David Densmore
Western Regional Sales Manager
Institute of Physics Publishing
Gordon W. Smith, Ph.D.
Director, Library Initiatives
CSU Office of the Chancellor
Brad Norris
Director of Library Programs
netLibrary
Sean O'Doherty
Western Regional Sales Manager
Ovid Technologies
Brian Warling
Web Designer
California Digital Library
IS IT POSSIBLE to hold an Internet Showcase without
Internet access? Representatives of five organizations and the audience
at this year's annual CARL conference were the involuntary subjects assembled
to prove or disprove this unusual hypothesis. Fortunately, all presenters--seasoned
professionals--came with backup presentations on disk, and although handicapped
by the lack of a "live" connection, a considerable amount of information
was communicated nonetheless. Institute of Physics www.iop.org: Axiom
David Densmore, Regional Manager for Institute of Physics Publishing, based
in Vancouver (Densmore@ioppubusa.com), described IOP's Axiom. The Axiom
service, currently hosted by a regional server in Bristol, England, was
developed especially for the two principal databases, INSPEC (1969- ) and
Compendex (1970- ). The Page One Table of Contents service (1984- ) is also
available. David demonstrated the Axiom interface, which includes three
levels of searching (quick, advanced, and expert); advanced features include
the ability to use a variety of database tools such as the controlled vocabulary,
the classification codes, and the ability to browse these fields. The system
also has a "find more like this" feature.
The primary benefit of Axiom is its electronic "supermarket" for engineering
and physical sciences. A key feature is its ability to link from the three
bibliographic databases to the full text journals published by IOP, American
Physical Society, and others. Axiom also includes the ability to link from
the full text journals back to INSPEC, even if the library is not licensing
the database, although this is a one-way link only. CSU's Pharos System
Marvin Pollard, U.I.A.S. Project Manager (marvin_pollard@calstate.edu) and
Gordon Smith (gwsmith@calstate.edu) from the CSU Chancellor's Office described
the history of the Pharos System and brought the audience up-to-date on
its implementation status. Pharos had its origins in a 1995 Request for
Information sent to the major library system vendors, followed by an RFP
in 1996 and a contract with Ameritech in July 1997. The goal of Pharos was
to provide a unified access point to all of the digital resources available
to a user of the CSU system, including a union catalog with links to the
holdings of the 22 campuses via Z39.50 gateway servers, as well as a variety
of bibliographic and full text databases, and other resources available
on the WWW.
Marvin and Gordon described the on-going development of the user interface
("a task that never ends") that must be flexible enough to handle a variety
of databases with a variety of data types, as well as provide campus-defined
links to individual resources. The interface will eventually be extended
to resources held by public libraries as part of the Library of California
project.
While the accomplishments of Pharos are substantial, including the introduction
of the Union Catalog in December 1998 with 3.5 million unique titles, a
considerable amount of development work remains. These ongoing projects
include enhancements to the user interface to incorporate Boolean searching,
developing a finer-granulated authentication capability (e.g. to allow campus
libraries to develop their own matrix of patron types and types of blocks),
patron-initiated interlibrary loan (including the ability for the end users
to check the status of their requests), and a collection development tool-kit
based on ILL traffic, statistics from book jobbers, etc., which will be
one component of a projected comprehensive reporting system.netLibrary www.netLibrary.com
Brad Norris, director of Library Programs (bnorris@netLibrary.com), gave
an overview of the innovate netLibrary's company and product line. Founded
as recently as August 1998, the Boulder, Colorado-based company now employs
220 people and is now bringing online 15 new titles per week. NetLibrary
is focusing on reference books, business and technical books, and the scholarly
press. They see their mission as revolutionizing the way people access books
and information by providing the world's most comprehensive digital library.
NetLibrary currently offers 6,650 unique titles (4,400 copyrighted works,
2,200 public domain); by end of the year they expect to be able to offer
8,000-10,000 titles.
Brad described netLibrary's pricing model, which currently follows the simultaneous
user model in which a library licenses a title which is then available for
'circulation' to one simultaneous user. Additional copies may also be licensed.
Although a new product, netLibrary has made impressive gains, having signed
agreements with several large networks such as BCR and AMIGOS, as well as
large academic library consortia, such as the University of Texas System,
OHIOLINK, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL), USC, and others.California Digital Library www.cdlib.org
Brian Warling (Brian.Warling@ucop.edu), Web Design Coordinator, represented
CDL and gave us a fascinating behind-the-scenes perspective of CDL, focusing
on the development of its Directory of Collections and Services. The directory's
goal is to be powerful and easy to use, to provide for shared creation and
maintenance among the nine campuses and the CDL, achieve the goal of "one
university, one library," and provide for campus customization--all done
in a way that is scalable.
Brian described the features and functionality involved in the development
of the directory: the content, the hierarchical subject vocabulary employed,
the databases, the campus viewpoints, and the issues involved with linking
into the directory. Recent enhancements to the directory include reducing
the number of mouseclicks needed to get to a resource, improved searching
capabilities, linking to full text in CDL-hosted databases, and the introduction
of directed help capabilities.
Future enhancements/challenges include the development of a directory management
interface, vocabulary refinements, handling access via proxy servers, and--ultimately--transition
to a new system, as the ability to perform this directory function reaches
the limits of the existing technology, especially given the demands for
distributed management of the directory function to the individual campus
level.Ovid Technologies, Inc. www.ovid.com: OpenLinks
Sean O'Doherty, Regional Sales Manager for Ovid in the Western U.S. (seano@ovid.com),
described Ovid's upcoming OpenLinks toolkit product.
In order to provide Ovid users with one-stop access to both bibliographic
and full text resources, Ovid has added OpenLinks functionality to its Web
Gateway product. Ovid's goal is to provide a toolkit that will allow Ovid
local and Online site system administrators to define links from popular
Ovid bibliographic databases to external, non-Ovid full text resources using
standard metadata available in the bibliographic citations. These links
will not be pre-calculated or generated via a production process. Instead
OpenLinks will extract the necessary information from the bibliographic
citation and reformat that data as necessary into a URL search that can
be understood by an external, full text server. When the URL link is clicked,
the Ovid system will open a second window and display the results of the
search.
The OpenLinks toolkit will be based upon Ovid's WebLinks technology, but
will include considerable added functionality to support multiple target
full text servers, and many more options for administration and customization.
The initial release of the product--due first quarter 2000--will include
predefined setups for many of the popular, full text targets and will include
OpenLinks definitions from all relevant Ovid bibliographic databases. Ovid
Online customers will be able to request OpenLinks setups and record and
update their subscriptions via web-based request forms.Sean O'Doherty
Ovid Technologies
Annual
Conference Highlights