CDLINFO

By Joan Starr, Manager, Strategic and Project Planning and Heather Christenson, Mass Digitization Project Manager

Ingest of University of California’s Google books has begun
Through the diligent efforts of a CDL and University of Michigan team, UC’s Google-digitized books are now flowing into the HathiTrust repository, and ingest is progressing well.  At the time of this writing, the number of volumes available via the HathiTrust beta catalog is 136,125 and this number grows weekly.  Now that the UC Google ingest is underway, the first stage of planning for the ingest of UC’s Internet Archive-digitized books has begun.  For a look at the full range of public domain volumes available from all participating HathiTrust institutions, please see the “visualization” by LC classification and by language.

Formation of Working Groups on Research Center and Development ’sandbox’
HathiTrust issued calls last month for names of participants in two new working groups: one to develop a proposal for a Research Center to be created under the terms of the Google Settlement, and one to create a development environment for HathiTrust partners to build and test repository applications and services. It is expected that membership of these two groups will be finalized in June.  The UC development representatives are: Stephen Abrams, Lynne Cameron, Stephanie Collett, Paul Fogel, Erik Hetzner, John Kunze, David Loy, Andy Mardesich (all of CDL), and David Minor (UCSD).

HathiTrust-OCLC Catalog Project
In May, the HathiTrust-OCLC Catalog Implementation team developed a detailed communication plan for collaboration on the project.  This plan includes biweekly meetings of the newly formed metadata subgroup, which will focus on metadata questions including display of access rights, faceting, and sorting of volume information.  The UC representative on the team is Adam Brin (CDL).  To read more, visit the new project blog at http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs/hathitrust-oclc.

“Page Turner” upgrade
UC and Michigan are collaborating in the creation of an updated Page Turner application for viewing volumes in HathiTrust.  Staff at CDL took a close look at the open source book reader GnuBook and outlined the steps for integration into the current HathiTrust Page Turner.  Staff from both institutions discussed implementation possibilities in a conference call in May, and development is expected to begin in June.

New Blogs for Large-scale Search and the HathiTrust-OCLC Catalog Project
Two new blogs have been launched on the HathiTrust website (http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs).  One will provide up-to-date information on HathiTrust’s efforts to enable full-text searching across the entire repository (http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs/large-scale-search), and the other will track the development of the permanent HathiTrust catalog, proceeding in collaboration with OCLC (http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs/hathitrust-oclc).  RSS feeds for the blogs are available at http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs/large-scale-search/feed and http://www.hathitrust.org/blogs/hathitrust-oclc/feed.

HathiTrust Strategic Advisory Board
The HathiTrust Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) has been established.  This group, which consists of 4 representatives from the CIC, and 3 from UC, will review and consider implications of the HathiTrust development agenda, convene task forces to address specific issues, and develop policies for HathiTrust and its partners.  Our UC representatives on the SAB are Patricia Cruse (CDL), Robin Dale (UCSC), and Bruce Miller (UCM).  A description of the governance structure and full listing of representatives from all participating institutions is available via the HathiTrust website.

HathiTrust official Development Updates are now issued on a regular basis.  We also plan to present UC highlights on a regular basis here in the CDLINFO newsletter.

More information about the UC Libraries’ mass digitization projects may be found on the Inside CDL web site.

By Joan Starr, Manager, Strategic and Project Planning

UC’s May 09 Annual Accountability Report is now available online at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/.  The website provides a spotlight on accountability issues from President Yudof, an introduction to the report, and a discussion of key themes and trends.  From the website you can print out the entire report, access individual indicators or chapters, get background information and technical details about each indicator, and access the underlying data.  You can also print out and read individual campus portraits and campus accountability profiles

Libraries Chapter

The Libraries chapter, http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/index/chapter/10, contains five indicators that measure UC library “size, impact and vitality.”  Three of the five indicators provide the same comparison institutions that are used in the rest of the Accountability Report.  The indicators are:

• Association of Research Libraries Rankings of Campus Libraries - UC and Comparison Institutions, 2005 to 2007
• Library Holdings in Volumes by Campus - UC and Comparison Institutions, 2007
• Use of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) within the UC System, 2000-01 to 2007-08
• Electronic Journal Usage within the UC System, 2005-06 to 2007-08
• Students Participating in Library Classes, Tours and Presentations - UC and Comparison Institutions, 2004-05 to 2006-07

For the 2009 report, CDL staff prepared the report with University Librarian overview in a severely constrained timeframe, necessitating a selection of indicators based on existing data.  The result is a strong, but somewhat limited picture of the full work of the libraries.

