The State of Ohio has long had a history of creativity and local initiative, evidenced by entre-preneurial activities and leadership in many areas of endeavor. Home to seven presidents of the United States, Ohio also lists Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, Hart Crane, Clarence Darrow, Sherwood Anderson, Tecumseh, the Rockefeller family, and Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, among its citizens (Colliers Encyclopedia, 1989). Valuing libraries as an important adjunct to education, early pioneers founded the Coonskin Library under the auspices of the Western Library Association on the Ohio frontier in 1804. Since hard currency was non-existent on the frontier, the initial collection of 51 books for the library was purchased with raccoon skins har-vested by frontiersmen. These early settlers did not wish their children to grow up without ex-posure to good books (Galbreath, 1902). This commitment to education and libraries is evident still in Ohio with the presence of 11 institutions of higher education in the state (Basic Data Series, 1987), that house a total of 134 academic libraries. In addition there are 250 public, 47 institu-tions, and 150 special libraries, the state library, plus 3,675 school library media centers. Ohio has the resounding total of 4,257 libraries containing a total of 93,249,911 volumes. These figures are for 1988, the most recent compilation available (State Library of Ohio, 1989). In the past, funding for public library services in Ohio was at best uneven, at worst uncertain due to the taxing structure. This was also true of academic libraries, but to a much lesser extent, cushioned as they were within the university budget. In order to provide maximum levels of service under these circumstances informal resource sharing was an option that was often utilized.
 

2. EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF OCLC

In 1867, the Ohio College Association was founded with 12 charter members to support inter-institutional cooperation and further higher education in the state of Ohio. In 1947, the Ohio College Association Board approved the establishment of the College Librarians section. In the same year the College and Reference division of the Ohio Library Association set up a committee to study the possibility of bibliographic cooperation among Ohio's academic libraries. These efforts represented the earliest beginnings of OCLC, then known as the Ohio College Library Center (Kramer, 199O). Other support emerged with the founding of the Inter-University Library Coun-cil in 1953, consisting of the library directors of the state assisted university libraries, five in number. After several efforts at state-wide cooperation in the areas of acquisitions, union serials listings, interlibrary loan and remote storage, none of which bore fruit, efforts in 196O began to focus on the possibility of union catalogs. There were already several regional union catalogs in place, Columbus and Cleveland being the sites of the largest. From 1962 through 1966, the Ohio College Association financed a number of activities including the Parker report (1962-63), and a study of automation alternatives (1963-64). On October 3O, 1966, the Ohio College Association approved the Ohio College Library Center as recommended by the Committee of Librarians, the Committee of Presidents and the OCA Executive Committee (Maciuszko, 1984). By the summer of 1967, OCLC was a reality. The labor had been long and arduous, and without the continuing support, both financial and organizational, of the Ohio College Association, OCLC might never have been created.

The timing for the birth was exquisite; the choice of Frederick G. Kilgour as the first director was inspired. The goals to establish an effective, shared-cataloguing program based on a central computer store containing a catalogue for the current holdings of Ohio college libraries, and to supply Union Catalogue information, were attainable. Other major developments in the creation, standardization, and transmission of bibliographic records were of critical importance to the development and success of OCLC, and these developments were reaching fruition concurrently. The successful testing of the Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) Pilot Project (1966-68) of the Library of Congress, led to the release of the MARC II format in 1968. In 1969, the International Federation of Library Associations began development of a standard bibliographic description, drafting the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) in 1971, finalized in 1974. Simultaneously, Committee 239 of the American National Standards Institute put forth the "USA Standard for the Format for Bibliographic Information Interchange on Magnetic Tape," adopted in 197O. Now all the pieces were beginning to come together. Wide acceptance of the standardi-zation of the content, format and structure of the bibliographic record provided a solid foundation, not only for the creation of bibliographic databases, but also for their access, storage and ex-change. The Anglo American Cataloging Rules (AACR), published in 1967 were followed in rather rapid succession with revisions to Chapter 6, Monographs (1974); Chapter 12, Audio-Visual Media and Special Instructional Materials (1975); and Chapter 13, Sound Recordings (1976), responding to the new automated environment.

Meanwhile, back in Ohio, OCLC held its first annual membership meeting October 25, 1967, with forty-eight paid members. The nine member board of trustees were all academics, either college or university library directors, or high level administrators from within the State. Lewis C. Branscomb, A. Robert Rogers, and Philip Shriver, directors of the libraries at Ohio State, Bowling Green State and Miami Universities respectively, were among the nine (Post, 1974). Ohio State University gave Kilgour office space and access to a computer. In a report to the Committee of Libraries of the Ohio College Library Association, Kilgour stated, "The first goal of the system will be to establish an effective shared cataloging program based on a central computer store... This shared cataloging program would dramatically reduce the duplication of cataloging..." (Allison, 1979).

