CDLINFO

This is a reminder that Current Contents via Ovid will be cancelled as of January 1, 2005.

The CDL will send a series of three reminders to UC patrons who currently have CC Alerts on October, November, and December 1. We will also send the campus list to the campus Users Council members so that campus library representatives can contact their CC Alerts holders, if desired.

From this point forward, it’s highly desirable to steer users to create new Alerts in Web of Science, while discouraging them from creating Alerts in Ovid’s Current Contents database.

Some campuses, such as UCLA, have already begun posting notices that Current Contents via Ovid will be cancelled.  From http://eresources.library.ucla.edu/ select “Search article database titles” for “Current Contents” and hit “Enter” or “Go”.  You will see a notice that says, “To be cancelled January, 2005.  Read why.”

There is also information on an interim page for users entering Current Contents via the CDL Directory: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/collect/deselection_faq.html#cancellation

Information on setting up Alerts in Web of Science: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/instruct/WoKAlerts1.doc

More information on the Ovid Current Contents cancellation: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/collect/deselection_faq.html#cancellation

a. Vanderbilt Television News Archives
By Gary Handman (UC Berkeley), Resource Liaison

Over the course of the last half century, television has become thoroughly integrated into the cultural and political life of the global village.  Yet despite the increasing significance of television as a form of 21st century history and primary “text,” resources for researching and obtaining access to broadcast news programming have been scarce.

With the recent addition of the Vanderbilt Television News Archives to the roster of CDL resources, UC library users consequently have great reason to rejoice.  Five campuses are participating in the subscription: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC San Diego.

The Vanderbilt Television News Archive (http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu) is the world’s most extensive archive of network television news, containing more than 30,000 individual broadcasts from ABC, CBS, and NBC, captured and preserved since 1968, and selected CNN news from 1995.  The archive also contains more than 9,000 hours of news-related special programming covering presidential press conferences and political campaigns, and momentous national and international events, such as 9/11.

Material in the archive can be identified by searching Vanderbilt’s TV-News Search Database, which currently comprises 725,000 story-level records.  Records for regular news stories include abstracts, anchor name, and story running time.  Records for special news programs provide catalog-level description only.  Materials in the Vanderbilt collection may borrowed for a fee (individual news selections or compilations of selections are duplicated and loaned on demand).  Selected broadcasts from CNN are also available as streamed video (for RealPlayer).

b. Proquest American Drama and 20th Century Drama
By Rob Melton (UC San Diego), Resource Liaison

The CDL has been working to provide access to high-quality digital content in the humanities disciplines. Just within the last 18 months, a dramatic increase in the amount of drama full text has become available due to successful CDL negotiations.

Earlier this summer, the CDL announced that it had successfully negotiated a contract with ProQuest for perpetual rights to two of its new full-text collections (both of them part of the broader database Literature Online).  These are American Drama 1714-1915 and 20th Century Drama.

American Drama (http://uclibs.org/PID/11558) includes 1,100 texts either first published or performed from 1714 to the early 20th century, offering coverage of American dramatic writing in all its diversity, from 18th century dialogues and rhetorical exercises on moral or political themes, to plays in verse, farces, melodramas, minstrel shows, naturalist and realist plays, frontier plays, and temperance dialogues.

Frequently-studied plays by major dramatists are placed in the context provided by the dramatic writings of lesser known contemporaries and canonical authors not primarily remembered for their dramatic works, such as Louisa May Alcott and Emma Lazarus.  The database can be searched by date of publication, date of first performance, place of performance, sub-genre (e.g., pantomime or temperance play), publisher, and the gender, ethnicity, and national origin of the playwrights. In addition, texts are fully keyword-searchable.

Similarly, 20th Century Drama (http://collections.chadwyck.com/html/20drama/about.htm) will contain, when complete, 2,500 published plays from throughout the English-speaking world, covering the history of modern drama from the 1890s to the present day. Currently, 238 plays by 25 authors from Britain, Ireland, and Australia are available, chiefly from the period of 1890 to 1920.

The full range of dramatic styles, genres and traditions will be represented, from widely studied and frequently performed plays to important examples of radical theater, regional theater, postcolonial theater, women’s theater, and popular forms such as farce and thriller that are often under-represented in surveys of the period.

The majority of these plays are still under copyright, and are available online in this collection for the first time. Each text is reproduced in full, including any accompanying text by the author, plus relevant supplementary matter such as dramatis personae and any illustrations that are integral to the text. Because of the licensing agreements, there are some restrictions on printing and downloading texts.

