CompuServe Thread

While Books In Print/Plus is not designed specifically for use in retrospective conversions, it can be useful. Here are a few examples of how it has been used: One library system works with the Custom display format option to select which fields in the database will be displayed and/or saved. The librarian then searches BIP/Plus for titles, and uses the Save function to save the records. The library system software includes an import utility that can read these saved records into its own database. Another system uses a similar method, but also exploits the "Batch ISBN Search" option of BIP/Plus. Batch ISBN works by reading ISBNs from an ASCII text file (1 ISBN per line). If a match is found, the record is added to the search result set. When all the ISBNs are processed, the search results are displayed – and can be saved to a disk file. ISBNs which don't match any title in the database are posted to an "error file", which can then be run against the Books Out of Print/Plus CD. The most extensive support for BIP/Plus involves using our Data Access/Plus program. In this configuration, your library system is connected by a serial cable to a separate PC running BIP/Plus with Data Access/Plus. Your software builds a search transaction and sends it to Data Access/Plus, which executes the search and returns the results back over the serial connection. Two additional planned enhancements may also interest you: Bowker intends to add MARC communication format to its BIP/Plus product within the next year. This will improve the usability of BIP/Plus in library situations, because libraries are standardizing on MARC. We also are working on a port of Data Access/Plus to Unix. When completed, this product will run as a task under Unix. Applications will communicate with Data Access/Plus using Unix' built-in interprocess communications (as opposed to the serial cable method outlined above.) – Jim