CDL Users Council Meeting
8 April 2002, 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Lake Merritt Hotel, Landmark Room

Attending from campuses:  Bette Anton, UCB; Abby Bridge, CHS; Carol Backhus, LBL; Hilary Burton, LLL; James Church, UCSD; Larry Currie, CAS; Susan Flanagan, Getty; Carol Gibbens, UCSB; Frank Gravier, UCSC; Gabriella Gray, UCLA; Bob Heyer-Gray, UCD; Ann Hotta, GTU; Julia Kochi, UCSF; Lizbeth Langston, UCR; Linda Weir, Hastings; Brad Westbrook, UCSD (LAUC); Christina Woo, UCI; Richard Woods, CSU Joint Committee.

Attending from CDL:  Jayne Dickson (minutes), Cristina Campbell, Catherine Candee, Robin Chandler, Patricia Cruse, Laine Farley, Rosalie Lack, Ellen Meltzer (chair), Joanne Miller (SLP), John Ober, Felicia Poe, Margery Tibbetts, Sherry Willhite

Welcome, introductions  (Ellen Meltzer)
Introduction of new members:  Susan Flanagan, Getty; Lizbeth Langston, UCR; Christina Woo, UCI; Richard Woods, CSU Joint Committee.

Review of Users Council function and organization http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/system_services/users_council/:  
•	Main role is communication to campuses.  
•	One change – previously the UC charge mentioned working with the campus focus group liaisons; these are now the evaluation liaisons.
•	Operational detail – the charge mentions that members elect a UC chair annually.  Since this group only meets annually, it was decided that this was no longer necessary.  The change will be updated accordingly.

Recap of activities since March 2001 meeting:  See handout.

CDL Organizational changes  (John Ober):  
•	New CDL UL (Dan Greenstein) arrives May 13, 2002.  Dan comes to us from the Digital Library Federation (comprised of 26 different organizations).  Currently, the UL has a dual role: UL of CDL and Systemwide Library Planning (SLP). 
•	CDL is self-organized into 6 major units: Business Development, Shared Digital Content, Education and Strategic Innovation, Digital Library Services, Digital Library Technologies, and Scholarly Communication Initiatives.  
•	Relationship to SLP: CDL is frequently an agent of SLP.  
•	Many functional groups, such as the ULs, planning groups, functional groups (HOTS, SOPAG, etc.).
•	Organized around projects: design of new catalog, A&I transitions, OAC, etc. 
 
Changes in our organization that may affect you and your role:  We are not expecting any immediate changes with Greenstein’s arrival.  He will be visiting each campus within the first month of his arrival.  A forthcoming study that Greenstein has co-authored deals with the importance of integrating library and information services into educational enterprise.   A summary of the study can be found in the March/April 2002 issue of CLIR (Council on Library and Information Resources) Issues.

Discussion ensued on how CDL could better communicate to the campuses. One suggestion:  Linkages between the SOPAG web site & CDL’s Libstaff web site.  Currently, there are no linkages between the two, and the relationship between the two is not always clear. Please consider adding these somehow.

Another suggestion:  Provide a summary of how CDL how the CDL interacts with the campuses, etc. for new campus library staff.

Question regarding the current budget situation:  Because the State and UC budgets are currently constrained, collaborative collection development is an especially high priority – much high level discussion has occurred; as yet, no action items have come from this.  SLP is working hard to keep library items as high priority within UC’s budget proposal to the legislature; historically they have been included as part of the Governor’s pact with UC.  For the fiscal year that begins in July 2002, a proposed modest increase for CDL’s budget has been removed in favor of a proposed increase in the Resource Sharing budget, that is used for collections, Request (Consortial Borrowing System), etc.

CDL System Changes
Melvyl Transition  (Cristina Campbell):  Three teams were originally set up to advise the CDL on the creation of Melvyl-T– someone from every campus is on all of the teams, although not on every team: Database and Technology team [chaired by Karen Coyle] – working on the underlying database architecture; Services team [Ann Jensen] - interface; Education/Outreach/Usability team [Ellen Meltzer] – Usability testing /publicity/training.

