Tools and Services Working Group
February 21, 2002 Minutes

Attending: Laine Farley (CDL), Alice Kawakami (UCLA), Catherine Soehner (UCSC), Geri Ingram (UCSD), Michael Yonezawa (UCR), Roy Tennant (CDL); guests: Steve Toub (CDL), Felicia Poe (CDL), Rosalie Lack (CDL)

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1. Announcements Farley welcomed new members Ingram and Yonezawa. Farley gave a brief update on the Melvyl and A&I databases transition: Melvyl Catalog usability testing expected to begin on a test database of 630K records in April; ready for public use in fall 2002 with UC records; non-UC contributors deferred pending evaluations coordinated by SOPAG to determine continuation of monographic contributors and CDL's technical assessment of how to handle the California Periodicals database contributors (i.e, CULP and SERHOLD). A&I databases on track; remaining Ovid databases should be available in the next few weeks, pending implementation of UC-eLinks.
2. Review of Charge and Overview for Future Projects Farley reviewed the January 2001 report, the revised charge, the Functional Categories and Key Challenges, and Additions to the California Digital Library Collection in 2001.

   Action: Review the Additions document to consider areas for possible tool development. Farley will see if a similar document exists for 2000.

   The group agreed that the Functional Categories are still useful as a framework. Although some new services are available since the chart was created, there is no need to revise the details; consider doing so after the transitions to vendor databases. Many of the Key Challenges are still worthy of attention.
3. Reports on Related Issues
   • Digital Reference (Kawakami) UCLA's pilot has been in place since April 2001 using 24/7 Reference software. It is available 30 hours a week. After selecting the service, users see an interim page with information on email reference and hours/phone for all libraries. They can choose which method of obtaining help is available/preferred. Librarians also like this way of promoting all services. Users receive a transcript of their session with links to resources. UCLA is investigating the possibility of having a persistent icon on all of their web pages. The service is open to all users, not just UCLA, since the volume has been low to date. Ingram mentioned that UCSD has selected Convey for their digital reference service. SOPAG has reviewed the report of the Task Force on Digital Reference and is likely to appoint a working group to continue investigation and coordination efforts.

     Action:Try UCLA's service!

   • SearchLight (Lack) Lack and campus librarians at UCLA and UCSB conducted focus groups with 33 participants (undergraduate and graduate students in a mix of disciplines). While there was not a clear yes or noanswer to whether students wanted the service, they did express interest in aspects of it. Most said they started their research with web engines like Google or Yahoo. Graduate students wanted more advanced search features. Undergraduates liked knowing that the resources had been selected by the library and were ôbetterö than what they might find on the web. Most found the existing interface to have too much information. TSWG members discussed the tradeoffs between ôfocus meö and ôcast a wide netö approaches, and whether the tool should be for finding the best/right database(s) vs. finding everything on a topic vs. finding ôa few good articlesö. Toub mentioned that University of Michigan is conducting a survey on how people use digital resources and functional needs: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=1429194588 This survey is part of the metadata harvesting project known as OAIster: http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/
   • Task Force on Access Integration (Toub, Tennant)
     CDL has responded to the recommendation to implement some short term changes to the CDL Directory while SOPAG continues to pursue the longer term recommendations for creating an infrastructure to support better access integration. The Task Force's charge led them to devote much attention to the Directory but also asked that they look at other aspects of access integration. There is still a need to take a broad view of users' tasks and needs rather than focusing on specific tools and ways to stitch them together.
   • eScholarship (Tennant) The working papers repository is slated to roll out next month with papers from several social sciences Organized Research Units. The service will maintain each ORU's identity but provide the ability to federate searching across all units at the metadata level. This project is using bepress software. Another current project will make 1500 UC Press books, formerly offered through NetLibrary, available using XML and the Cocoon publishing framework. This platform provides a great deal of flexibility for presenting the book in different formats ondemand.

     Action: Now that CDL and UC are content creators, what services should we offer for users of that content? Try using the content (wait a few weeks for working papers) with that in mind. http://escholarship.cdlib.org/ (Try the View Publishing Models option also) UC-eLinks (Farley)

   • This service, which uses Ex Libris's SFX product based on the OpenURL standard, will be launched in early March in the CSA databases and added to other databases as vendors work with CDL. One goal is to extend the capability to ômulti-item servicesö where users can collect a set of citations and take action on all or selected items, rather than one item at a time in the current model.

     Action: All review the test site for UC-eLinks(SFX) to understand how the service works. Agreed that consideration of future services should wait until the initial set of three services (holdings, ejournals, Request) are fully implemented and we know more about users' experiences. But begin thinking about possibilities for future services (e.g., links to book reviews).

   • Services for PDAs (Farley, Toub) Toub attended an ALA pre-conference on this subject and Farley attended an Ovid presentation on their services at Midwinter. Both felt that theservices are mostly in demand by medical students, and that it is still difficult to target the right level of service. Ingram observed that there are competing technologies which make it difficult to support the various combinations of platforms and services.

     Action: All continue to monitor developments to determine user needs and readiness. CDL will monitor vendor services. Tennant suggested that we plan to develop services in the Melvyl Catalog once it is implemented.

4. Next Steps We are not yet ready to declare a next project, but agreed on the following as ways of pursuing aspects of the ôbig pictureö of user needs.
   • Task analysis: how are users doing their work, what problems to they encounter, what services and tools do they need that do not exist or are not well integrated? Action: Kawakami will review transcripts from digital reference sessions. Action: All review these recent user studies:
     • Ejournal User Study (Highwire Press and Stanford)
     • Scholarly Work in the Humanities and the Evolving Information Environment (CLIR and DLF)
   • SearchLight: focus on undergraduate needs (e.g, the "panic button" approach)
     

     Action: Soehner will write a description of purpose, scope of resources, and functions.

   • Evaluation metrics: how to determine if our tools and services are effective (part of our original charge)

     Action: Lack will develop a strategy

   • Web-based course support and electronic reserves: how can these services integrate better with users' discovery and manipulation activities?
     
     Action: Ingram will describe issues, problems, opportunities Other ideas considered:
     • Recommendation services, collaborative filtering
     • Mapping among thesauri, controlled vocabulary
     • How to choose the best terminology for searches
     • Dealing with large result sets
       
       Next meeting: June 6. Should we meet in the south?