JISC

The national serials union catalogue – known as ‘SUNCAT’ – has moved into a new phase of its development with the addition of data from seven more libraries. The pilot service already contains over 4 million records from 22 of the largest UK research libraries and the databases of the CONSER programme and the ISSN International network all of which were brought together under Phase 1 of SUNCAT’s development.

SUNCAT can be used to locate journals and other serials in contributing libraries and will in time also provide links to the web pages of contributing libraries so that users of this service can find the library addresses, phone numbers, opening hours and lending services to help them access these resources.

SUNCAT project manager Fred Guy says the addition of these records is part of a range of ongoing developments being undertaken at national data centre EDINA which will see a full service by the end of the year.

‘This is a major step forward,’ he says, ‘as the SUNCAT database has comprised the holdings of only the Phase 1 libraries for quite a while. Data from another 16 libraries are ready to be added and will be done so over the following weeks. It is planned to have added the records for 50 to 60 libraries by the end of Phase 2 in December 2006.’

As a centralised catalogue of high-quality bibliographic records, SUNCAT will also provide librarians with a means by which local records can be upgraded through access to standardised high-quality records.

For further information, please go to: SUNCAT