I am delighted to announce the redesigned UC Libraries website. The website is the primary communication vehicle for the UC libraries’ systemwide initiatives and collaborative activities and is intended to be used by both internal and external audiences. The redesign process, started over a year ago, updates the site’s design, streamlines the navigation, and enriches the content. Our goal was to improve the information provided to audiences unfamiliar with how the ten campus libraries and CDL work together as a system and to enhance navigation to information about the systemwide groups whose material makes up the bulk of the website’s content.  At the same time, we wanted to make it easier for systemwide groups and other library staff to keep track of new developments and find documents and reports.

The new features you’ll find on the site include:

• New and refreshed visual design and layout
• Streamlined site-wide navigation and group architecture
• New search feature
• A “Latest Updates” listserv for UC libraries’ announcements and new website content updates.

The revised site is powered by a new content management system (CMS), which should help maintain the continuity of the site and streamline the update process for contributors.

I want to extend my appreciation to everyone involved in the redesign effort. Much gratitude goes to the chairs and members of the operations and planning groups who took time out of their busy schedules to review files, evaluate the design, and contribute ideas. Thanks as well to the small group of stakeholders who helped to guide, champion, and weigh in on decision-making as the project progressed.

• Felicia Poe (CDL)
• Diane Bisom (former SOPAG chair)
• Elizabeth Cowell (current SOPAG chair)
• Laine Farley (CDL)

Extra thanks, kudos, and credit go to the hard-working User Experience Design Services team at the CDL. The talented crew worked countless hours to bring the new site to fruition, and they brought an impressive level of expertise and thought to this project.

• Project Manager and UX Lead: Rachael Hu
• Web Production Manager and Technical Lead: Eric Satzman
• Senior UX Analyst: Jane Lee
• Web Producers: Craig Thompson and Robin Davis-White
• Web Production Contributor: David Chan
• Technical Lead and Development: Brian Tingle and Mark Redar
• Project Consultant: Joanne Miller

I hope you’ll all take a few minutes to explore the new site to see how it’s organized and how it can be useful to you.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the website’s administration team through uclib-support-L@ucop.edu.

CDL staff are also working with a commercial vendor, ScholarlyStats, to create usage statistics reports for calendar years 2006 and 2007. ScholarlyStats is a new service licensed by CDL that offers a single point of access to standardized usage statistics reports from many of the largest and most important publishers and database providers. CDL expects to release 2006 annual usage statistics reports and 2007 monthly reports in early April 2007.

For questions and more information please contact Chan Li, CDL Data Analyst at Chan.Li@ucop.edu or 510-987-9796.

The report shows the number of articles published/year and the number of cites/year for a particular author or any general search.  It also calculates something called the h index.  This metric is useful because it discounts the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers that have not yet been cited.  The h index was developed by J.E. Hirsch and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (46): 16569-16572 November 15 2005.

Follow these steps to use this tool:

a) Go to Web of Science http://isiknowledge.com/wos
b) Choose the General Search button
c) Do an Author or Topic search or another search that results in less than 10,000 records.

The Citation Report button appears on the right hand side of the screen, just below the Analyze Result button.

It is hoped that this measure might replace some of the importance placed on the impact factor of specific journals.  However, the usefulness of the measure is quite variable in different disciplines.

Users of XTF version 1.9 will also find the following new features:

• Stylesheets with a real HTTP redirect, to send the user’s browser to a different URL
• Improved full-text scoring, file handling and numeric data searching
• New query operator: multi-field AND, that requires *all* terms to be present, but in *any* of the listed fields. Default stylesheets now use this for a basic “keyword” search.
• New query operator: orNear.  This is like a typical OR query, except that when multiple terms are present in the same metadata field, their proximity is taken into account when scoring.
• Experimental dynamic FRBR mode… see docs/experimental.html for details.

As always, please let us know if you encounter any bugs or problems with this release.

