CONTENTS
- CDL Opens January 20, 1999 -- features Directory, Update, and Request
- Changed Looks -- Melvyl Catalog, California Periodicals, and A&I Databases
- OCLC's WorldCat is Available
- Shared Collections Survey by Alan Ritch, UCSC
- Evolution of the CDL Directory of Collections and Services
- For More Information
- CDL Milestones
- Contacts for Questions or Problems
- Information about the CDLINFO-L Listserv
1. CDL Opens January 20, 1999 -- Features Directory, Update, and Request
Several important new tools for discovery and access will be released along with the opening of the CDL Website (http://www.cdlib.org) on January 20th, 1999.The browsable and searchable Directory of Collections and Services is a core component. The Directory will provide unified access to electronic journals, databases, and finding aids in the Online Archive of California, plus descriptions of services. It will serve as a new entrance point to the Melvyl Catalog and California Periodicals Databases and to the many CDL-hosted abstracting and indexing databases. It will provide new access to finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
The Directory eventually will be collaboratively maintained. (See item #5 below for further information about the evolution of the Directory and its underlying vocabulary.) Upon release it will permit a "campus view" of available digital resources at the user's choice. (See the Directory's User Guide for more information.) Specific views, including subject-based views, can also be created for a particular library's "entrance" to the CDL.
UPDATE is an automated process that performs weekly searches on selected databases. On January 20th it becomes available via the web. The results contain records that have been added to the system in the previous week. Results are saved online as Update Results and may also be emailed to the user. Only UC faculty, staff, and students may use the Update service. Each user must first set up a Personal Profile with which the Updates will be identified. Then Updates will be run from searches that are selected from the user's Search History, which is automatically saved in the Personal Profile.
The Update function can be used with most of the CDL-hosted databases. CDL-hosted databases with an @ in the name (e.g., PREMEDLINE@NLM) will not be available for Updates.
REQUEST, known during development as patron initiated requesting (PIR), will also be available with the opening of the CDL. When a user clicks on displays a record, the Request button will appear in the cluster of action buttons (Print, Mail, Download, Save, etc.). Clicking on Request will take the user to a form to complete in order to initiate the requesting process. Only UC faculty, staff, and graduate students will be able to use Request. An authorized user may borrow books not owned by his or her campus libraries. If the user is eligible for campus document delivery service, Request can also be used to borrow books that are owned by the campus libraries. (Document delivery service, however, is not available at all campuses.)
Consult your "PIR Liaison," ILL staff, or the website at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/pir for more information.
Users can continue to use and test the pre-release site at http://www2.cdlib.org/ until January 20.
2. Changed Looks for the Melvyl Catalog and A&I Databases
The graphics currently used for the Melvyl Catalog, California Periodicals Database, and the CDL-hosted abstracting and indexing databases will be updated in January to fit into the new CDL web site graphic design. For example, the CDL logo will appear in the upper left corner of the page and will serve as a link to the CDL Web. It is important to stress that functionality will remain the same (other than the addition of "Update" and "Request"). Only the graphic design and the location of some descriptive information will change. A full description of these changes has been sent to various groups, including HOPS and the User Services Group.With a constantly growing collection of resources, and new and evolving tools to use them, the historical distinction between a monolithic "Melvyl System" and "everything else" is less and less useful to describe UC-shared digital collections. The graphics and location changes that are taking place in conjunction with the January 20th CDL opening are the initial steps in a transition that will create a distinction between the Melvyl Union Catalog and other content, services, and tools. The CDL hosts not only the Melvyl Catalog and California Periodicals databases and abstracting and indexing databases, but other databases such as the Online Archive of California finding aids, as well as various access and discovery services and associated tools for these and other resources.
We realize that this transition will take some time and has far-reaching implications for describing, presenting, and teaching the use of these resources. Continued collaboration with campus staff, such as the discussion and endorsement of the overall strategy by SOPAG at their November meeting, is critical to a successful transition. In early January, we will begin several strategies that reinforce this collaboration, including soliciting your concerns, producing adaptable descriptive materials, and announcing plans for CDL Update sessions.
