CDLINFO LISTSERV, May 31, 2001, Vol.4, No.9
CONTENTS
- CDL Database Transitions
- Advisory Group Roles for Catalog and A&I Transitions
- Policy decisions for the Catalog Transition
- Counting California, eScholarship and PubMed to be featured in July 2001 Release
- Elsevier ScienceDirect Access to Some "Non-Subscribed" Journals Now Available
- For More Information
- CDL News
- Contacts for Questions or Problems
- Information about CDLINFO
1. CDL Database Transitions
a. Advisory Group Roles for Catalog and A&I Transitions
Citing the importance and complexity of major transitions for both the Melvyl Catalog and the CDL-Hosted A&I databases, the CDL recently asked the Systemwide Operations and Planning Advisory Group (SOPAG) to confirm their own role and those of other contributing groups.
SOPAG confirmed their role of discussion and advice on large policy issues related to the transitions (see the following CDLINFO item for an update on Melvyl Catalog policies). They also endorsed a proposal that the A&I Transition Steering Committee continue to provide assistance with implementation issues beyond the July goal for recommendations on vendor choices for the databases. Finally, they agreed that the Melvyl Catalog User's Council should continue to play a strong role in campus and partner communications about the catalog transition, whose implementation details are divided among three functional teams.
A reminder to all that background and status information on the transitions meant for library staff is available from the CDL's libstaff page (http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/), and that information for the public is available from the CDL News page (http://www.cdlib.org/news/).
b. Policy decisions for the Catalog Transition
At their most recent meeting the Systemwide Operations and Planning Advisory Group (SOPAG), discussed several of the large policy issues related to the catalog transition. They discussed possible arrangements of non-UC periodical records in separate physical or logical databases and agreed with the recommendation of the transition implementation team - presented by project manager Cris Campbell - to structure the merged CAT and PE database as a single database while seeking to use interface options to clearly identify non-UC materials or to allow for searches to be limited to such subsets.
On another policy issue, also related to scope and content of Melvyl-T, SOPAG endorsed a decision to continue accepting journal analytics records in the new catalog and to explore ways to link the analytic record to the full serial record.
An overview list of policy issues with updates as available, can be viewed along with other Melvyl-T information at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/catalog/.
2. Counting California, eScholarship and PubMed to be featured in July 2001 Release
Counting California, eScholarship and PubMed will include major enhancements in the July 18 release of the CDL web site.
- Counting California, a new research tool that provides users with "one-stop-shopping" for government data and statistics about California, will officially launch in July. Changes since the January 2001 prototype include the ability to search for datasets, the inclusion of new datasets, and changes to the look and feel of the Counting California site.
- Through eScholarship, several dozen International and Area Studies monographs will become available using the XML-based publishing infrastructure developed to provide flexible and powerful online book capabilities.
- UC users will be able to view CDL holdings information, links to UC licensed electronic content, and use the CDL Request service via the National Library of Medicine's PubMed interface.
Learn the details about each of these July 2001 enhancements by visiting the release status page: http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/july2001/.
3. Elsevier ScienceDirect Access to Some "Non-Subscribed" Journals Now Available
In response to the CDL's request, Elsevier has activated direct access to many more ScienceDirect journals. Previously UC faculty, students, and staff could access directly only those journals marked with the green "subscribed" icon; now Elsevier imprint titles with the white "non-subscribed" icon are also available. While these titles have been available before now via passwords distributed to public service units, direct access will be easier for patrons and allow realistic study of the use of these non-subscribed titles. The Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections recommended activating this feature early in the Elsevier contract.
Not all "non-subscribed" journals are available, however. Journals using the ScienceDirect platform but not published by Elsevier are excluded from this access. The publishers affected are ASM International, CRC Press, TMS, and World Scientific. Also not available are Cell Press titles which are indicated in ScienceDirect with the gray and red "partner website" icon.
Because the newly available titles are not subscribed titles, there are no hyperlinks to them in the Periodicals database for UC campuses. There are also no entries in the CDL directory for them.
Some bibliographic databases do provide generic, non-holding-specific links to full text, and those may lead patrons directly to the articles, but for the most part patrons may not realize that they can access articles published after 1995 in these journals without the assistance of InterLibrary Loan.
Access has been implemented using a fixed transactional allowance provided under the ScienceDirect contract. When you access an article from an excluded publisher or title, you will see a generalized "Transaction Error Message" which indicates that the account does not allow the transaction or that the account balance has been exhausted. If it appears, you will need to find a print rather than an online source for that specific article.
As a reminder, if you encounter a problem with an incorrectly scanned pdf for an Elsevier imprint journal, try the HTML version where it exists and use the "Feedback" link on every Elsevier page to report the specific problem article, so Elsevier can remedy the problem for later users.
4. 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.
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