All campuses will have access to the new drama collections.

How do our users conduct their research? What tools do they currently use and what are they lacking? What tools do librarians and teachers find their users want?

Interviews were conducted with a variety of groups to answer these questions for three metasearch infrastructure projects: Documenting the American West, the Core Collection, and the National Science Digital Library.

Those queried in structured interviews or focus groups included: UC undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and librarians; California public school librarians and teachers; private, community, and state college librarians; and public librarians and teachers in Colorado.  For more information on the metasearch needs assessment project, see the March 11, 2004 CDLINFO: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/news/cdlinfo/cdlinfo031104.html#7

The summary reports are available on the metasearch infrastructure project page under “Needs Assessment Activities” at: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/metasearch/

These reports may be of special interest to public services librarians and staff, and those involved in the creation of tools to support user needs in the digital library world.

The OAC is upgrading to OAC 3.0 with the migration to a new platform and support for EAD Version 2002 finding aids.  The migration is scheduled to be completed in January 2005.

An updated suite of tools, services, and best practice guidelines will support EAD Version 2002.  For a list of these tools, see the EAD Toolkit at: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/oac/toolkit/

The release of these tools has been timed with the implementation of the new eXtensible Text Framework (XTF) platform, which will replace the current DLXS platform. Developed and maintained by the CDL using open source software, the XTF platform underlying OAC 3.0 provides even greater long-term functionality and flexibility for the search and delivery of a wide range of document types, including EAD finding aids and TEI texts.

OAC 3.0 will allow for a number of enhancements, including:

• Search, browse, and delivery of EAD Version 2002 finding aids.
• Modified and revised OAC style sheets for EAD finding aids, incorporating feedback received from OAC contributing institutions.
• Ability for contributing members to develop customized displays of their EAD finding aids and associated digital content submitted to the OAC, using the CDL Interface Customization Tools at http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/repository/customize/.  This includes the creation of customized portals to virtual collections, such as MOAC, California Heritage, and JARDA.

The OAC will be providing periodic updates via the OAC-L listserv and the CDLINFO newsletter.  For additional information, including a detailed migration timeline, see http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/oac/news/.

UCLA has moved its catalog, ORION2, to an Endeavor Voyager system and renamed the catalog the “UCLA Library Catalog.”  The CDL has been working intensively for several months with Ex Libris and the UCLA library to ensure a smooth transition in the Melvyl Catalog from UCLA’s Taos holdings to its Voyager holdings, and to minimize the impact of the UCLA reload on other campuses.  Part of this process has included the deletion of UCLA’s five million old records and the addition of five million new records into the Melvyl Catalog.

The Melvyl Catalog will be frozen between August 21 and September 17.  Please advise your users that since no new records will be added during the freeze, users will not receive their usual Automatic Updates (SDI Requests).

The database with the new UCLA snapshot records in it will be switched into production on September 18.  This process should be invisible to catalog users.

A full description of this complex process follows:

Due to limitations with the Ex Libris software, the CDL cannot use the normal database update programs to replace UCLA’s records.  Instead, all 25 million records must be exported from the database and the existing UCLA records removed.  The exported records, plus the new UCLA records, will be fast loaded (i.e. loaded without indexing) into a new database, and then all records will be indexed and merged.  The CDL anticipates that this process will take six to seven weeks.

This activity will take place in a duplicate copy of the database on a different machine so that the intensive processing will not impact response time in the production system.

The CDL will not freeze loading in the production database until testing is complete on the rebuilt database.  Loading will then be frozen while catch-up loading of the weekly files that have accumulated in the maintenance period takes place in the rebuilt database.  Catch-up loading is necessary to bring the two databases into sync so that services like Update will function without interruption.

Loading will proceed more quickly in the rebuilt database if the number of records accumulated in the six to seven week maintenance period is held to a minimum.  For this reason, the CDL has requested that records associated with special projects be held during this time.

The following is the latest version of the schedule of activities (subject to revision) for the project:

• July 12: Reload/reindex/remerge began in a copy of the production database.
• August 21-September 17: The loading of all campus records will be frozen in the production database.
• September 18: The newly reloaded database will become the production database.
• Week of October 11: The backlog of frozen weekly files will be cleared for all campuses except UCLA.  Normal loading will resume for all campuses except UCLA.
• Week of November 15: The backlog of UCLA weekly files is cleared.

The CDL will provide information about any revisions to this schedule.

If you’ve been mystified by the term “dark archive,” or if you’ve always wanted to know the difference between OAI and OAIS but didn’t know where to turn, the new CDL glossary is for you!