Usability testing is currently taking place on 6 campuses on a 630 K test database. CDL technical staff is setting up the new version of the catalog in the Unix environment, which is quite different from the current IBM mainframe environment.  

An additional complication is that we are using an as yet unreleased version of the Ex Libris software.  This is the first version of the software that is frameless (necessary for ADA compliance).  
 
The full production catalog will include 24 million records (by comparison, LC only contains 12 million).  All 9 campuses will be sending new snapshots of their holdings.  Campuses will send records to    CDL’s FTP site in 50,000 record chunks.  The records must then go through many complex processes.  The first version of the production catalog (up in Fall 2002) will contain only UC contributors.  

Record input standard has been revised to match MARC21 with imbedded holdings in the 852 field.  Campuses have been asked to switch to the new standard the next time they update their vendor system or version.

As part of a review of non-UC contributors to Melvyl, a survey was done on the nine campuses, to elicit comments on the value of non-UC monographic contributors.   A parallel survey about non-UC periodicals contributors will now be done.  Current sources include: CULP, Serhold and some contributors to CALLS.

Currently, legacy Melvyl is scheduled to be retired on June 30, 2003.

A&I Database Transition  (Laine Farley):  There are three things to focus on – this summer, UC-eLinks, Resource Liaisons.

The A&I transition process breaks down into four phases - selection of vendors, implementation, teaching/publicity, and finally, retiring the existing databases.  We are well into 2nd phase; we have announced all of the new versions of databases except for three.  Two of these three databases will be announced this week, Current Contents and INSPEC.  BIOSIS is currently being reloaded by Ovid and will be released in a short while.  UC-eLinks is the key strategy for this whole transition.  It allows us to provide the same services that users have been accustomed to with our interface.  For example, when the UC-eLinks feature was turned on for the CSA interface, this feature was made available for all CSA databases, including those that are only subscribed to locally.  UC-eLinks are now available to 25 CSA databases, for both systemwide and campus- licensed subscriptions.

Update on specific vendors:
OCLC:  We are currently testing UC-eLinks with the OCLC databases.  The Transition Steering Committee (TSC) recently gave approval to add UC-eLinks to the production OCLC databases.  This means that users will now be able to make an ILL/DDS Requests directly from WorldCat.  This has not been previously available to UC users.
RLG:  RLG has a new interface coming out; UC-eLinks will be available soon; and “Go to it now” buttons will be a thing of past. Contact your TSC member if you’d like to have training at your campus.

The TSC has been working on the following activities throughout the A&I Transition process: 
•	Implementation principles – dealing with vendor customization issues; overlap principles—determining the ideal time frame for continuing the old version of a database while starting up a new one, etc. 
•	Linking to reference services – determining what the options are for doing this from a specific resource.  We will be asking the Resource Liaisons to assist with this process.
•	Revising the top and bottom menus on the welcome screen for the CDL-hosted databases (http://www.dbs.cdlib.org).  The TSC and CDL have generated some ideas to slightly revamp these pages in order to highlight the new databases and de-emphasize those that are retiring.  CDL will be doing mock-ups of these and will present these to the UC liaisons for feedback.
•	Summer -- We want to have as much as possible working correctly for as many of these databases as we can. Many vendors plan to implement changes around ALA so the summer is really the best time to start the planning process for rolling these databases out in fall.
•	Some campuses have definite plans for teaching the new databases.  The TSC will continue to have discussions as to the best way to do this.  
•	As you start to use the new versions of databases, when you discover things you don’t like, contact us in the usual way (send email to cdl@www.cdlib.org or call the CDL Helpline at 510.987.0555) or contact the Resource Liaison for the resource.  A list of Resource Liaisons is available here: http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/sharedcoll/liaisons/liaisons.html  We are working toward a model in which the Resource Liaison is the person to contact when you encounter issues or problems with a particular vendor’s resource.  
•	A Best Practices Workshop II (on UC systemwide instructional issues) is being planned.  Many campuses are interested in having a workshop that would address the A&I Transition issues (more practical and less theoretical than the previous workshop).  
•	Also, CDL staff are willing to make campus visits to discuss any issue the campuses are concerned about.  Let Laine Farley (laine.farley@ucop.edu) know what you feel would work best for you.