Supplementary Report and Next Steps

Because the Libraries chapter could provide only this limited view, the University Librarians have exercised the option to submit a Supplementary Report that will allow fuller control over length and timing.  The team assembled for this effort can address the question of what story we want to tell the public about the libraries and present the data accordingly.

The team members are: Ruth Jackson, University Librarian, UC Riverside; Susan Parker, Deputy University Librarian, UC Los Angeles; Dolores Davies, Director of Communications, UC San Diego; and Joanne Miller, Library Planning Analyst, California Digital Library.

For more information, please contact Joanne Miller (joanne.miller@ucop.edu).

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services

EconLit, a comprehensive, indexed bibliography with selected abstracts of the world’s economic literature, and FIAF, which contains the International Index to Film Periodicals and International Index to Television Periodicals, will move from the SilverPlatter to the OvidSP platform on Monday, June 29, 2009.  On Tuesday, June 30, 2009, the SilverPlatter platform will be completely shut down and the only access to these databases (along with some other campus licensed SilverPlatter databases) will be on the OvidSP platform.

On June 29, the persistent identifiers (PIDs) for these databases will change to the URL for the OvidSP version of the database.  On the SilverPlatter platform, each campus required a specific URL for access.  On the new OvidSP version, all campuses will use the same URL; campus-specific statistics will be based on IP address recognition.

Campuses using a direct URL to the SilverPlatter version of these databases in their lists of databases, guides, etc. should change to the URLs below on June 29th.

EconLit (all campuses): http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=main&D=econ

FIAF (all except SF): http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=main&D=iifp,bfmp,idft,lopi,iitp

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services

The UC Berkeley Library is replacing its GLADIS/Pathfinder/Innopac systems with an Innovative Interfaces, Inc.  (III) Millennium system and is renaming the catalog "OskiCat."  CDL has been working intensively for several months with Ex Libris and the UCB library to ensure a smooth transition in the Melvyl Catalog from UCB’s GLADIS holdings to its III holdings.  Part of this process has included the deletion of UCB’s five and a half million old records and the addition of more than six million new records into the Melvyl Catalog.

The Melvyl Catalog will be frozen between July 15 and August 30.  Please advise your users that since no new records will be added during the freeze, users will not receive their usual Automatic Updates.

A suspension in Melvyl Catalog loading causes some temporary issues with Request which are usually transparent to end users.  Request obtains holdings/availability via the classic Melvyl interface for all items including requests that originate from classic Melvyl, Next Generation Melvyl, UC-eLinks, and PubMed Order.  Item availability comes from the campus OPAC, with the Request service checking the campus circulation server.

The database with the new UCB snapshot records in it will be switched into production on August 31.  This process should be invisible to catalog users.

A full description of this complex process follows:

Due to limitations with the Ex Libris software, CDL cannot use the normal database update programs to replace UCB’s records.  Instead, all 32 plus million records must be exported from the database and the existing UCB records removed.  The exported records, plus the new UCB 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.

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, 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 15: Reload/reindex/remerge will begin in a copy of the production database.

July 15 – August 30: The loading of all campus records will be frozen in the production database.

August 31: The newly reloaded database will become the production database.

October 5:  The backlog of frozen weekly files will be cleared for all campuses.

Normal loading will resume for all campuses.

CDL will provide information about any revisions to this schedule.

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services; Photo Craig Thompson, Web Producer

Question:  Which CDL staffer began life in Alaska?

Answer:  It’s Holly Eggleston, the new Electronic Resource Analyst in CDL’s Collection Development and Management Program.  (Other members of this group include Ivy Anderson, Heather Christenson, Paul Fogel, Barbara Glendenning, Curtis Lavery, Chan Li, Andy Mardesich, Wendy Parfrey, Nancy Scott-Noennig, Emily Stambaugh, and Jackie Wilson.  Part of this crew is also located at UCSD:  Maria Figueroa, Tony Harvell, Adriana Moran, and Brian Pierini.)

Holly’s primary responsibility is to lead development of technical standards and policy pertaining to licensed resources, and ensure that the functionality of these resources support the educational and research needs of UC students and faculty.  Holly has several portions to her portfolio in support of this goal.

First, she organizes and manages the CDL Resource Liaisons program, comprised of 100+ subject area expert librarians across all ten campuses who serve as key links between the UC system and CDL licensed resource vendors, as well as between CDL and the campuses.  She also manages the technical integration of licensed electronic resources into CDL systems and services, including defining and communicating technical requirements, facilitating vendor relationships, and managing ongoing lifecycle management activities from resource evaluation and transition between platforms to resource cancellation.  In this work, Holly collaborates closely with the Launch and Lifecycle, Collections, and Resource Wranglers groups at CDL, as well as with the Resource Liaisons, other UC campus contacts and vendor representatives.