The glossary is on Inside CDL in the Digital Library Building Blocks section at: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/

You can search, browse a list of all terms, or view subject glossaries for: CDL and UC terms, crawling and harvesting, digital objects, interface customization tools, library and technology, linking services, metasearching, preservation, and XML.

The glossary was inspired by comments from the digital library services workshops.  While the glossary is growing, at this point it contains terms drawn from the workshops and is not exhaustive when it comes to CDL or UC libraries acronyms and advisory structures.

Please feel free to use the glossary as a resource for your web pages.  You can link to the entire glossary or a specific word.  To link to a specific word, use this format: <a href=”http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/?field=term&query=TERM”> but replace TERM with the glossary term you want to link to.  If the glossary term you want to link to is two or more words, use this format but separate the words with a plus (+) symbol.

Examples:

• To link to the term “portal”: <a href=”http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/?field=term&query=portal”>
• To link to the term “dark archive”: <a href=”http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/?field=term&query=dark+archive”>

Sometimes your link will include entries for other similar words.  If you don’t mind these additional words in your link, then you don’t have to do anything.  But if you still just want to link to one entry, then your URL will get a little longer.  After you enter your term, you’ll then need to add a series of “+not+TERM” entries to exclude the other terms.

Examples:

• This link to the term “OAI” would give you a page that lists both OAI and OAI-PMH: <a href=”http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/?field=term&query=OAI”>
• If you wanted to only see the term “OAI” and exclude “OAI-PMH,” your link would look like this: <a href=”http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/glossary/?field=term&query=OAI+not+PMH”>

Questions? Contact Jennifer Colvin at jennifer.colvin@ucop.edu.

a. Robin Chandler named Director of Built Content

Robin Chandler, who has been managing the Online Archive of California at the CDL since May 2000, was recently named the Director of Built Content.

She will be responsible for the development, maintenance, technical integrity, service readiness, and long-term sustainability of the CDL’s publicly accessible online collections.  In addition, she will ensure that the CDL’s built collections are developed in light of campus needs, but also in light of major opportunities for technical, service, business, and scholarly innovation.

Projects Robin will be working on include the Online Archive of California (OAC), the Image Demonstrator project, and the American West project.  She will also be overseeing Adrian Turner’s work on the LSTA Local History Digital Resources project and the digital object framework.

Congratulations, Robin!

The CDL is inserting language about watermarks in its contracts with publishers and vendors and in its technical requirements documents for database and ejournal vendors.

A digital watermark is a visible or invisible identification code that is permanently embedded into a digital image or text. Its purpose is to authenticate ownership of the content, and possibly communicate other information within the digital media.

The CDL is requiring that watermarks should not be visible to the human eye and should not degrade image or text quality. Moreover, watermarks shall not contain user-specific information such as account numbers or IP addresses.  The CDL is also requiring that vendors notify us in advance if they intend to use watermarking technology.

Our goal in inserting this new language in contracts and in the technical requirements documents for database and ejournal vendors is to protect users’ privacy and ensure that printed versions of articles are legible.

The CDL is in the process of revising the 2001 CDL Digital Object Standard: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/. The new guidelines are slated for release in January 2005.

Digital “built content” materials comprise a significant portion of the CDL’s collections.  These materials include objects created internally by UC or converted into digital form from existing UC collections (such as manuscripts, maps, visual images, and sound files), as well as “born digital” materials such as web sites.

In order for the CDL to extend effective preservation, access, and learning tools and services to contributors and users, these objects need to be represented in a uniform manner.

The CDL digital object framework (DOF) will be a “wrapper” for a suite of modularized guidelines, principally organized around classes of digital built content supported by the CDL.  For each object classification, there will be a set of metadata, content file, and submission requirements.

What the new guidelines will do:

• Address a wide range of burgeoning, at-risk, digital built content that is being contributed to CDL for access and preservation.
• Establish levels of CDL services based on metadata provided by contributors.  These services include the Preservation Repository, Interface Customization Tools, Image Service, persistent public access to objects via www.CaliforniaDigitalLibrary.org, eScholarship, the Online Archive of California (OAC) and other gateways, and learning, viewing, and curatorial tools.
• Address the use of the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) format for encoding objects.
• Cover requirements for preservation, rights, descriptive, and other kinds of metadata.  Will also cover requirements for a range of content file types.

Timeline

A CDL task force is preparing the DOF for release in January 2005.  This initial version will contain guidelines for images, TEI and PDF texts, and EAD finding aids.

For more information, see: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/guidelines/