Campus-based Entryways into the CDL Directory

The CDL Directory was designed to provide library web managers with the ability to create unique “entryways” into the Directory’s content.  In this way, the campus libraries are able to maintain more control over the content that can be delivered through their web sites and better reflect their libraries’ presentation.  A number of UC libraries have developed their own entryways into the CDL Directory.  The scheme for creating links into the Directory is very versatile, and provides library web managers the flexibility to create the kinds of entryways they want.  We felt it was time to highlight some their very innovative efforts.

The UC Berkeley Engineering Library electronic journals page [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENGI/ejrnls.html], for example, decided to include a search form that limits searches to electronic journals available to UC Berkeley users.  This page also includes three links to Directory browse pages, again limited to UC Berkeley electronic journals.   The UC Santa Barbara Library electronics journal page [http://www.library.ucsb.edu/ejournals/] includes links to many CDL Directory browse pages by topic.  The UC Davis Library electronic journals page [http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/cdlejrnl.html] includes a search form that limits searches to UC Davis, but it also offers a pull-down menu that takes UC Davis users to various Directory browse pages by topic.

Some campus libraries decided to use a frame-based approach so they could maintain more control over what their users see once they leave the campus sites and access the CDL Directory.  For example, the UCLA “Electronic Resources in the Sciences” ejournals page [http://www.library.ucla.edu/etext/sciences/ejournals/] includes a number of links that take users to various CDL Directory browse pages.  However, once one of these links is selected, the top part of the resulting page is a thin frame that includes a UCLA-developed pull-down menu to other topic lists.

The UCSF Library has done something similar on its GALEN II electronic journal page [http://www.library.ucsf.edu/journals/].  All links from this page (including results from the search form) are placed in frames.  The top frame includes links back to various GALEN II pages, while the bottom frame contains the CDL Directory page.  What is interesting here is that all of these frame pages are dynamically built using a CGI script.  According to Julia Kochi, the Manager of Digital Library Operations at the UCSF Library, this greatly simplified the process of building UCSF’s Directory entryway since it was not necessary to create a new HTML page for each frame-based page.

Since the CDL Directory does not yet include all resources that the campuses have licensed for their users, many libraries understandably continue to maintain their own master alphabetical lists of electronic journals and resources.   The CDL Directory Management Interface should be completed within the next few months. At that time, campus libraries will be able to add these resources to the CDL Directory themselves.  Once this is possible, campuses will have the option to use the Directory in creative ways rather than maintain long master lists. The recently completed CDL Directory Submission Pilot (see CDLINFO, August 18, 1999, Vol.2.No.12), where a number of campus libraries submitted small sets of resources for eventual inclusion in the Directory, will be instrumental in refining the DirectoryËs Management Interface.

For documentation on creating links from your library into the CDL Directory, along with links to the campus entryways the CDL currently knows about, visit [http://www.cdlib.org/hlp/directory/linking.html].  And please let the CDL know if your campus library has created its own entryway into the CDL Directory so we can add it to the list.  Contact Brian Warling (brian.warling@ucop.edu).