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January 2000 Release of the CDL

January 6, 2000 Author: CDLCategories:

In keeping with the goal of establishing semi-annual releases of new features and enhancements to the CDL, the third release of the CDL, following the January 1999 opening, is available as of January 6, 2000 and includes the new content, services, and changes noted below.

The CDL is appreciative of the many constructive comments from library staff and patrons — given via focus group sessions, campus visits, feedback forms and email — that have contributed to these enhancements.  We are also very grateful to our “co-library” partners, including the members of the many working groups and project teams, who have advised and helped to create these improvements.

The enormous work that led to this release involved too many individuals to name separately.  CDL groups who deserve special congratulations include the digital library services staff, the database development staff, the online development staff, the PIR project team, the SearchLight project team, and the Tools and Services Working Group.

Additions and Enhancements

With the January 2000 “release” of the CDL, significant new services and content became available for library patrons.  Of particular interest are:

SearchLight

A tool for searching across many book, journal, and reference databases simultaneously.  It facilitates “one-stop shopping”, or it can be used to explore the most promising resources when working in an unfamiliar subject area.  It has been customized for each campus to reflect resources available to that campus.

Request

Enhancements to the “Request” service for convenient automatic requests by UC faculty, graduate students, and staff include the following:

  • Articles found in many CDL-hosted journal databases may now be requested.  Users will be alerted when the full content of articles is available online.
  • Books held locally may be requested from another campus if they are missing, withdrawn, or checked out from your campus (for campuses with links to circulation status: UCD, UCI, UCR, UCSC, UCSD, and UCSF).
  • Users may request a total of 20 books per day (up from 10) and a total of 20 articles from all databases.

New Content

Recent additions for the UC community increase coverage in engineering through Ei Village database services, and in science and social science with over 240 electronic journals from Wiley and 32 titles from the Institute of Physics.

Experimental and Applied Research Resources

Content and services featuring cutting edge technology and the results of research partnerships.  The Alexandria Digital Library of maps, aerial photographs, a place-name gazetteer, and other geo-spatially referenced information debut as new experimental content.  SearchLight (see above) is the debut experimental search service.

UC Press Electronic Editions

Include the full content of approximately 60 UC Press books available via links in search results of the Melvyl Catalog.

Enhanced Discovery Tools

The CDL-hosted Databases interface, which includes access to the Melvyl(c) Union Catalog, now includes a drop-down menu for easy linking to other journal databases.  Improvements to the CDL Directory of Collections makes identifying databases and electronic journals easier and includes clear information about availability. SearchLight allows simultaneous searching across many databases.