CDLINFO

By Susan Koskinen (UC Berkeley), Resource Liaison, and Susan Jurist, (UC San Diego), Resource Liaison

We are happy to announce that the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) will be available via CSA Illumina.  After discussion at its annual meeting in Oakland and thorough testing and deliberation, the UC Art Bibliographers decided to move the indexes from RLG/Eureka to CSA Illumina. The final phase of the transition is now in process.  UC users will have access to both platforms until June 30. As of July 1, these databases will only be available via the CSA Illumina platform.  Watch for new training and user guides.

ProQuest is performing a phased migration of the Digital Dissertations database to the ProQuest interface.  This move should be completed with ProQuest’s summer 2006 release.  As part of this process, the ProQuest database menu now offers a link to the “ProQuest Dissertations and Theses - A&I ” database.  ProQuest has requested that institutions licensing the full text continue to use the Digital Dissertations platform URL in the Catalog and web links until the migration is completed. However, since users can now link to the full dissertation from the PQ interface, it seemed reasonable to let it appear as an option.

The native Digital Dissertations interface currently has a number of advantages:

1. Links to UC licensed full text are labeled as “Free Download” and the PDF size is indicated on the citation.
2. The ability to view the first 24 pages of the dissertation online in addition to the abstract.
3. Support for OpenURL inbound linking; i.e., linking from another database into the full text dissertation.

The ProQuest interface still has significant limitations as it is functioning right now:

1. All full text links are labeled “Order a copy”.  There is no obvious way to tell if an item is licensed by UC until you click on the “Order a copy” link.  At that time, the system opens a new window and users are taken to the Digital Dissertations interface.  If the item is licensed by UC the user sees “Free Download”; if the item is not licensed by UC they are given a pull down menu with pricing options based on format.
2. Only the abstract text is available.
3. No OpenURL support for this database.

These issues should be resolved when Digital Dissertations is fully migrated to the ProQuest interface over the summer, since the updated interface should include:

1. The ability to distinguish UC licensed content.
2. Integration of full text downloading into the interface.
3. Full text search capability for new titles.
4. OpenURL inbound linking support.

The recommended path for access to Digital Dissertations remains:
http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/search

The CDL recently completed an upgrade to its instance of the eXtensible Text Framework (XTF), which serves as the search and display system for the OAC.  As part of this process, we launched updated versions of our displays for image and imaged text objects.  These viewers will also be implemented in June for forthcoming CDL websites, Calisphere — currently known as CaliforniaDigitalLibrary.org — and its subsite, California Cultures.  Additionally, we used this as an opportunity to make incremental updates and corrections to OAC image, text, and finding aid search and browse results pages.

The revised object views also appear on the web site that commemorates the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake & Fire.

http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/earthquakeandfire/

Contributing institutions to the Earthquake & Fire web site include:

• The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley
• California History Society
• The California State Library
• The Huntington Library
• The Society of California Pioneers
• The Stanford University Libraries — Special Collections & Archives