CDL Tools and Services Working Group

CDL UL Richard Lucier has charged the CDL Tools and Services Working Group with focusing on tools and services for sharing, accessing, manipulating, and integrating scholarly content in all forms.  The Working Group evolved from discussions with the Systemwide Operations and Planning Group and the Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections as an appropriate structure for ensuring that tools and services are available for each collection.

Examples of tools include search interfaces, profiling or customizing options, mechanisms to download search results, links between metadata and primary content, and options to request items.  Specialized tools may emulate traditional tools used by various disciplines, or they may break ground by working with digital content in new ways.  Tools also may be facilities that are invisible to the user but contribute to the smooth functioning of the system.

The development of some digital collections is dependent upon the availability of appropriate tools and cannot proceed until they are in place.  Just as a strategy and overall framework were defined for developing the collections, similar guiding principles are needed for the development of high quality tools and services.  There is also a desire to reduce duplication of tool development and leverage initiatives begun by individual campuses that might benefit all campuses.  Therefore, the group will take a systemwide and inclusive viewpoint to this effort.

Please join the CDL in welcoming the following members of this important Working Group:

Laine Farley, CDL, Chair
Bill Landis, UCI
Margaret Mooney, UCR
Catherine Soehner, UCSC
Susan Starr, UCSD
Roy Tennant, UCB
Brian Warling (ex officio), CDL