**We are also pleased to report that XTF continues to attract users across the globe.  Most recently, it has been deployed at the Grupo de Estudos em Dereito das Telicomunicacoes, where it is being used to run searches on Brazilian acts of telecommunication law.

View the site at: http://www.gds.nmi.unb.br:8080/xtf/search

(terms to try: fust, universalização, zona rural)

Ex Libris product manager Ted Koppel visited the CDL in November.  As a result of this meeting, CDL is in the process of upgrading our test environment to the beta version of Ex Libris’ ERMS product, Verde 2.0. We are aiming for this upgrade to be completed in January.

Key points

• This is a continuation of what we started last year since it is an upgrade of our test environment only. When we are done testing, we will not be saving the test data.
• This installation is planned to include a central instance (CDL) and up to 4 campus instances.  The campus instances will be determined based our need to test interoperability between Verde and SFX (which underlies our UC-eLinks service).>
• We plan to open this up to the SOPAG ERMS implementation team to use in their work.

Benefits

• Campuses will be able to interact with the latest version and experience the workflow.
• Campuses will be able to analyze their data and processes against the latest version of the software.
• CDL will be able to test the consortial functionality that has resulted from a first round of joint development with Ex Libris — functionality that is required to meet UC’s needs.
• CDL will be able to experiment with data loading, and test other specific concerns.

The systemwide EMRS Implementation team is making progress on overall project guidelines:

• Identifying policy issues that will arise and creating an overall guidelines document that will begin our best practices documentation,
• Working on defining a minimal data set that we all agree each campus should strive for,
• Identifying data elements that require authority, and charting how that authority is currently determined on each campus.  The end goal will be to have agreed-upon systemwide authority guidelines settled on ahead of time, for elements where these are necessary.

CDL is continuing discussion with other consortial institutions who are also implementing Verde 2.0 or plan to implement it.  If, after further investigations with these consortia, and after completing our own testing, we discover no major issues that would prevent us from making use of Verde 2.0, we will proceed on a path to install the Production version.

CDL will be testing early in the year, and we are hopeful that implementation of a production version can proceed mid-year 2007.

Updated URL 2011
See: http://www.cdlib.org/services/collections/erms/index.html

Microsoft’s Live Search Books provides a window into scanned books that is as serendipitously fruitful as article indexes are for searching the content of scholarly articles.  It searches every page of the scanned books and returns a link to the page that contains your search phrase.

At this site (http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books), search on “Adolph Sutro” – mayor of San Francisco from 1895–1897, mining engineer, philanthropist — and you find not only important information about his role in the beginnings of San Francisco, in Nevada mining enterprises, his interactions with President Benjamin Harrison, but also two poems lauding him, one by Carrie Walter and another by Joaquin Miller.

Search on the “Golden Gate Bridge” to see that landmark remembered in oral histories, documented by its creators, and praised in poem and song.

The opportunities for uncovering unknown connections are endless, and will only grow as Microsoft continues to digitize more historic titles.

Update on the Mass Digitization Projects

The Open Content Alliance (OCA) (http://www.opencontentalliance.org/) is one of two mass digitization projects now underway within the UC libraries.  (The other is Google, about which more will be forthcoming in future articles as its workflow and scope unfolds.)  With the approval of the University Librarians, the UC libraries became one of the earliest contributing members of the OCA. OCA is a coordinating body whose purpose is to build open access electronic collections and make them available through the Internet Archive (IA) http://www.archive.org/index.php.  UC library books scanned with Microsoft funding for the Open Content Alliance are now available through both the Internet Archive interface and the Microsoft Live Search Books (beta).

As OCA contributors, the UC libraries are providing out-of-copyright, public domain materials and content for which the UC Regents hold copyright.  The University of Toronto libraries are one of the many libraries contributing content to the OCA (for a complete contributor list see [http://www.opencontentalliance.org/contributors.html].  UC hosts two Internet Archive (IA) scanning facilities, one at NRLF (which came online in April 2006) and one at SRLF (which came online in August 2006).  A third IA-operated scanning site resides at the University of Toronto.