Holly has also assumed a significant role in CDL’s implementation of Serials Solutions Electronic Resources Management System (ERMS), by documenting the collections and resources lifecycle workflow, and collecting use cases and reporting needs to assist in the storage and retrieval of data from the ERMS and integration with external information.  No small feat!

What’s especially satisfying to Holly in her new position is the opportunity it provides to communicate with a large network of people and work on a variety of projects—that’s a good thing, since she has to do so much of it.

Holly’s had an interesting career path, with a number of positions in the Pacific Northwest.  Prior to becoming a librarian, Holly worked for eight years at Microsoft in product support and quality assurance testing, including work as the product support lead for Microsoft Office, facilitating communication between the customer support sites and product development group.  After two years as a systems development, staff training, and project management consultant, Holly began her library career at The University of Montana, initially as the business and economics librarian, and later as the head of technical services.  Holly comes to us most recently from UC San Diego where she was the Assistant Head of Acquisitions, with responsibilities in all areas of electronic resource management, including license negotiation, troubleshooting escalated issues, and workflow implementation and documentation.  Holly has a degree in Computer Science from the Evergreen State College and received her MLIS from the University of Washington.  CDL is definitely benefiting from Holly’s former experiences—which added together include database design, automation, library acquisitions, instruction, collection development, project management, community building, and product improvement.  Her reassembled past all combined sounds mighty similar to her current position at CDL.

Not surprisingly, the challenge to Holly as Electronic Resources Analyst is time and resources: so much to do, so little time.  And of course, you can’t do a job like Holly’s alone.  Combined with the fact that everyone else has so much going on (from CDL colleagues to Resource Liaisons), it can be difficult to move things along quickly.  “I want to figure out ways to save time by streamlining routine tasks, and identifying ways to make it easy for people to collaborate on projects and share information,” says Holly.  Holly admits to being impressed by the knowledge and experience at CDL and the UC campuses.  “There is an incredible wealth of current and institutional knowledge at the UC system - we’re in an opportune position to implement updated processes and tools that integrate new technologies while incorporating and learning from the tremendous breadth and depth of local expertise."

Is it Holly’s Alaskan roots that make her willing to explore just a little further?  We’re delighted she has chosen to share her passion for understanding, documenting, and improving workflow and enabling better communication at CDL.  Welcome aboard!

By Jane Lee, CDL Assessment Analyst

E-books and e-book readers are taking hold.  The mainstream media and the blogosphere are abuzz with announcements of new technological developments, debates surrounding intellectual property rights, and speculation about the future of books and reading.  This article (PDF) covers the e-book essentials that will help you make sense of the headlines and get involved in the conversation.

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services; Photo Craig Thompson, Web Producer

Elise Proulx is the new Outreach and Marketing Coordinator in the eScholarship Publishing Group of CDL.  Her teammates in this group include Catherine Mitchell, Kirk Hastings, Martin Haye, Suzanne Lim, Lisa Schiff, and Matthew Winfield.   Elise’s role is to inform faculty members, researchers, and others associated with the University of California that eScholarship publishing services exist and how authors, editors, and unit heads can benefit from them.  Her aim is to raise the visibility of these services and increase their usage.  Elise has already been visiting campuses consulting with subject specialist librarians and library staff, since the next phase of promoting these services will be performed with the aid of campus librarians. Coming soon: marketing collateral including notepads, t-shirts, bookmarks, and more.  Another of Elise’s tasks is to ensure that the eScholarship website makes it clear to faculty that using these services is not as daunting as it now might seem.

Elise followed a tantalizing path to the CDL.  She was a literary agent in SF and the executive director of San Francisco’s Litquake, a literary version of the city’s music, film, and cultural festivals, with “a mix of readings, panel discussions, themed events, and general literary mayhem.  ” Her previous positions definitely involved substantial outreach to diverse audiences, a wonderful foundation for working with UC eScholarship users.

Elise is also tackling a library degree from San Jose State University, which she’ll wrap up in December.  This summer she’s taking a copyright class through the University of Pittsburgh.  Combined with her past experience with contracts and copyright as a literary agent, this course will provide her with additional chops for her current position.  She is also pursuing an externship at San Francisco Public Library, working on marketing their “one city, one book” program (http://sfpl.org/news/ocob/onecity.htm).

Elise is knowledgeable about traditional publishing but she began looking at the field of publishing with increasing dismay.  As web publishing began to flourish and the role of literary agents began changing drastically, she was ready for a change.  She’s very excited to be moving into the world of digital publishing. Added to this is her love of the UC libraries: she’s a UCB grad and has a brother who’s a professor at UCSB interested in open access publishing.