UC-eLinks (SFX) Implementation  (Margery Tibbetts):  The three services we are initially aiming for are full text, campus holdings and Request (ILL/DDS or Document Delivery Service).  A specific level or threshold of citation metadata is necessary to provide any of these services.  Document delivery has a much higher threshold so some of the databases that come online have had the UC-eLinks services in production without the Request feature available.  We continue to work with each vendor to provide the metadata necessary to provide these three core services.  If full text is available, the link for the Request serve does not display. 

In the future, the Tools and Services Working Group (TSWG) will be the primary source for requesting new services (links to citation indexing, links to holdings in the campus system, links to the Web, etc.

All RLG databases will include the UC-eLinks button/services when RLG’s new interface becomes available in production.  Here again, it will be the first time that the Request feature is available for the RLG databases.

Remember that when you find problems with any of the UC-eLinks services, please let us know about them.  The new version of SFX/UC-eLinks will include a feedback button that will contain the information on the problem citation.  Initially, these feedbacks will go to Margery Tibbetts for debugging purposes.  Thereafter, these will fold into the usual CDL feedback stream.

CDL has become a member of CrossRef, a publisher initiative, on behalf of the UC campuses.  The UC-eLinks services (getFullText) that go to CrossRef resolve to DOIs (Digital Object Identifier) that link to the full text of articles at the publishers web site.  The IEEE journals will be available just like any other ejournal; there will be article level links available for these in all of the A&I databases, not just in INSPEC.  Additionally, we will have article level links, rather than journal level links, for the Nature titles.  
CDL is working on a multi-item request feature that will address many of the concerns that are arising as we move from our interface, such as the ability to see holdings for multiple items at one time.  In the future, CDL will be able to provide links for campus-specific services.
 
Education/Usability  (Ellen Meltzer):  See handout. Highlights include: UC/CDL Instructional Strategies Tip Sheets; DLINSTRUCT-L listserv (instructional listserv); the Adaptable Outreach and Instruction web page where campus library staff instructional guides are located. UC librarians specifically want access to teaching materials that they can adapt n their campuses.  An upcoming publication associated with Melvyl-T (coming when the prototype is released) will be available soon.  Also, send your ideas/suggestions for the “Best Practices Workshop II” to Ellen Meltzer (ellen.meltzer@ucop.edu).

Consortial Borrowing System [CBS]  (Sherry Willhite):  Currently, the Request service/ILL resolver handles automated checking, authentication, etc.  OCLC handles the routing and fulfillment of the ILL requests.  CDL has purchased Fretwell-Downing’s (FDI) Virtual Document exchange (VDX) system for Request/ILL use by the UC campuses.  Once it is fully implemented it will replace OCLC for all intra-UC transactions and interact with OCLC for non-UC borrowing and lending.  We are in the implementation process right now.  Hopefully, all campuses will be using VDX by the end of May for this year.  Initially, we will only use this for borrowing; later, we will be using this system for both borrowing and lending.  The system includes enhanced features both for interlibrary services units and for end users.

A billing component is being designed for automatic billing; currently, many of the campus ILL units must process their billing manually.  The Desktop Delivery (DTD) component is going live next week.  

At the present time, the interaction between the VDX system and Ariel (image scanning software used for desktop delivery) is problematic.  CDL and FDI are working with RLG to resolve these problems.  NLM is in test now so that ILL units will be able to use the VDX system rather than DOCLINE, and thus have a single stream of ILL work.

