CDLINFO

A new vendor has been selected for the Modern Language Association International Bibliography (MLA IB) and the MLA Directory.  MLA will remove its database from the current CDL-licensed platform, Ovid, at the end of June.

After careful review and analysis of several vendor platforms by UC English and American Literature Bibliographers, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) was selected as the new vendor.  CSA licenses other social sciences and humanities databases for UC.

The decision was made by the MLA review group using the database transition tools developed by the Tools and Services Working Group and the A&I Transition team.

There will be an overlap period with Ovid and CSA beginning in May and running simultaneously through June 30.  As of July 1, CSA will be the sole source for UC’s subscription to MLA IB.  Details about how to access the CSA version of MLA and training materials for the new platform will be shared via the campus Users Council representatives and will also appear in a later CDLINFO issue.

Thanks go to John Novak, Chair of the English and American Literature Bibliographers, and Rob Melton, MLA IB Resource Liaison, for sharing the leadership responsibilities for the transition.  The CDL, along with John and Rob, would like to thank members of the Literature Bibliographers Group, the Performing Arts bibliographers, and the numerous reference librarians and users on several campuses who assisted at various stages of the process, along with literature librarians at many other universities in the U.S. and Canada who shared their own decisions with us by email.

The Users Council met for its annual meeting on April 22 at Preservation Park in Oakland.

Topics discussed during the morning session included UC-eLinks, Google Scholar, Metasearch, scholarly communication, the Melvyl Catalog, and Request.  The afternoon was devoted to brief overviews of image services, digital site building, the Digital Preservation Repository and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), assessment at CDL, the American West Project, and the public site.

In addition to one member from every UC campus, the Users Council also has representatives from the California Academy of Sciences, the California Historical Society, the California State Library, the California State University Libraries, the Getty Research Library, Graduate Theological Union, Hastings College of the Law, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Lab, NRLF, SRLF, and Stanford University.

The meeting afforded an opportunity to inform members about current activities related to CDL projects, programs, and services, and to have an exchange of ideas and a time to answer questions.

For more information, contact your Users Council Representative.

a. Joan Ariel Joins the Office of Systemwide Planning Shared Print Program

UC Irvine Distinguished Librarian Joan Ariel has accepted the position of Shared Print Planning Manager with the Office of Systemwide Library Planning Shared Print Program. In her new role, Joan will be responsible for leading a collaborative systemwide effort to develop plans, strategies, and cost models for pilot projects for the UC libraries’ shared monographic collection building.

Joan’s leadership contributions to UC libraries and to the library profession are too numerous to list. They center around her commitment to collaboration and wise collection management. She brings to this position a long history of leading UC librarians in efforts to implement collaborative collection-building projects. Long before the UC libraries began programmatic efforts in the area of shared print, Joan was developing and administering shared purchases through the SCAP program.

This is an 11-month position. Joan will be working primarily from an office in the Southern Regional Library Facility, and will be traveling to Northern California and to Oakland as necessary.

Please join the Shared Print Program in welcoming Joan.

b. Tracy Seneca Joints the CDL as a Web Archiving Coordinator

The CDL is pleased to announce that Tracy Seneca has joined the CDL as our new Web Archiving Coordinator.  Tracy is on a three-year contract position and will be working on the “Web at Risk”(NDIIPP grant-funded) project.  She will work primarily with CDL staff and grant partners to plan, assess, analyze, and design a user interface for web-archiving tools.  Activities may include creating use cases, functional requirements, evaluation methods, and user interface designs.

Some of you might know Tracy from her days at the Teaching Library on the UC Berkeley campus.  For the past several years, Tracy has worked at the DePaul University Libraries as their Library Web Services Coordinator.  In addition to designing and developing the library web sites, Tracy has been active in designing and developing user interfaces for a number of library applications.  These include Instruction Builder, a learning content management system, and CCRS, a copyright tracking and requesting system.  While working at DePaul, Tracy also managed to obtain a Master of Arts in Applied Technology.

Please join us in welcoming Tracy to the CDL.

The E-journal Article Views statistics for 2004 are now posted on Inside CDL .  These annual statistics summarize use by e-journal publisher and by campus (where provided) and are password-protected.  CDL data analyst Laura Fosbender prepared this report and is still compiling the matching report on 2004 electronic database searches.  Please contact Jacqueline Wilson at jacqueline.wilson@ucop.edu, if you have any questions.

The Directory of CDL-Licensed Content will be retired October 31, 2005.

Background

Information in the Directory of CDL-Licensed Content is currently being replicated in several places: in campus lists of electronic resources; in the UC-eLinks (SFX) A-Z lists (available currently in version 2); in the Melvyl Catalog; and in local campus catalogs.  (A new version of SFX will be coming to UC later this year; see below for more details.)

Most campuses no longer rely on the Directory of CDL-Licensed Content, but on these other sources for verifying information about and accessing licensed content.  Maintaining the directory is not an automated process—it is updated manually.  New digital packages have many titles, some held by multiple vendors.  There is a great deal of change and “churn” among the titles, with new titles and dates of coverage constantly being added to and deleted from the directory.  Staff time aimed at this labor-intensive process can be put to better use now that other sources duplicate most of what the directory accomplishes.

What do you use it for?

An in-depth analysis of the “hidden uses of the Directory of CDL-Licensed Content” was completed within the CDL, with remedies addressed for all issues raised.  Consultation with campus library staff has taken place and we have also done an investigation of how campus libraries link to the directory.  Later this month, a survey of all users of the directory will be undertaken to see if there are other uses that have not yet been uncovered and addressed.  Please also let us know directly if you have other issues about the removal of the directory.  We want to hear and address your concerns.  Feedback on this topic can be sent to cdl@www.cdlib.org.

Other options

For verifying coverage dates for an electronic resource, the UC-eLinks/SFX A-Z list, which is updated on a regular basis by CDL staff, or Melvyl Catalog records, maintained by the UC San Diego Shared Cataloging Program staff, can be used.  The UC-eLinks list can also be used to determine the part of a vendor package a title belongs to, and to link to the journal at the vendor’s site.

What’s coming down the pike?

SFX version 3 will go live within the UC libraries in June 2005.  The new version, different from the current version that you see via the link above, has enhanced functionality that will include searching by ISSN, category (or loose subjects), and journal title-stay tuned for further details.

A UC Electronic Resources Management System (ERMS) Task Force was created in 2004, and a request for bids for an ERMS is being presented to potential vendors in April.  The final report of the task force outlines the requirements such a system must satisfy for the UC libraries.

Timeline

July 1: Begin parallel service with UC-eLinks (SFX) A-Z lists.
October 31: Turn off patron access to the directory.