Database Transition Principles

Purpose:

To guide decisions made during the process of transitioning a database from one vendor to another.

To maintain or raise the quality of services.

To support outreach and instructional activities.

1. It is desirable to provide as many databases under as few interfaces as possible so that the campuses can share instructional materials; for easier troubleshooting by the CDL, etc.
2. Linking should be preserved and extended where possible. Specifically, this includes
• Linking to holdings in the Melvyl Catalog
• Linking to full content from all publishers licensed by the CDL and the campuses via UC-eLinks.
• Linking to the Request service
3. To provide consistency for users, proprietary vendor solutions are discouraged in favor of methods based on standards or solutions that can work with multiple vendors. For example:
• For linking to content and holdings: use of the OpenURL standard.
• For authentication: use of IP addresses or certificates rather than special accounts.
4. The level and consistency of services should be improved for all article databases licensed by the CDL (and by individual campuses) from the selected vendors. For example see the:
• Services for article databases chart
5. Arrangements with selected vendors should accommodate existing campus agreements with those vendors so that accounts, statistics, and other administrative issues are handled efficiently and with appropriate flexibility. For example:
• CDL manages the systemwide access for the OCLC FirstSearch account, and also handles the administration for any FirstSearch databases licensed by individual campuses, to ensure that users on each campus have appropriate access to all FirstSearch databases, both CDL licensed and campus licensed, via a single logon, and have a consistent interface for the databases.
6. UC should be proactive in influencing the quality of vendor user interfaces and services. For example:
• We should stay abreast of initiatives and organizations (e.g, Project Counter) which might aid in influencing vendors.
7. Priorities for influencing vendor functionality enhancements should be user-driven.
8. Vendor and database evaluation and selection processes should be based on relevant principles and criteria established by the CDL's working groups. For example:


• Resource Selection Criteria
• User Interface Principles
• Technical Requirements for for Vendors
• Database Overlap Principles
• Database Customization and Administration For UC Libraries
• Guiding Principles for CDL Education Programs