VDX will include a blank form available on their system into which users can enter ILL and DDS requests that did not come from one of the CDL/vendor databases.  Users will also be able to check the status of their interlibrary loans the same way they check their library accounts now.  This feature will be available with the next release of VDX software (due this summer).  Plans are to have these in place for the fall quarter/semester unless FDI’s schedule slips.

Website and Directory; Access Integration Task Force  (Laine Farley):  The purpose of the Access Integration Task Force was to consider the best way to integrate all of our various discovery tools including catalogs, databases, as well as integrating the resources made available via CDL’s Directory of Collections & Services (licensed by UC systemwide) with campus-licensed materials.  Steve Toub visited campus library web teams last fall and some topics of campus interest were:  usability, e.g., finding labels that end-users can easily understand; the idea of the “campus owning” the relationship with the end-user (often via campus branding); electronic resources (the speed with which resources can be added, presented); the concept that web services are not the responsibility of one person on the campuses, but rather a team; venue for sharing campus challenges/solutions.

SOPAG continues to consider the practical issues uncovered by the Access Integration Task Force.  Steve Toub (CDL) will be redesigning the CDL web site (the CDL [publicly available] informational pages, the internal libstaff pages, and the CDL Directory of Collections & Services.

Steve would like feedback on the following.  The Status of Services web page  http://www.cdlib.org/status/  How is this working for campus staff?  Also, when is the best time to release the redesigned the CDL site given all the other 2002/2003 releases?

ACTION: Get back to Steve (steve.toub@ucop.edu) with any ideas/suggestions you may have.
Status of other CDL projects
Counting California  (Patricia Cruse):  Counting California is a free online service that integrates data from Federal and State agencies.  It has been designed to appeal to a wide range of users, K-12, businesses, etc.  Counting California currently includes 18 different data sets  (titles).  Counting California is pleased to announce the release of Census of Population and Housing, Census 2000, Summary File 1 from the U.S. Census Bureau. Census 2000, Summary File 1 is the second dataset (see also Census 2000 Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171)) added to Counting California from the Census Bureau's Census 2000 series. Census 2000, File 1 provides data on personal, social, and economic characteristics of the California population and information on physical and financial characteristics of residential dwellings. Included are: 
1.	Population counts for 63 race categories and Hispanic or Latino, 
2.	Population counts for many detailed race and Hispanic or Latino categories, and American Indian and Alaska Native tribes, and 
3.	Selected population and housing characteristics.

Census 2000 assessed race differently from previous censuses.  Census 2000 respondents were asked to choose one or more of five racial categories – there are now 63 racial classifications.  The CDL is evaluating how to present this new view of racial data to the end user.  

ACTION: Please send any suggestions you may have to patricia.cruse@ucop.edu.

Along with adding Census 2000 information, CDL is working on integrating text into Counting California; currently, only data tables are available.  Many of Counting CA’s datasets have corresponding full text materials – i.e. Poverty Report based on Census 2000 poverty data.  These materials will be made available directly from Counting CA.  CDL is also working on making more specific geographic data available (currently, only city and county information is available).  In the coming months “lower level” geographies be added to Counting CA in order to analyze specific neighborhoods.

Trisha is willing to visit any campus that would like further information/training on Counting California.  

eScholarship  (Catherine Candee):  When CDL began in 1997, part of the initial charge included providing a comprehensive system of scholarly information.  eScholarship works to fulfill this part of the charge.  The eScholarship Repository is the newest feature of eScholarship that is now available.  See handout or http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/

One struggle of eScholarship is determining what technology can scale to full production levels.  There is a strong case to be made for all universities investing up-front in this type of initiative.  

Experimentation:  eScholarship was one of the first to publish a monograph in XML.  We are now converting 66 UC Press monograph titles into XML; these are freely available to the public.  Our other partnerships are with societies, such as the Optics Society of America.

Online Archive of California  (Robin Chandler):  The Online Archive of California (OAC) is a database of finding aids and the digital content associated with it.  Finding aids are well understood by archivists, but not by the end-users.  In July 2002, the OAC will have a new interface and “portal” in order to more clearly display this type of information.  The underlying architecture will be in DLXS.  The speed of retrieval and the navigation of OAC will be vastly improved with this new release.  

