CONTENTS
- John Ober Joins CDL as Assistant Director, Education and Communications
- Current CDL Initiatives
- Information about the CDLINFO-L Listserv
1. John Ober Joins the California Digital Library as the Assistant Director, Education and Communications
On May 11, 1998, John Ober will assume the post of Assistant Director, Education and Communications, California Digital Library. In his new role, John will be responsible for managing CDL communication and education programs. Working closely with other members of the CDL management team, he will develop programs that communicate the goals and objectives of the CDL to faculty, students, and librarians throughout the University, as well as to CDL partners in other educational institutions and in industry. John will serve as a resource to librarians on the UC campuses for the development of local educational and training programs, and will be a key participant in the design of an effective user interface for access to CDL collections and services. In addition, he will make presentations about CDL programs to various groups, as well as participate in national discussions of issues relating to the training of users of digital content."In a cooperative endeavor such as the CDL, continuous communication with the user community and user education are of paramount importance," says Richard Lucier, University Librarian and Executive Director of the CDL. "John will regularly evaluate the needs of the CDL community and the effectiveness of our technological tools and systems in meeting those needs."
John has broad experience and knowledge in librarianship, teaching, and computer technology. Most recently, he was the Development Librarian for Electronic Resources for the Center for Science, Technology, and Information Resources/Library Learning Complex, California State University (CSU), Monterey Bay. In this position, he coordinated the technological infrastructure for the Library, as well as strategic planning and development for the Library academic program, and the collection of electronic primary sources. Previously, he served as the Acting Director, Library Systems, at UC Berkeley, where he was responsible for the operational and strategic management of the UC Berkeley Library Systems Office and acted as project manager for several digital library projects. He was also a Network Resources Librarian at UC Berkeley.
As an Instructor at CSU Monterey and an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley, John has taught courses on database management, networks and networked information, and the management of information technology. He has worked with various faculty and university committees at both institutions, given numerous presentations on digital resources, computer technology in libraries, and user training, and has written several articles and book chapters.
John received a B.A. in English/Philosophy from Bowling Green State University, an M.S. in Sociology from the University of Houston, an M.L.I.S. in Information Systems Management from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Library and Information Systems Management, also from UC Berkeley.
2. Current CDL Initiatives
In its efforts to build a core team, expand electronic collections, and facilitate access to resources for the UC community, the CDL is engaged in the following activities:a. Recruiting and hiring staff to complete the core team
As the announcement above indicates, John Ober has accepted a position with the CDL as Assistant Director, Education and Communications. The CDL is recruiting for the positions of Assistant Director, Business Development; Technical Director; Web Design Coordinator; and Special Assistant to the University Librarian.
b. Seeking additions to the STIC collection
To develop its charter collection, the Science, Technology and Industry Collection, the CDL hopes to license or acquire access to over 1,000 science journals in electronic format by the end of 1999. Science librarians on all campuses have given numerous presentations to UC faculty and are asking faculty for recommendations for journal titles for the STIC collection via a web form on the former LPAI site till April 1. The CDL is also discussing acquisition of journal titles with several publishers of electronic content. For more information on targeted publishers, consult your local STIC contact:
Charlene Baldwin, UCR (charlene.baldwin@ucr.edu) Jo Anne Boorkman, UCD (jaboorkman@ucdavis.edu) Alison Bunting, UCLA (abunting@library.ucla.edu) Katie Frohmberg, UCB (katie@library.berkeley.edu) Julia Gelfand, UCI (jgelfand@uci.edu) Christy Hightower, UCSD (chightow@ucsd.edu) Chuck Huber, UCSB (huber@library.ucsb.edu) Catherine Soehner, UCSC (soehner@cats.ucsc.edu) Brian Warling, UCSF (warling@library.ucsf.edu)
c. Planning a pilot project for patron-initiated borrowing to facilitate resource sharing
Mary Heath (Library Computing Manager, General Library, UC Davis, and a member of OPAG) and Tammy Dearie (Director, Access and Delivery Services, UC San Diego) are working with the CDL to develop a project plan for a pilot system that would permit UC faculty and students to identify and enter requests for materials at another UC campus from desktop computers; the system would automatically route requests to the appropriate library. The goal is to implement a pilot project using this request service during the 1998-99 fiscal year. For more information on the Patron Initiated Request (PIR) service under development, see http://www.lpai.ucop.edu/outcomes/cdl/.
