NOTIS (Northwestern Online Total Integrated System) was a seminal

integrated library system An integrated library system (ILS), also known as a library management system (LMS), is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed. An ILS is usually ...

first created at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

, Evanston, IL USA in 1968. John P. McGowan, University Librarian from 1971 to 1992, recruited Professor James S. Aagaard to spearhead the project as lead programmer, and Velma Veneziano as systems analyst. The core of the original system was written in

IBM 360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...

Assembler and ran on an

IBM mainframe IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, IBM dominated the computer market with the 7000 series and the later System/360, followed by the System/370. Current mainframe computers in IBM' ...

. The first module to go into production was Circulation on January 19, 1970; followed by the Technical Services module in October 1971. The system officially received its name NOTIS in May 1976. The first library outside of

Northwestern University Library Northwestern University Libraries is the main academic library system of Northwestern University. Northwestern Libraries host a total of 8,198,268 printed or electronic volumes. In addition, its libraries contain 229,198 maps, 211,127 audio fi ...

to implement NOTIS was the

National Library of Venezuela The Biblioteca Nacional de Venezuela (in English language, English: ''National Library of Venezuela''), located in Caracas, is the legal deposit and copyright for Venezuela. It was established on July 13, 1833, by decree of General José Antonio ...

in the Spring of 1979. By 1985 NOTIS integrated the public access catalog (

OPAC The online public access catalog (OPAC), now frequently synonymous with ''library catalog'', is an online database of materials held by a library or Library consortium, group of libraries. Online catalogs have largely replaced the analog card c ...

), circulation, acquisitions, serials control, cataloging,

authority control In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or an identifier (generally persistent and alphanumeric) for each top ...

, and database management. Automatic fund accounting was also under development. All NOTIS modules accessed a single

bibliographic record A bibliographic record is an entry in a bibliographic index (or a library catalog) which represents and describes a specific resource. A bibliographic record contains the data elements necessary to help users identify and retrieve that resource, as ...

. In 1987 Northwestern University restructured the internal marketing department that had already sold the NOTIS system to several libraries outside of Northwestern, as NOTIS Systems, Inc, a for-profit corporation owned by the university. Jane Burke, who had been the marketing director for the NOTIS system since 1983, was appointed as President of the new corporation. By the fall of 1988 NOTIS software packages were in operation at more than 100 other sites. Aagaard and Veneziano received the LITA/Gaylord Award for Achievement in Library and Information Technology award in July 1985 for their work on NOTIS. McGowan was named the 1989 Academic Librarian of the Year by the

Association of College and Research Libraries The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes library, libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th ...

for his work promoting automation and information technology in libraries.

Ameritech AT&T Teleholdings, Inc., formerly known as Ameritech Corporation (and, before that, American Information Technologies Corporation), was an American telecommunications company that arose out of the 1984 AT&T divestiture. Ameritech was one of the ...

purchased NOTIS Systems, Inc. from Northwestern University on October 1, 1991.Breeding, Marshall,
epixtech: a new beginning for ALS
, January 2000, ''Information Today'', March 14, 2011 The NOTIS History Webpag

created in October, 2014, is a comprehensive website giving a complete picture of NOTIS history.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Cost Advantages of Total System Development

* ttp://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2006/02/mcgowan.html Former Librarian McGowan Dies at Age 79
NOTIS History Webpage
Library automation

See also

References

External links