Under the direction of Brewster Kahle, the IA is the organization that provides the technology and staff for the scanning service.  IA servers in San Francisco host the resulting files. In the case of scanned images of UC materials, the digital files will also become part of the UC libraries Digital Preservation Repository (DPR).  Files will include JPEG 2000, PDF, fully searchable OCR, and meta.xml.

CDL is investigating the implications of integrating the content generated through the OCA and Google projects into our UC library access systems and will be consulting with UC library advisory groups as the issues are better defined.  Content scanned by Google will be available through WorldCat, and discussions are underway to provide OCA-scanned materials through OCLC as well.

The two OCA funding sources (Yahoo! and Microsoft) requested that IA initially scan thousands of books that can broadly be defined as reflecting Americana.  CDL has created lists of titles (known as picklists) by searching the Melvyl Catalog with a combination of date limits, subject headings, and broad classification codes.  These lists are drawing from UC’s systemwide library book collections managed at NRLF and SRLF, from the UC Berkeley and UCLA main libraries, and from the Bancroft Library’s and UCLA YRL’s Special Collections.

With the advice from SOPAG members and AULs from across the system, several UC librarians were identified to help define those searches to retrieve the widest range of materials.  This subject approach depends upon cataloging consistency and completeness through decades of librarianship on different campuses. Librarians will recognize that this makes any such search far from perfect! But it has identified thousands of books (including oral histories from the Bancroft’s Regional Oral History Office) so far, many of which have been digitized and can be viewed at: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3A%28cdl%29

Books are non-invasively scanned.  A small test of 800 Berkeley mathematics books was digitized initially to affirm that the process does no harm to the original volumes. IA designed and manufactured special scanning stations, called Scribes.  These hold the book face up, open at a 90 degree angle. Carefully trained operators manually turn pages, check that metadata is correct, and replace the books on carts for return to their shelving locations.

Staff at the two RLF’s have been actively and creatively involved in this project so far, devising workflows, trouble-shooting, and insuring that all scanned books are returned to their rightful homes.  Many UC librarians have offered excellent advice as CDL staff have wrestled with devising lists of books that meet the criteria for scanning. This systemwide teamwork enables UC to take advantage of this timely opportunity to add new levels of access to our priceless collections.

Mass Digitization Collection Advisory Committee

Recognizing the need to formalize the content selection process as we continue to move forward on both the OCA and Google mass digitization projects, CDL obtained approval from the ULs for the formation of a Mass Digitization Collection Advisory Committee (MDCAC).

MDCAC’s charge will include developing an internal process for the review, identification, and selection of collections for scanning across the UC libraries; developing criteria for evaluating potential collections for scanning; communicating with CDL staff, UC bibliographer consortial groups, HOPS members, and HOTS members as needed for advice and assistance pertaining to technical and programmatic issues as recommendations are developed for collection scanning; and advising the SOPAG Collection Development Committee (CDC) on issues about collection development for mass digitization projects and recommending collections for their review and approval. The CDC has proposed members for this committee which will be appointed in the near future.

We wish to express our deep thanks to all of the UC librarians and CDL staff who have helped and will continue to assist in this great effort.  Congratulations on reaching this milestone!

The new online collections showcase local history materials, including photographs, ephemera, posters, maps, and manuscripts from 19 public and academic libraries throughout California:

• Berkeley Public Library
• California State University, Stanislaus
• Chula Vista Public Library
• Covina Public Library
• Glendale Public Library
• Humboldt State University
• Kern County Library
• Marin County Free Library
• Mill Valley Public Library
• Mission Viejo City Library
• Oakland Public Library
• Palos Verdes Library District
• Richmond Public Library
• San Bruno Public Library
• San Jose Public Library
• San Mateo Public Library
• Southern California Library for Social Studies & Research
• Sutter County Library
• Yuba County Library

Digitized collections from more 40 institutions are represented in the CDL’s Calisphere and OAC websites.  For a complete list, see http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/institutions.html.

