Issue 11

Twenty five years ago I sat as a year 12 student and looked and listened to Neil Armstrong speak the immortal words "The Eagle has Landed". It was with the same sense of excitement that I received a fax from MARCorp recently informing Curriculum Corporation that the Voyager Software was being shipped to Melbourne from San Francisco.

The landing of Voyager starts a new era for Curriculum Corporation and the Information Program.

MARCorp based the Voyager software on the former Carlyle Library system. The Voyager software comes in modules like other library packages. Curriculum Corporation has licensed the MS Windows Catalogue Editor, MSWindows OPAC and the ASCII OPAC.

ASCII OPAC.

The ASCII OP AC is the access point for schools to search the SCIS database and order product online from the database. Curriculum Corporation required that MARCorp enhance the ASCII OP AC to allow ordering of records from the database at point of search and incorporate the display of the curriculum abstracts already on the database. Femtree Computer Corporation has further enhanced the ASCII OP AC with a series of Logon and Order Review screens.

The ASCII OP AC will be accessed by schools via a new communications network that will allow access to the database for the cost of a local phone call from anywhere in Australia. In the following paragraphs I have taken some of the Voyager ASCII OP AC screens and described their functions.

Signing on to the Database:

1. Dialing up to the database, for the first time, users will be presented with the welcome screen.

2. As a first time user, the school will be required to establish a User Profile that will remain in the system until changed by that user unlike the Dobis system, where currently users have to set their order requirements each time they enter the system. In the screen picture you will see the many order options that are possible to choose as part of the order profile.

3. Once these options are set and confirmed the user is then taken to the Main Menu.

4. On this screen the User has the following options

• Once a user selects Search Only it is possible to search the database but not order any products.
• On selecting Bulk Order, users are taken into an Ordering screen that allows keying in of ISBN or SCIS Order Numbers without first searching of the database. On confirming of the Order, the program goes away and compares the numbers to the SCIS database and informs the user of the records ordered with a display of the SCIS order number and a fragment of the Title or a message informing the user that there was "No matching record".
• On selecting Search and Order, users are able to search the SCIS database and on locating the record, that record can be ordered using a pull down menu key.

5. Following the search and ordering session, the user is taken to the Review screen where the order is reviewed and confirmed. The Order can remain on the Voyager system for 7 days allowing more records to be added to the order then confirmed. This will save schools money as the entire order may come on one disk or sets of cards will be mailed together.

6. When the Dialup session is complete the users on signing off are reminded if they have any uncon-firmed orders and will be told of the time they spent on the system. This screen can be printed off by the user.

The Voyager ASCII OPAC has been enhanced to allow schools to eventu-ally order Curriculum Corporation publications online as well as the bibliographic records, to download records over the telephone line and also to gateway to other services.

I am sure that you too will be happy to see that "Voyager has landed" and that it will serve schools to the Year 2000 and beyond.