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July 2001 Release of Content and Services

July 23, 2001 Author: CDLCategories:

a. Counting California Release

Counting California [http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org] provides UC users and the public with “one-stop-shopping” for government data and statistics about California.

In this first release of the service, researchers and the public can discover and interact with current Census 2000 and historical census data, almanac-style statistics, county business data, and a range of education, crime, election, and demographic information from nearly a dozen different sources.  Data comes from California State agencies as well as federal agencies.  Users can search by topic, geography, title, and data provider.

The recent trend of electronic distribution of data has created unintentional problems. What was once a stable system of print materials has given way to a constantly changing array of digital media, each using different formats and access methods.  Counting California relieves the frustrations of constantly changing software and data revisions by providing stable, consistent web-based search tools.

Preservation of historical data is similarly at risk.  Government agency web sites often mount new information, but may not plan to preserve historical data as each update supersedes the previous version.  Counting California employs technology standards to aggregate and describe data across time, addressing this challenge as well.

Counting California is a collaborative project funded by the Library of California and the CDL, with additional federal funding from a Library Services and Technology grant.

A diverse, multi-campus project team with participants from inside and outside the UC libraries made this release possible.  Patricia Cruse, California Digital Library, is the project manager; team members include:

  • Ilona Einowski, Social Science Data Archivist, UC Data Archive & Technical Assistance (UCB)
  • Marsha Fanshier, Software Developer, California Digital Library
  • Fred Gey, Assistant Director, UC Data Archive & Technical Assistance, (UCB)
  • Margaret Low, Programmer Analyst, California Digital Library
  • Juri Stratford, Government Information Librarian, Government Information and Maps, (UCD)

b. New Titles Available via eScholarship

Through an innovative collaboration between the California Digital Library (CDL) and the University of California Press (UC Press), more than 60 UC Press books are now freely available on the web at http://escholarship.cdlib.org.  The sixty titles are concentrated in international studies, European history, and literature.  The collection includes such diverse works as Steven Heydemann’s edited volume of essays titled War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East, Thomas J. Saunders’ Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany, and Christopher Craft’s Another Kind of Love: Male Homosexual Desire in English Discourse, 1850-1920.

The 60 works join twelve digital monographs from UC’s International and Area Studies department, and an earlier eScholarship-UC Press digital publication, Tobacco War: Inside the California Battles by Stanton A. Glantz and Edith D. Balbach.

The underlying technology for these publications relies on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard for creating highly structured and flexible publications. A major advantage of XML technology is flexibility in how books are presented onscreen, offering, for example, large print displays of all titles on demand.  The XML standard also greatly simplifies the process of keeping the material synchronized with changes in computer technology–in direct support of eScholarship’s commitment to provide persistent access to hosted content.

c. PubMed Enhancements

CDL has been working with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to provide the following enhancements to the PubMed database [http://www.pubmed.gov/]:

  • When viewing a citation in PubMed UC users will be able to link to the full-text of the article if the campus licenses the applicable years of the journal via a special URL which sets holdings to one or more UC campuses, or via the PubMed “Cubby.”
  • UC users will be able to view UC holdings and order items via the CDL Request service if no electronic copy is available or the print version is not available on their campus by using a special URL which sets the Document Delivery option (Order) to CDL or by setting their Document Delivery vendor preference to University of California via the PubMed “Cubby.”

See the CDL MEDLINE Transition Information page on the CDL Libstaff site for information about how to construct these URLS [http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/sharedcoll/a-i-trans/med/index.html]

The MEDLINE transition team is working on training materials and user documentation for PubMed.  These will be available soon.  They are also working on the evaluation of “Update” programs which can be used with PubMed to provide current awareness services.  Janice Contini (UCLA), the MEDLINE Resource Liaison leads the PubMed transition team.