: Before we say goodbye

Thought I’d give you some of the early and continuing history of legacy Melvyl as we say goodbye…

Melvyl, a UC-wide shared union catalog, was conceived in 1977 by Steve Salmon in the “Salmon Plan” (The University of California Libraries: a Plan for Development, 1978-1988) that pushed the concept of “one University, one library”. In 1979, a pilot edition of a microfiche Union catalog was produced (which later became Melvyl) to test record merging (and guess what—we’re still merging!); at that time we merged 28,000 records from 8 campuses (as compared to our recent merging of over 23,000,000 records!).

Oldsters will remember that in 1980, we had an edition of 610 microfiche for Melvyl (with imprints from 1976-1980) representing 148,000 unique titles. Students were forever filing those microfiche, and we had one holiday party at UC Berkeley where some creative students made Christmas tree ornaments out of retired microfiche.

In August of 1981 (an auspicious month), a prototype online catalog came up with 750,000 records. At that time, it was a static database. By 1983, a production version was up with continuing updates.

Did I say that we were only talking about monographs thus far in Melvyl? In 1984, the California Academic Libraries list of Serials (CALLS) came up as the prototype Periodicals file.

1987 was noteworthy for two (Melvyl-errific) reasons: California State Library monograph records were added to Melvyl, and the Melvyl MEDLINE® database became available in the UC health sciences libraries. Although I’ve said that in one brief sentence, it was a groundbreaking, amazing—and labor intensive—undertaking at the time.

In 1988, LC Books tapes were matched against the database, we added the Center for Research Libraries records to Melvyl, and the Melvyl MEDLINE database became available in all UC libraries.

1989 brought Current Contents to Melvyl, while in 1990 we added the PE database with a full MARC updateable version of CALLS. In order to speed things up (Melvyl was sometimes painfully slow), the TEN-YEAR catalog database became available so that users could search only the last ten years for more recent materials.

The 1990’s were a period of enormous innovation and growth at the Division of Library Automation (DLA). The world of online research really took off for undergraduates with the mounting of Mags, News and Comp (now from Gale—Expanded Academic, etc.) in 1991. 1992 was noteworthy for the addition of the California Academy of Sciences records and ERIC and GeoRef from Stanford. INSPEC files were also added, and for a mind-boggling experience, users could even mail their search results to their electronic mailboxes. How well I remember teaching students how to do this, and seeing their faces light up as they it struck them what this new feature meant for the future of research.

In 1993, PsycINFO came up. Updates were added for current awareness, and users were now able to request documents from campus document delivery services via the Melvyl System. 24/7 access to journal article databases became a reality with full text available for some titles in the Computer Database and Expanded Academic.

1994 was a busy year with ABI/INFORM tapes mounted; a Z39.50 client and server developed; OCLC’s FirstSearch and RLG’s Eureka databases became available as remote systems and through Z39.50 via Melvyl. GTU records were added, and we got access to bit-mapped images of Elsevier materials science journals through the TULIP project. The UCLA Film and Television Archive records were added, and in a joint project with UC Davis and Data Research Associates, the Melvyl system displayed circulation records for Davis using Z39.50.

1996 saw the mounting of BIOSIS Previews on Melvyl and planning for a Web version of Melvyl was in the works.

1997 saw the fall launch of the web version of Melvyl (and the CDL was also constituted that year). Work began that year on the Catalog/Periodicals Database Regeneration Task Force, examining what it would take to merge CAT and PE, which eventually led us to the RFP for the new Melvyl catalog.

In 1998, many of the OCLC and RLG databases became available via Melvyl’s web interface.

The TEN database was removed from Melvyl in 1999.

An RFP was sent out in 2000 to determine if the Melvyl Union Catalog and CDL-hosted Databases could be moved from their aging technology infrastructure to a commercial vendor's system

In April of 2001, a contract was signed with Ex Libris to obtain the Aleph 500 software for the new Melvyl catalog, Melvyl-T. Work began to purchase equipment, train staff, and work intensively with Ex Libris on the new 23,000,000 record database, combining the separate Melvyl Catalog and Periodicals Databases. The CDL-hosted databases went to an array of vendors.

December 2002, all of the CDL-hosted databases moved to existing and new vendors. Work continued and is ongoing to ensure the services provided by the CDL are available in the new vendor interfaces.

August 1, 2003, legacy Melvyl retires.

Although listing all these changes takes only a bit of space, this brief review in no way begins to describe the years of vision, creativity, and dedication of those who ensured the University of California libraries were and are on the forefront of what used to be called library automation, and now, digital library development. Thanks to all those throughout the University of California, past and present, who made this great system possible. Viva Melvyl!