CDLINFO LISTSERV, March 28, 2002, Vol.5, No.6
CONTENTS
- CDL Database Transitions
- Usability Testing Begins on the CDL Interface of Melvyl-T
- MLA Update
- New Resources Available
- Marcel Dekker Journals (Julia Gelfand, UCI)
- American Society of Agricultural Engineers Technical Library (Bob Heyer-Gray, UCD)
- For More Information
- CDL News
- Contacts for Questions or Problems
- Information about CDLINFO
1. CDL Database Transitions
a. Usability Testing Begins on the CDL Interface of Melvyl-T
The campuses will begin conducting interface usability tests on an early prototype of the Melvyl-T database beginning the week of April 1. The tests will concentrate on basics of the customized CDL interface to the Aleph system. Evaluation Liaisons at six UC campuses (UCSB, UCSC, UCSD, UCLA, UCSF, UCI) will test the search and display functions, and the terminology used in the CDL interface. UC student participants at these campuses will be provided with a series of tasks to perform and will be observed and listened to by the usability test administrator and observer. After working with three to four students at each campus, Evaluation Liaisons will then be reporting their results to the CDL. Fixes for identified problems will be folded into the next iteration of the interface.A second round of usability testing is planned for May, with Evaluation Liaisons from UCR, UCB, and UCD testing profile, registration, update, email, and fixes from the first round of testing, if possible. A third round is set for June to test the changes made in the interface following the first two rounds of testing. There may be a fourth round of testing. A roster of the campus Evaluation Liaisons is available at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/education/evaluation/evaluationliaisonroster.html
The CDL depends upon this crucial collaboration with the campuses to improve the interface of UC's union catalog, and is very grateful to the Evaluation Liaisons for their participation in this important venture.
Wider release of the Melvyl-T prototype catalog will follow these initial usability
tests and implementation of the priority changes that they suggest.
b. MLA Update
It was announced in the February 28, 2002 issue of CDLINFO that the Ovid version of the MLA Bibliography would have an overlap period with the SilverPlatter version of MLA through March 28, at which time the MLA Directory of Periodicals via Ovid was expected to be available.Ovid's timeline for incorporating the Directory has slipped, so we have asked Ovid to continue running the SilverPlatter version of MLA through the end of finals at all campuses--June 18, 2002. (Ovid Technologies and SilverPlatter have merged into one company.) There will also be a Z39.50 CDL-hosted version of MLA running through June 18. After that date, the Ovid (native) version will be the sole interface of MLA.
2. New Resources Available
NOTE: New resources listed below are not yet in the CDL Directory of Collections and Services; they will be added within the next 2 weeks. You can access them directly from the URL provided.
A list of recently added content is always available at: http://www.cdlib.org/news/whatsnew.html
a. Marcel Dekker Journals (Julia Gelfand, UCI)
A Tier II contract beginning in 2002 for fulltext content to all journals from Marcel Dekker [http://www.dekker.com] is now in place for all campuses except UCLA who was unable to participate at this time. The three-year license from 2002-2005 allows for universal access to all users for the entire journal list and supports remote access via proxy servers, allowances for ILL and will provide quarterly user statistics for each campus by title usage.The list of 79 titles from Dekker spans the disciplines of medicine, the life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering/technology. Specific subject content is found in: Agriculture, Biology, Chemistry, Dance, Earth and Geoscience, Engineering, Environment, Food Science & Technology, Library & Information Science, Management, Mathematics, Medicine, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Physics, Public Administration, Statistics.
You can search the entire content of the Dekker collection by going to the publisher's website at www.dekker.com or go to the individual journal and review the table of contents of a specific issue. At the individual journal website information includes a full citation, an introduction to the current journal editors, a description of the journal in a brief scope note, and a list of where the title is indexed and abstracted.
Shared cataloging will be forthcoming from the CDL. Currently, the 8 campuses maintain print subscriptions to many titles on the Dekker list and will have to coordinate any cancellations with Terry Vrable (CDL Acquisitions). Dekker also wants the UC librarians to consider online access to their encyclopedias later this year. A permanent Resource Liaison will be assigned to Dekker soon. In the interim if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Julia Gelfand (jgelfand@uci.edu).
b. American Society of Agricultural Engineers Technical Library (Bob Heyer-Gray, UCD)
The entire UC system now has access to the American Society of Agricultural Engineers Technical Library at [http://asae.frymulti.com/]. Bob Heyer-Gray (UCD), with the assistance of Karl Kocher and Sandi Grant (both UCD), negotiated a system-wide license for this resource.Full-text access presently includes the following publications:
- ASAE Standards
- ASAE Journals:
- Applied Engineering in Agriculture, v.15(1) 1999-
- Transactions of the ASAE, v.43(1) 2000-
- Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health, v.5(1) 1999-
- Annual Meeting Papers, 2001-
- Conference proceedings
NOTE: UC Davis researched the possibility of systemwide access to this resource
and funded the marginal cost to provide it. The CDL applauds Bob Heyer-Gray
and UC Davis for this exemplary instance of promoting and providing university-wide
shared content.
3. For More Information
a. CDL News
Several items of interest, including "Milestones," "Progress Reports," "What's New," and previous issues of CDLINFO are posted on the CDL web site (http://www.cdlib.org/) under News and Developments. Please share news of this resource with your colleagues!Remember also that reports, working documents, and status information of particular interest to library staff, are all available at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/.
b. Contacts for Questions or Problems
If you have problems accessing or using the system or have questions, including questions about the status of electronic journal collections and Internet resources, you can contact CDL staff in one of the following ways:- For immediate assistance, call the CDL Helpline at (510) 987-0555. Callers with TDD equipment, please call 1-800-735-2929 in California for the telephone relay operator.
- Send an e-mail message to cdl@www.cdlib.org.
- Click on "News" at http://www.dbs.cdlib.org/ (also known as http://www.melvyl.ucop.edu) for information about system outages, problems with particular databases, the status of a resource, etc.
For information about whether your UC campus has access to a particular electronic journal or Internet resource, contact your local collection development officer.
c. Information about CDLINFO
CDLINFO is designed to inform UC Librarians, and the UC community, about the progress 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 newsletter to faculty, staff, and students on their campuses, as appropriate. More complete information about the CDL, as well as the Directory of Collections and Services which leads to digital resources, is available at the CDL website at http://www.cdlib.org.
Eligible subscribers: UC library employees
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