Principles for the Ongoing Development of UC-eLinks

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to:

• Guide the decisions that must be made during the process of implementing, maintaining, and expanding the functionality of the UC-eLinks service menu.
• Establish values that will raise the quality of UC-eLinks services.
• Inform outreach and instructional activities.

Strategies

Services that are offered through UC-eLinks:

• Links to full text in ejournals and databases
• Links to holdings
• Links to Request
• Links to help
• Links to other services

Appropriate groups (e.g., Heads of Public Services, Resource Sharing Committee, SOPAG, etc.) will guide planning for the expansion of the services offered through the UC-eLinks service menu.

Principles

1. The UC-eLinks icon will appear in a visually consistent manner across all UC licensed databases, the Melvyl Catalog, and any WorldCat Local (WCL) instances. If the system cannot support the icon, then a text link will be used.
2. In UC licensed databases, the UC-eLinks icon will be displayed with each record in the results set.
3. Links to full text will be made at the most specific level possible (article, issue, volume, title).
4. The sequence of the categories of services, within the UC-eLinks menu will be consistent across all UC instances of UC-eLinks. As services are added, a revised sequence of service categories will be determined and applied.
5. It should always be possible to navigate back to the source retrieval screen from the UC-eLinks menu screen; currently, this is best satisfied by having UC-eLinks menu always open as a new window, when possible.
6. The UC-eLinks interface will conform, as much as possible, to the practices described in the W3C web content accessibility guidelines, the federal section 508 guidelines, etc.