CDLINFO LISTSERV, December 7, 1999, Vol.2.No.18

CONTENTS

1. Karen Butter to Assume Leadership Position for CDL
2. "Data Warehouse" to Lead CDL Government Information Initiative
3. Access to the Compendex Plus Database Changing on January 1, 2000
4. PCI/UC Holdings Links
5. PREMEDLINE Goes Away Next Week
6. SciFinder Scholar is Coming!
7. Tools and Services Working Group: Call for Ideas
8. For More Information
   1. CDL News
   2. Contacts for Questions or Problems
   3. Information about CDLINFO

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1. Karen Butter to Assume Leadership Position for CDL

The CDL is pleased to announce that Karen A. Butter, Acting University Librarian at UCSF, will assume a position as Senior Associate in the California Digital Library, effective January 2000. She will be responsible for leadership of Request and other CDL resource sharing initiatives, working with Director of Shared Content Beverlee French and University Librarian Richard Lucier.

Karen will replace Beverlee French as leader of the Request Project Team. Other Project Team members will continue in their roles: Mary Heath (D), Tammy Dearie (SD), Laine Farley, John Ober, Sherry Willhite, and Michael Thwaites (CDL). The Project Team is just completing implementation of Phase II, which introduces article Request in abstracting/indexing databases as well as some other new capabilities.

The CDL is fortunate to have Karen return to a position of leadership in resource sharing. Karen's significant contributions to UC resource sharing efforts were instrumental in obtaining funding through the Library Planning and Action Initiative for implementation of Request. She chaired the HOPS/CDC Task Force on Access and Resource Sharing, which, among other accomplishments, oversaw the "Hughes Report" (University of California a Study of Interlibrary Loan Operations, Report to Library Council, March, 1996) and she served on the Patron Initiated Request Model Task Force while chair of HOPS.

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2. "Data Warehouse" to Lead CDL Government Information Initiative

As the next step in developing a systemwide strategy towards digital government information, the CDL has committed to establishing a CDL "Data Warehouse" by July 2000. This action is being taken in response to Andrea Sevetson's report "Developing a Strategy for Providing Access to Digital Government Information: A Framework for Action" (see [http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/sharedcoll/gii] for the charge, executive summary, and all five proposed actions) and the encouragement expressed at the recent University Librarians/SOPAG Joint meeting (November 19, 1999). The report and recommended actions were developed in consultation with the UC Government Information Librarians, SOPAG, and the CDL Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections. The Data Warehouse effort will begin immediately under the direction of CDL Senior Associate Trisha Cruse and Director for Shared Content Beverlee French.

The report's executive summary suggests that a Data Warehouse be created to provide a single, easy-to-use WWW interface through which users can easily find, combine, and use data (statistics, numeric data, and text) about population, crime, income, education, health, and other topics, without having to identify original data sources. This full-scale initiative will aggregate numeric data about California from federal, state, and local agencies, as well as from nonprofit organizations. In addition, many data sets have associated text files (codebooks, explanatory notes, articles, etc.), and these materials will also be integrated in the Data Warehouse. This project will unite data from variety of formats and media (Internet, tape, CD-ROMs, etc.) into a single user interface and will provide a mechanism for data preservation."

By taking this action, the CDL will:

• Create new knowledge and content that can be made available to the entire State - business, government, and K-12;
• Create an infrastructure or model architecture for handling large digital warehouses that may have additional applications; and
• Not only solve today's information problems, but provide long-term solutions for data access, preservation, and data migration.

The CDL will also explore two other proposed actions in conjunction with the Data Warehouse -- creating a Web-based interface to important federal data on CD-ROM and capturing California agency Internet material.

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3. Access to Compendex Plus Changing on January 1, 2000

UC's interim access to the Compendex Plus database on SilverPlatter's ERL system will end on December 31, 1999. Beginning January 1, 2000, UC users will access the Compendex Plus database directly from Engineering Information's own Web site.

As you may recall, UC's SilverPlatter access to Compendex came about by virtue of a contract with Engineering Information to license the database as a local load tape mount. Many changes ensued between the 1996 signing and the present, including the creation of the CDL and Ei's development of its own Web site as a platform to deliver access to its databases (including Compendex Plus). Ei worked with UC librarians over the past year to improve its interface. See also the item in the November 2, 1999 issue of CDLINFO [http://www.cdlib.org/news/cdlinfo/cdlinfo110299.html].

One advantage of accessing Compendex Plus via Ei's Web site is that UC users will now have access to abstracting and indexing for hundreds of additional titles via Ei Page One, Ei's other engineering database that has been merged in this Web version with the Compendex Web database. Ei Page One is a table-of-contents database with approximately 2,800 additional titles indexed cover-to-cover. (There is some overlap with INSPEC, but INSPEC is not cover-to-cover.) Compendex Web is now the world's largest multidisciplinary engineering database with 5,000,000 records, growing at 500,000 new records each year.

Ei will soon be implementing links from the Compendex Plus database to UC periodical holdings.