In the next year, we hope to provide searching for the digital objects that is separate from the finding aids themselves.

CDL continues to add more content to the OAC.  “California Cultures” is a new project that will document the major ethnic groups in the state.  We are preparing to begin scanning the images and text for this project now.  

We are testing a new schema for three levels of finding aids as part of OAC Best Practices Guidelines for Encoding New Finding Aids (June 2001).

SearchLight  (Sherry):  At this point in time, we are not adding any new resources to SearchLight.  However, we will be moving links to any of the transitioning databases in SearchLight during the first week in July from the CDL-hosted version to the vendor version.  Initially, some of the new versions of these databases will come up without instant gratification.  We will continue to work with vendors to make this available where possible. [Note: Instant gratification is when a user goes directly to the database and sees the search results for their SearchLight search on screen. When there is no instant gratification, a user is taken to the database and then needs to re-key the search on the vendor system.]

How do you want us to communicate changes in SearchLight to the campus library staff? 
The consensus was that CDL should send updates to the Users Council, and then replay these in CDLINFO.  Sherry will send an update that covers changes from the last six months to Users Council as soon as possible.

Decisions about SearchLight: 
How are you using SearchLight now?  Are you teaching it?  If we are only using it now as an undergraduate tool, maybe we need to reframe this and move on.  We need to think about how to further develop this resource.  Sherry would like responses from each library on campus, if possible, so that we can understand more about how SearchLight is used.  Sherry will send further information/instructions about this topic in the future.

Focus group testing was conducted at UCLA and UCSB for SearchLight.  There was no overall consensus on SearchLight.  It seems that the feeling was that there was definite potential for the tool but that no one was overly excited about it.  Most end-users complain that they don’t hear that these tools exist.

CDL Evaluation/Usability Activities  (Rosalie Lack):  Most evaluation activities are reported on the Evaluation Activities web page (http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/education/evaluation/).

Websurveyor is an online survey tool that is available for use by the UC campuses.  Contact Rosalie Lack (rosalie.lack@ucop.edu) for more information.

“CDL Web Feedback Trends” are available on this web page as are the results of any usability testing the CDL does.  This page also includes usage statistics reports and summaries.

Users Council – Heads up on future tasks
•	Look for more detailed information on the upcoming SearchLight tasks.  
•	Remember to send feedback regarding problems with UC-eLinks.  Until the next version of the UC-eLinks menu that includes the feedback button becomes available, send these to cdl@www.cdlib.org or margery.tibbetts@ucop.edu.
•	Now that we are getting closer to the vendor versions being in production, look for more requests for feedback on CDL’s web interface, e.g., slight redesign of the welcome page.  
•	Also, don’t forget to think about Steve’s questions about the timing of the CDL’s web site redesign release.

Other concerns, questions, etc.  Can prose from the Gale Group’s web page (that provides a better description of the content of Expanded Academic Index ASAP), be used as the description of this database as it appears on CDL?  We should be able to change this.

Regarding updates for the Gale Group’s databases, will the Gale Group consider providing ‘passive’ updates rather than ‘active’ updates?  Frank Gravier, Resource Liaison for Gale Group, will inquire again about this possibility.

Campus round-robin discussion:  Any idea on the best way to report on topics via this type of discussion?  CDL should notify the Users Council representatives in advance of the questions we are interested in.  For example, CDL could send a series of questions to which we want answers so that liaisons can be prepared.  Also, prioritize the topics CDL is interested in.  

Evaluation activities:  If you come across something, such as a web site or search engine or tool, that seems better or that works exceptionally well, send examples to Rosalie Lack (rosalie.lack@ucop.edu).    

Remember to send any good user guides/tip sheets that are available at your campus to the DLINSTRUCT-L@ucop.edu listserv.  Also, any topic ideas for the Best Practices Workshop II should be forwarded to Ellen Meltzer (ellen.meltzer@ucop.edu).