Having arrived at CDL in January, Elise is still wrangling with the challenge of having offices in Oakland and knowing there are faculty, researchers, librarians at 10 campuses, plus UC laboratories out there to meet.  It’s a daunting prospect to collaborate with them all.  An additional challenge for Elise was making the transition from a home office (where the appropriate attire is yoga pants and clogs) to a more traditional office.  Although not completely… when one of the members of the eScholarship Publishing Group, Martin Haye, commutes from home, he has a computer running in his CDL office with a webcam online.  Colleagues regularly talk to him and even sit down to chat over lunch.  What strikes Elise odd is that this now seems normal!

A recent positive experience for Elise arose in traveling to UC Merced just a few days before graduation and Michelle Obama’s visit there, with the feel of excitement on the campus.  Elise admits to being thrilled to be at CDL, especially with the end in sight for her library degree.  And we’re equally thrilled to have her on board.

By Holly Eggleston, CDL Resource Liaison Coordinator and Electronic Resource Analyst

CDL is pleased to announce the following new resource liaison assignments within the CDL Resource Liaisons (RL) program.  Resource Liaisons provide a crucial link between the UC system and our licensed resource vendors, as well as providing a link between CDL and the campuses.  Resource Liaisons serve as the primary conduit to communicate resource issues to vendors and CDL, as well as offering expertise and assistance for activities during the resource’s lifecycle.  Some Resource Liaisons are responsible for several databases on the same platform.

American Mathematical Society Publications - Brian Quigley (bquigley@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU)
IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) - Jean McKenzie (jmckenzi@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU)
INSPEC (Ovid) - Deborah Kegel (dkegel@UCSD.EDU)
MathSciNet - Brian Quigley (bquigley@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU)
OCLC FirstSearch Base Package - Bob Heyer-Gray - (rheyer@UCDAVIS.EDU)

We thank the Resource Liaisons themselves, as well as the campus libraries that are contributing staff to this important program.

To learn more about the Resource Liaisons program, please see http://www.cdlib.org/inside/groups/rl/.

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services

Lisa Schiff, Technical Lead in CDL’s eScholarship Publishing Program recently had an article published entitled “Creating the Mark Twain Project Online” in Learned Publishing, 22: 191–8.

From the abstract: The partners involved in the building of MTPO – the Mark Twain Papers, the California Digital Library, and University of California Press – created the site on the premise that Web-accessible versions of this content, enhanced by innovative design and site architecture and a suite of research tools, would greatly improve scholars’ ability to discover and work with this unique material.   Anecdotal feedback supports this premise.

Congratulations, Lisa!

By Ellen Meltzer, Manager, Information Services

Several changes were brought into the June 2009 install for the Next Generation Melvyl Pilot on June 14th.  These changes are described in detail in the PDF, and include the following:

Changes to the Advanced Screen
These changes were made in anticipation of additional databases for searching in the WorldCat Local interface.  (The UC Libraries are currently evaluating when to adopt this service.)  

• ISBN, ISSN, and Accession Number are each a separate index now.  Accession Number is the OCLC number.
• The number of search boxes has been reduced from five static boxes to three dropdown boxes.

Changes to Advanced Search Limiter Display
The order of the limiters has been changed and the “Publication Date” limiter has been renamed “Year”.  “Library” and “Year” are now the first and second limiters.  After that, the limiters are alphabetical.  These changes were made in anticipation of additional databases for searching in the WorldCat Local interface. 

Libraries Worldwide (WorldCat) is now Libraries Worldwide
The scoping option “Libraries Worldwide (WorldCat)” was renamed Libraries Worldwide.  This change was made in anticipation of additional databases for searching in the WorldCat Local interface.  Renaming the scope will reduce confusion with the database WorldCat (FirstSearch). 
Note: Again, the UC libraries are evaluating when to adopt this service.

Expanded link name changed to “Cite/Export”
OCLC has renamed the link for the citations tool on the detailed record from “Cite” to “Cite/Export” to be more informative to the user.  The tooltip message upon mouse-over on this link also provides more information to the user.

WorldCat Identities is being integrated into WorldCat Local
WorldCat Identities is now fully integrated into the user interface for WorldCat Local. This will provide a consistent user experience throughout the user’s discovery experience.

Privacy settings display on your WorldCat user profile
When viewing your WorldCat user profile, the privacy settings for your favorite libraries, lists, saved searches, email and profile will now be displayed on the initial summary page.  If an object is marked as ‘Private’ it will not be shared with the rest of the WorldCat community on the public view of your profile.  You can change this setting from the summary page of each area; to get to the summary page, click on the header of the section (e.g., “Favorite Libraries”).