Ei now offers access to a wide variety of engineering information via Ei Village, to which UC will also have access. Access to Ei Village has several important advantages:

1. Access to licensed full content such as Elsevier's ScienceDirect journals via Engineering Direct (links to approximately 600 Elsevier journals available via Ei Village). Ei is in the process of adding content from many additional publishers to Ei Village, such as Institute of Physics (IoP), with which UC recently signed a contract for access to article content.
2. Online access to a large collection of industry standards, specifications, and technical books via the CSSINFO Web site, from over 300 standards publishers, many of which are downloadable in PDF format.

The URL for Ei Village is: [http://hood2.ei.org/eivill/plsql/village.serve_page?p=1280]

The URL for Compendex Web is: [http://hood2.ei.org/eivill/plsql/switch.main]

Outreach and instruction materials provided by Ei are available on the CDL's revamped "Adaptable Outreach Materials" page [http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/comm/outreach/].

UC librarians are working with Engineering Information to enhance the Compendex Plus interface to provide scholarly access to engineering materials. As you use the Ei interface and Ei Village, please direct comments to the Ei Resource Liaison, Michele Potter (michelle.potter@ucr.edu).

Watch this space for more information on other resources, such as additional publishers' full content, as they become accessible via Ei Village.

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4. PCI/UC Holdings Links

CDL's continues to work with vendors to allow links from their search results pages into the California Periodicals holdings. The PCI/UC holdings links are now available. Here's a sample search:

• Go to PCI home page (http://pci.chadwyck.com)
• Click Search Articles
• Type keyword "bassoon" in the Article Keyword Field (2nd field from the top)
• Click on the journal title "Academy" in the first record and scroll down. At the bottom, you should see a link to UC's periodicals holdings.

For external systems, there are links for ERIC and SocAbstracts (from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts). For Z39.50 databases, MLA is linked and ANTH, ARCH and ART are in test mode now. RILM, Georef, HSCI, and ESTC will be the next databases to be linked.

The Resource Liaisons have received the information on linking to pass on to external vendors. CDL also provided the information to Ethnic Newswatch, ITER, SilverPlatter, and ISI (for Web of Science).

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5. PREMEDLINE Goes Away Next Week

Remember that the Telnet PREMEDLINE database will no longer be available beginning next Monday, December 13. PUBMED, which includes PREMEDLINE content is available via the National Library of Medicine's free site at [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/].

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6. SciFinder Scholar is Coming!

Access to the world's most comprehensive database of chemical literature and patents will begin soon for CDL users. The CDL and Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) are close to finalizing an agreement that will enable UC to use SciFinder Scholar to access these CAS databases. Eight campuses will participate as co-investment partners in access to the Caplus (Chemical Abstracts) and CAS Registry databases using the SciFinder Scholar software.

SciFinder Scholar is a client-server application that provides simple point and click access to the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) databases, Chemical Abstracts, and Registry. No special training or knowledge of search command languages are required. UC users will have access to 18 ports simultaneously on a 24-hour basis with substructure searching.

Marion Peters of UCLA will be the Resource Liaison for SciFinder Scholar and the CAS databases that it accesses. Stay tuned for further information on the opening date for access to this exciting resource and how to obtain the client software.

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7. Tools and Services Working Group: Call for Ideas

The CDL Tools and Services Working Group has been working during the last year to identify areas in need of new tools and services, as well as define a process for soliciting and developing ideas. We have targeted the area of customization as the next focus for investigation, and are issuing a call for input and ideas to library colleagues throughout the UC system.

Customization within the context of resources available to UC faculty, staff, and students through either the CDL or their specific campuses represents a major step towards personalization of digital library resources. The Profile service for CDL-hosted databases is an initial step toward providing customization, but users may also benefit from the ability to customize at a broader level. Among other things, a customization tool might allow end users to do the following:

• Organize frequently used information resources in a personally meaningful way
• Create, store and manage customized "update" searches within specified resources or subject areas
• Create one-step pathways to frequently used reference tools
• Store and manage customized profiles for searches within resources such as SearchLight or the CDL-hosted databases

It might also allow library staff on UC campuses to provide the following for campus users:

• Personalized contacts for assistance with digital library resources
• Messages concerning new or updated resources
• One-step access to electronic reference and consultation services

Your Ideas and Input Are Requested

The CDL Tools and Services Working Group would like your input and ideas on how such a service might be developed within the context of the UC Libraries and how it might be useful to faculty, staff and students on your campus. We are interested in any and all thoughts about customization and profiling within the CDL.

Please use the TSWG Web form available at [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/ts/] to let us know your thoughts regarding customization within the CDL. Responses received by January 31, 2000 will form the basis for an initial proposal and subsequent campus visits.

The informational page at [http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/system_services/tswg/custom.html] provides more background on a customization tool and on the process for developing ideas for the tool, as well as a link to the submission form.

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8. For More Information

a. CDL News

Several items of interest, including "Milestones," "Highlights 1997-1998," "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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