3. OCLC's WorldCat is Available
WorldCat is OCLC's Online Union Catalog, and contains over 32 million records in all disciplines from approximately 12,000 libraries worldwide. Citations for books, journals, manuscripts, maps, music scores, sound recordings, films, computer files, newspapers, slides, videotapes, etc., are in a variety of languages. Dates range from 1,000 AD to the present, and the database is updated daily. Users can limit searches by date, language, and form.Search options, the database description, and general help screens have been carried over, as much as possible, to be consistent with information in the Telnet version.
Because of its size, searches may retrieve hundreds of records. For smaller result sets, one may want to search the Melvyl Catalog (CAT) or the California Periodicals (PE) databases first.
To locate items in search results at UC or other California libraries, use the CAT or PE databases.
4. Shared Collections Survey by Alan Ritch, UCSC
The CDL Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections (JSC) met on December 8 to review the results of the digital collection development survey distributed during the summer and fall to bibliographers in the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Area Studies. The results of the survey reflect the expertise, energy, and interest of the two hundred UC subject specialists who participated.The survey was sent to about twenty bibliographer "consultants," each responsible for seeking from librarian and faculty colleagues in their discipline suggestions on three kinds of digital content: resources available for purchase or licensing from external vendors (commercial content); valuable and stable resources freely available via the world wide web (open access content); and University of California resources, textual, visual, or recorded, which ought to be converted into digital form (UC content). The survey results will soon be posted on the CDL Web page at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/sharedcoll/surveys.html.
The survey was successful in increasing UC librarian and faculty awareness of the CDL's mission and purpose and in harnessing subject expertise to create lists of worthy candidates for inclusion in the CDL.
The survey was the first step in this selection process. Each of its three parts will be handled differently.
The "UC content" will be reviewed at the JSC's January meeting, in consultation with Brian Schottlaender in his role as Senior Associate for the Development of Primary Content in association with the Online Archive of California. The "open access content" will be discussed at the JSC's February meeting, in the light of progress in CDL Web design and expected progress in systemwide coordination of cataloging of digital resources.
The challenging process of refining the list of "commercial content" (300 recommended titles) has already begun. Several of these resources have already been licensed for the CDL (e.g., JSTOR, Web of Science, Project Muse, Bibliography of the History of Art, and Bibliography of Asian Studies). The group plans to defer several titles that are still available only as CD-ROMs. It seems likely that some will soon move to the web access, which has clear economic, technical, and access advantages. Other titles will not be considered immediately because they are already adequately accessible at campuses that need them. Several questions can be applied to the long list of remaining items. Was the item requested for several different subjects? How highly was a title ranked within a given subject? Does its content have proven value? Does digital format offer significant added value? Is its estimated cost reasonable? Will its acquisition encourage progressive providers (e.g., not for profit publishers)? Were UC faculty involved in the creation of its content? In more general terms, the JSC will try to maintain a balance between reference tools and full text content, and will require for each acquisition a compelling rationale based on CDL's broader collection policies.
Since the descriptive detail and method of ranking varied greatly among the survey responses, not all of these questions could be answered immediately. However, the JSC expects to identify in each of the disciplines one or several items that satisfy enough of these selection criteria to recommend systemwide acquisition.
A preliminary list of over twenty titles mentioned in two or more responses has already been developed. The final list of items recommended for a first phase of CDL collection development in the social sciences and humanities will be compiled following further advice from the bibliographer consultants. Titles on this list will be assessed in terms of possible consortial discounts, license language, and verifiable performance.
The JSC welcomes additional information about resources already recommended, especially as these become available in formats that are more manageable in the CDL context, and will seek further guidance on how these and other newly recommended titles should be ranked. Since the acquisition list is likely to remain dynamic and flexible for the forseeable future, the CDL will continue to depend on and appreciate the invaluable advice of subject experts from throughout the UC system.
5. Evolution of the CDL Directory of Collections and Services
The CDL has received a number of questions over the past few weeks about the process used in developing the CDL Directory of Collections and Services. We hope that this note helps to answer at least some of your questions. If you have had a chance to try out the Directory on the pre-release CDL web site (http://www2.cdlib.org/), you know that it can be used to locate and access the wide variety of digital resources available through the CDL. These resources are in many forms, including electronic journals, databases, and archival finding aids. The Directory supports both browse and search as methods for locating CDL resources.In addition to the description below about the construction of the vocabulary to date, we want to emphasize that the Directory and its vocabulary will continue to be collaboratively built and that suggestions for improvement will be sought and welcomed.