To indicate that the creation of OCLC had been accomplished smoothly would be totally inaccurate. There was much skepticism throughout the state that such a dream was even remotely possible much less practical. In 1967, the most advanced libraries in the state were "mechanized," using machines in a variety of ways, but certainly not automated, even in the most rudimentary sense of the term. Kilgour's vision was seen as a dream remote from reality. The next four years, from 1967 to 1971, the member institutions paid their annual membership fees and received nothing tangible in return. Meetings in Columbus discussed and rediscussed and debated critical issues. Every institution was concerned with loss of control and autonomy. Standardization, essential to a centralized system, potentially meant the loss of many local options. During this period of development, from 1969 to 1975, additional funding was received from the National Agricultural Library, State Library of Ohio, U.S. Office of Education, and the Council on Library Resources (Maciuszko, 1984).

While policy, procedure and governance were being thrashed out, development of another type was also underway. In a real sense, it was the more critical development. Without adequate software and hardware, the system could not function, and adequate software and hardware did not exist. Philip L. Long, one of OCLC's staff members carried out research on file organization, breaking new ground as he went, and successfully developing " the design of a huge file of biblio-graphic entries from which a single entry could be quickly retrieved" (OCLC Annual Report, 1970-71). A brief summary of the process of how the computer was selected can give some insight into the unexpected problems encountered and the complexity of the difficulties that had to be sur-mounted.

Through it all Kilgour maintained his vision. To quote from the citation that accompanied the Melvil Dewey Medal awarded to Kilgour by the American Library Association in 1978: " OCLC would not have come into being if it had not been for a quadripartite skein of skills and qualities possessed, perhaps uniquely, by Fred Kilgour. First, he was a thoroughly competent librarian. Second, he had a high degree of technical acumen. Third, he was a consummate politician. And fourth, he had skin a foot thick, which was fortunate indeed because we fought him every step of the way en route to his Promised Land" (Allison and Allen, 1979). "Fought every step of the way" was an apt description. Opposition was intense due to the uncertainty of the outcome. No library administrator wants to appear to have committed resources irresponsibly; no head of Tech-nical Services wants to clean up the mess of one more bad decision. Gradually, through persua-sion, key people were converted to Kilgour's point of view. As with most converts, there was almost a messianic zeal in trying to win the unconverted, and lead them to the "Promised Land". Ohio University, Athens, Ohio was the first institution to use OCLC for cataloging, but Kent State University rapidly became the leader in the state in terms of embracing, utilizing and convincing others of the value of the system.

Wright State University Library became the first to convert its entire shelflist into machine readable form, serving as a useful resource for the libraries that followed. The only condition for the conversion was that Wright State enter the entire shelflist, including short records. The short records were accurate, but incomplete in that certain elements of the standard cataloging entry were missing, place of publication, elements of the pagination, and series statements, among them. For years afterward, Wright State was unjustly vilified for entering "dirty" records, since any library using these records for retrospective conversion had to enter the missing fields. What was not recognized was the valuable service Wright State had performed for the libraries that followed, in that the basic record was in the database and the elements it did contain were correct. The Tech-nical Services staff at Kent State developed a series of training videotapes on the use of OCLC, the first of which was made for the SUNY system, one of the first networks on OCLC. These were later marketed by OCLC. Anne Marie Allison and Jack Scott at Kent State University also developed and presented a series of workshops entitled "Effective Use of OCLC" from 1973-1978. These were intensive five day workshops that were developed because no agency was providing the necessary in-depth training on the new system.

Networking outside the state of Ohio was explored as early as 1970 with the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center, and in 1972 formal agreement was completed with Pittsburgh (Maruskin, 1980). There was speculation that the out of state option was pursued by OCLC because interstate telephone line charges were less expensive than intrastatelines, and the addition of Pittsburgh lowered telecommunication costs. The other regional networks that contracted with OCLC the same year including NELINET, the predecessor of PALINET, and FAUL. In several cases, these networks abandoned automation projects they had underway upon contracting with OCLC. These decisions, and the decision to join with, rather than replicate OCLC, (which was an option), were not lightly or easily made. Six years after Glyn T. Evans, as director of FAUL (SUNY) brought FAUL into OCLC, he was told he "would never be forgiven for bringing OCLC to New York" (Allison and Allen, 1979).