d. Planning for access to UC technical reports in computer science
The Science, Technology and Industry Collection is designed to serve as a laboratory for CDL collection development. Thus far, efforts have concentrated on obtaining access to published electronic content. However, the STIC Task Force also recommended the addition of UC-produced content to the CDL for STIC. As a first effort in this direction, the CDL has begun considering how to facilitate electronic access to UC technical reports in computer science. Ann Jensen, from the UC Berkeley Engineering Library, is working with the staff of the CDL to develop a project plan.
e. California Digital Library: Library of California Access to Environmental Information Project
One of the goals of the CDL is to facilitate the delivery of electronic content to all residents of the state. The Library of California (LOC) represents a complementary initiative, also designed to strengthen and extend access to information throughout the state by enabling resource sharing, cooperation, and collaboration among all types of libraries statewide.
The California Digital Library: Library of California Environmental Information Project is the first attempt to bring these initiatives together in order to provide the residents of California enhanced library service through digital resources. The goals of this project, funded by an LSTA (Library Services and Technology) grant, are to (1) demonstrate the economic and intellectual benefits that can accrue through collaboration between the LOC and the CDL, and (2) explore the technological, organizational, and financial infrastructure issues involved in delivering electronic content through the CDL to participants in the LOC.
Focusing on the environment, information of widespread interest to both CDL and LOC participants, this project will establish a "front-end" Web site to make available, statewide, previously difficult to find electronic environmental resources, including selective digitized materials from the University of California collection. In addition, 31 library jurisdictions from LOC Regions II, III, and V will be selected as licensed demonstration sites for an electronic commercial information product.
Funding for the environmental project was received in February, and content is expected to become available to participating libraries this summer. Barbara Schader (UCLA) will serve as the environmental librarian for this project. An advisory board of public, school, and special librarians will assist her in project development.
f. Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO)
Twenty-three of North America's largest art museums have founded the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) to make multimedia documentation of their collections available for educational use. AMICO is a not-for-profit consortium open to institutions with collections of art. The AMICO digital library will initially be distributed in the academic year 1998/1999 in a university testbed project. The CDL plans to enter into a Distributor Developer's agreement with AMICO to provide access to this testbed of 20,000 licensed art images. Under this agreement, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, working with the CDL and UC art librarians and slide curators will distribute images in selected test projects to faculty and students within the University and possibly to users of public libraries. More information on AMICO can be found at http://www.amn.org/AMICO/.
g. Online Archive of California (OAC) Project (formerly known as the UC-EAD Project)
The UC campuses are developing a UC-wide prototype union database of encoded archival finding aids using Encoded Archival Description (EAD), an emerging standard supported by the Library of Congress and the Society of American Archivists. Archival and manuscript repositories develop finding aids such as guides, indexes, inventories, and registers to provide detailed descriptions of the content and organization of specific collections. A platform-independent electronic format using SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), EAD facilitates access to these finding aids.
The Library at UC Berkeley has been a leader in the development of the EAD standard for archival finding aids and is currently hosting the database. For more information about the project, see http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/FindingAids/uc-ead/. Users can search or browse the finding aids from the Berkeley site. Collection level records are also being added to catalog records. In the Melvyl Catalog on the web, search "california heritage" as a corporate author to see examples with links to the corresponding finding aids.
3. Information about the CDLINFO-L Listserv
The CDLINFO-L listserv is designed for UC library employees as a first step in CDL efforts to build an active communications program to inform the UC community about progress in creation of the CDL, policy issues under discussion, and newly available electronic resources.
We hope that subscribers from the UC libraries will pass on selected
information from the listserv to faculty, staff, and students on their
campuses, as appropriate. In the future, we plan to develop a
communications program to reach UC faculty, staff, and students, as well as
others outside of UC who may be interested in our activities. We are also
in the process of designing a CDL web page. In the interim, we are
maintaining the current Library Planning and Action Initiative (LPAI) web
page
Eligible subscribers: UC library employees
To subscribe: Please send the following line to listserv@listserv.ucop.edu
Frequency of publication: For the first month, the CDL plans to publish
the listserv weekly. We will then move to biweekly publication, generally
on the 1st and 15th of each month, or as new information warrants.
Communicating with the listserv: While the CDL Listserv does not accept
submissions, subscribers are encouraged to send suggestions, thoughts, and
comments on material in the listserv or on related issues to the CDL at
cdl@ucop.edu.
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