To support the discovery of CDL resources by topic browsing, it was necessary to develop a broad topic vocabulary. In developing the CDL vocabulary, we reviewed many of the vocabularies currently in use on the campus libraries' web sites and OPACs and tried to incorporate most of their terminologies. We also consulted standard classification schemes, such as DDC, UDC, and the LC classification. We decided on a hierarchical approach for the CDL vocabulary so that users would be able to pull together lists of resources from many levels of specificity. For example, the Project Muse journal "Theater Topics" would appear to a user browsing under any of these three topics: Arts and Humanities (1st level); Performing Arts (2nd level); and Theater (3rd level). Users are not required to select the most specific topic to view a list of resources. It is important to keep in mind that the main purpose of the CDL vocabulary is to facilitate browsing within the CDL Directory by broad topic categories. The vocabulary is not designed to promote precise subject searching. It is actually more akin to a classification scheme, such as the LC or Dewey Decimal classifications, than to a true thesaurus, such as LCSH. We are not attempting to replicate functionality that perhaps exists in other systems (e.g., library catalogs), but to create new functionality -- namely, browsing by broad topic -- that does not currently exist in most library systems.
Ideally, the CDL would have liked much more time to discuss plans for the CDL Directory with campus library staff. However, numerous factors were responsible for compressing the development period to less than five months: Recruitment of the CDL staff was still underway as late as June 1998. The various consultative and advisory structures were still being created. And the January 1999 release of CDL web site (with a pre-release to UC library staff in November 1998) had been set. The CDL had to move very quickly. In August, the CDL asked for some directed feedback and advice on various aspects of the proposed Directory specifications from a large and diverse group of campus library staff involved in web development. The University Librarians and SOPAG also contributed names to this group. To provide some background information, a "prospectus" was written (see http://www.cdlib.org/directory/prospectus.html) that provided more detail on the development plans for the CDL Directory. The members of this informal group represented many library functions, including public service, cataloging, and systems. Many members provided invaluable advice on many facets of the Directory specification, including the classification vocabulary, navigational schemes, and the graphic design.
Since the pre-release of the CDL web site in November, we have received a number of comments and suggestions from the UC library community. For example, the OAC Metadata Standards Working Group provided substantial assistance in improving the CDL vocabulary in the Arts and Humanities. Science librarians helped us tighten the vocabulary in the sciences. After the public release in January, as we gain more experience and learn from user testing, and, more importantly, as new CDL collections are developed, we will no doubt need to refine the vocabulary. Early in 1999 the CDL will be working to build a process for the long-term maintenance of the Directory and its underlying vocabulary. This process will need to involve a wide range of UC library expertise, including public services librarians, catalogers, bibliographers, and systems staff. It is very important to keep in mind that nothing is set in stone. As we all know too well, "change" is a constant in this environment.
We are very glad to receive comments and suggestions about the Directory and underlying vocabulary (available at http://www.cdlib.org/directory/vocabulary/). However, with the holidays here and the inevitable post-holiday push to release the CDL web site in January, we probably will not be able to incorporate many changes between now and the January 20 release date. As mentioned above, the CDL will definitely begin work on building a structured approach, with plenty of campus input, for maintaining and refining the Directory and vocabulary into the future.
6. For More Information
a. CDL Milestones
CDL Milestones are now posted on the CDL informational web site at http://www.cdlib.org/ under News and Developments. Please share news of this resource with your colleagues!b. Contacts for Questions or Problems
If you have problems accessing or using the Melvyl 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 melvyl@www.melvyl.ucop.edu
- Click on "News" on the Melvyl Web system 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 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. As a next step in developing 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 have launched a web site (http://www.cdlib.org) with descriptive information about the CDL.In addition, interested parties can access the now-frozen Library Planning and Action Initiative (LPAI) Web site http://www.lpai.ucop.edu, which holds historical documents about the LPAI process.
Eligible subscribers: UC library employees
To subscribe: Please send the following line to listserv@listserv.ucop.edu
SUBSCRIBE CDLINFO-L /your name/
Frequency of publication: Biweekly, 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.