3. OCLC BECOMES OCLC, INC.

At this point in time, OCLC was Ohio based, and Ohio owned in every sense of the word. Ohio libraries, both large and small, had watched it grow and had invested their energy and exper-tise in developing not only the operating principles and policies, but standards and goals. Their personnel had served on advisory committees and boards. Their personnel had spent hours in helping to write input standards for the various formats. There was a sense of ownership and pride in this wonderful, visionary project that was finally reaching adolescence. There were still growing pains, but the promise was being realized. Out-of-state networks were using OCLC's services, but were not a part of the governance structure. There was no network for Ohio, OCLC was the network and services were just a phone call away. In 1975, the OCLC Trustees were charged to study the advisability of extending membership outside the state and in 1977, the voting members of the Ohio College Library Center bowed to the inevitable. OCLC became OCLC, Inc., and governance was opened to all constituencies. OCLC hired Landor Associates of San Fran-cisco to select a new name to represent this new organization, and Online Computer Library Center was selected. It was not the most poetic or descriptive title, but it did fit the well known OCLC acronym. At the same time, attendees at the annual OCLC program meetings held in Columbus, Ohio commented that more presentations were made by MBA's than by librarians. Clearly, OCLC had come of age.

4. THE OHIO LIBRARY STUDY COMMITTEE REPORT

A most significant library concern, although apparently unrelated to bibliographic control and library catalogs, was developing on another front. In the request process for the 1986 biennial capital improvement budget for Ohio it became obvious that academic libraries were experiencing a severe space problem or would be in the near future. At the direction of the Ohio General Assem-bly, the Ohio Board of Regents appointed a task force to study the need for more library space, and possible alternatives to building new facilities or additions to existing ones. The Regents appointed the Library Study Committee, a broad cross-section of library and academic interests, and for the better part of a year this committee studied not only the issue of library space, but related issues, such as preservation and access to library materials as well. The final report of that committee, made public in September of 1987, made several cogent recommendations, including:

With the growing power and resources of OCLC available, and the level of sophistication this evolutionary process had developed, Ohio libraries both academic and public, had been auto-mating other library functions. By the time the Library Study Committee had made its recommen-dations to the Regents, the 13 academic libraries comprising the Inter-University Library Council had purchased or developed in-house automated systems for circulation, acquisitions and/or online catalogs. Each institution had moved independently in terms of timetables, systems, and func-tions, depending on available resources, institutional climate, and leadership. By 1987, four of the thirteen were still without significant automation other than OCLC, two were in serious contract negotiations with commercial vendors, seven had fully automated circulation systems, acquisitions systems and public access catalogs, or were well underway. Ohio State had continued in-house development and support of its library control system (LCS) under the sharp eye and keen direc-tion of Hugh Atkinson, and remained committed to it after he left Ohio. In all, seven different commercial vendors, Geac, NOTIS, DRA, VTLS, Innovac, Dataphase and BLIS (later WLN) were represented in Ohio among the 13 academic libraries. Add to the mix numerous public libraries using CLSI and TLM (later COBIT), another Ohio creation, as well as a variety of home grown programs. Since virtually every Ohio library had access to OCLC from 1975 on, many bibliographic records were in machine-readable form, either as newly cataloged materials or as part of a systematic retrospective conversion effort. To say that automation was well underway is not an understatement, both in terms of the state of library records, as well as sophistication of Ohio librarians. To say that efforts were fractionated is, unfortunately, an understatement.

5. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OHIO LIBRARY INFORMATION SYSTEM (OLIS)

The Ohio Board of Regents Library Study Committee Report was published in September 1987, then disseminated and discussed. In July of 1988, the State earmarked $2.5 million dollars for further study and development of a statewide electronic catalog and a steering committee was appointed. In September, a working, two-day conference was held in Columbus, the state capital, where battle-scarred veterans of library automation from seven different states discussed a working draft planning paper prepared by the steering committee. This conference included broad repre-sentation from all types of Ohio libraries, as well as faculty, administrators, and computing center directors. The advice of the experts and discussion among the Ohio participants revealed several basic truths, the most critical one being that this was a pie in the sky project, the avowed goal being, "to make the information in the libraries of 15 publicly supported, state universities acces-sible not only to faculty and students, but also to researchers in business and industry and all citizens of Ohio" (Ohio Library Access System Planning Paper, 1988). No library vendor had undertaken a project of this size or comprehensiveness to date, so the project would necessarily be a combination of proven elements and research and development efforts. A revised planning paper was published in November, reporting efforts to date and laying out what appeared to be an impos-sible timetable. Highlights of the timetable were Request For Information sent to vendors, January 1989; (RFP) Request For Proposal sent to vendors, June 15, 1989; vendor selected, December 1989; first phase of implementation, July 1, 1991. Interspersed with those deadlines were planned reviews, campus-wide hearings at each state institution, committee deliberations, site visits, vendor demonstrations and the myriad other tasks associated with a project of this type. Two key people kept the effort on track. One was Dr. William Coulter, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. His initial concern and moral support developed early on and were demonstrated in concrete sup-port. He publicly named the statewide electronic catalog project as one of the " Selective Excel-lence" initiatives for the state, requested initial development money, assigned several members of the Board of Regents to the steering committee, as well as allocating Board of Regents office space and support staff. The other key person was Dr. Greg Byerly, of Kent State University, released half-time from his responsibilities as Head of Systems for the Kent State University Libraries to serve as director of the project. His strong automation background and keen organizational ability were essential to the development of the project.