These resources were created as part of the Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP).  Supported by the infrastructure of the CDL and through Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant funding administered by the California State Library, this multi-year (2000-present) statewide program explores a model to aggregate, preserve, and provide permanent public access to local history digital resources via a statewide online access point.  For more information, see http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/oac/lsta/.

UC Santa Cruz has already deployed its own edition of LibX and UC Merced and UC San Diego are currently testing their editions.  If you’d like your own campus edition, it should be relatively easy to build using the relevant portions of the configuration file of the “Melvyl Catalog and UC Libraries” edition of LibX that CDL has created.  For help, contact the CDL at cdl@www.cdlib.org.

For more detailed information on using LibX’s features, see the Screen Casts at bottom of this web page: http://www.libx.org/screenshots.html.

The Melvyl Recommender Project http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/melvyl_recommender/, which explored next-generation services for library catalogs, has reached its conclusion.  The project was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Popular commercial services such as Google, eBay, Amazon, and Netflix have evolved quickly over the last decade to help people find what they want, developing information retrieval strategies such as usefully ranked results, spelling correction, and recommendations.  Library catalogs, in contrast, have changed little and are not well equipped to meet changing needs and expectations.  The Melvyl Recommender Project explored methods and feasibility of closing this gap.  An additional extension project to the Melvyl Recommender Project carried out deeper explorations into the most interesting and promising questions raised during the original project, and to add obvious missing pieces of functionality.  The principal area of investigation was the impact of adding full-text objects to what had previously been a metadata-only index.

Overall findings from both portions of the project include:

• The text-based discovery application, the eXtensible TextFramework (XTF) that was the backbone of the project’s system (known as Relvyl) proved capable of scaling to millions of records and hundreds of concurrent users, indicating that this is an approach worth pursuing for providing ranking, recommendation and other types of functionality with an online catalog.
• Use of an index based single word spelling correction algorithm addressed 90 percent of misspelled single words.
• Initial examination of faceted browsing and FRBR-like document groups indicated that each of these features could substantially improve the patron’s experience of working with large result sets.
• User assessment confirmed that users prefer relevance ranked results over unranked results, although more investigation is required to determine whether content-based ranking with or without different types of weights (based on circulation or holdings) is more effective.
• Two types of recommendation strategies were explored: circulation-based (patrons who checked this out also checked,out) and text-similarity (More like this…).  User assessment was conducted against the first type and showed that users like getting recommendations, which are useful for performing academic tasks, and they can also serve a unique query expansion function.
• Adjustments to keyword searching strategies, document scoring and the index-based spelling correction dictionary allowed for an effective combination of full-text and metadata only records into one system, in which neither type of record was privileged.

Much of the functionality explored in both phases of the project can be found in the Relvyl prototype (http://rec-proto.cdlib.org/xtf/search?style=melrec&brand=melrec)More information about the entire project can be found on the CDL website http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/melvyl_recommender/.

Chan Li has accepted the position of Library Data Analyst in the CDL Collections Licensed Content Group beginning Monday, October 9.  Ms. Li has a Masters Degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts in French from Beijing Foreign Studies University.  She has completed internships at the Norris Medical Library, University of Southern California, the Rosenfeld Management Library and the Louise Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA, the Editorial Library at the Los Angeles Times, and the National Library of China.  Chan comes to us with excellent preparation in both bibliographic and data analysis.  During her internship at the Norris Medical Library, Chan created web tutorials on ISI Impact Factors and the Medline Citation Matcher.  While at the Los Angeles Times Chan used MySQL to sample and perform data analysis on more than 1,100 JPEGs as part of a 285,000 object migration of the newspaper’s historic photojournalism collection.

At CDL, Chan will be working on vendor usage statistics compilation and other data analysis and research projects supporting licensed digital collections, shared print collections, scholarly communications, and related activities.  Please join the CDL in welcoming Chan Li to the University of California Libraries.