Three task forces were created, each to deal with a different aspect of the project. These were the Users View task force, the Librarian's View task force, and the System Manager's view task force. Each task force was supported by a variety of committees. For example, the Librarian's view task force had four subcommittees, dealing with issues related to OPAC (the Online Public Access Catalog), Database Management, Acquisitions/Serials, and Circulation/ Interlibrary Loan. As indicated by the highlights of the timetable mentioned earlier, a functional approach was taken in developing the RFP and subsequent RFP. In all over one hundred librarians were directly involved on a continuing basis for over two years in the development, evaluation and revision of the final draft of the RFP. Many more participated intermittently in evaluation and review pro-cesses as well. Every faculty member and administrator on the campuses of the fifteen institutions directly involved had an opportunity to attend open hearings on their campus or one nearby.

The major goals of the project became clearer as the work progressed. Librarians saw this as an electronic online catalog, to a great extent replicating OCLC with circulation and document delivery added. The Board of Regents viewed this as a much broader project. Not only would their vision of OLIS link the libraries in Ohio to facilitate resource sharing, but would also serve as a gateway to informational databases mounted centrally, such as MEDLINE and PsycINFO. As these two concepts merged and matured, the desirability of a scholars workstation became evident. To that end an RFI was developed and disseminated, seeking "...information on technology, soft-ware design and cost estimates for advanced library and information workstation software...which will be used by researchers throughout the State of Ohio" (Ohio Board of Regents, 1989).

All of these proposed efforts at implementing a statewide system could not be realized with-out adequate telecommunications. This component fortunately was already in place. A high speed telecommunications network, OARnet, was already functional. OARnet was originally put in place to link major academic institutions in Ohio with a new supercomputer at the Ohio State University campus. While OARnet certainly could not carry the traffic anticipated by OLIS, upgrading OARnet to support OLIS was a realistic possibility.

6. OLIS BECOMES OhioLINK

In order to more accurately reflect the function of the new system as a link between Ohio Libraries, and as a link between scholar and databases, the name of the new system was changed from OLIS, the 0hio Library Information System to OhioLINK. As of September 15, 1990 con-tract negotiations are underway with the vendor that appears to be most likely to help Ohio reach its goal. Much of the successful progress to date must be attributed to excellent leadership on the state level, and superb support on the local level. The early involvement of stakeholders on every level and aspect of the project, while expensive in both human and material resources, was critical to the development, acceptance, and ultimate implementation of the project.
 
 

REFERENCES

Allison, Anne Marie and Ann Allen. OCLC, A National Library Network. Short Hills, N.J.: Enslow, 1979. p. 12.

Basic Data Series, Ohio Higher Education System. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio Board of Regents, 1987. pp. 5, 7.

Colliers Encyclopedia. New York: Macmillan, 1989. vol. 24, p. 755.

Galbreath, C. B. Sketches of Ohio Libraries. Columbus, Ohio: Fred J. Herr, 1902. p. 12.

Kilgour, Frederick G. et al. "The shared cataloging system of the Ohio College Library Center," Journal of Library Automation 5 (3): 168 (September 1972).

Kramer, Margy (Archivist). In her report to the Board of the Academic Library Association of Ohio. July 8, 1990.

Maciuszko, Kathleen L. OCLC, Decade of Development 1967-77. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1984.

Maruskin, Albert F. Maruskin. OCLC, its Governance, Function, Financing, and Technology. New York" Marcel Kekker, 1980. p. 38.

Ohio Board of Regents. Request for Information for the OLIS Workstation, October 11, 1989. p.1.

Ohio Board of Regents, Library Study Committee. Academic Libraries in Ohio: Progress through collaboration, storage and technology. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio Board of Regents, 1987. pp. 14-17.

Ohio College Library Center. Annual Report for 1970-1971. p. 5.

Ohio College Library Center. OCLC, a National Library Network.

Ohio Library Access System, Planning Paper. 1988. p.1.

Post, Kathleen L. A History of the Ohio College Library Center from 1967-1972. M.L.S. Research Paper, Kent State University, 1974. p. 23.

Statistics of Ohio Libraries 1989. Columbus, Ohio: State Library of Ohio, 1989. p. 4.