California State University Unified Information Access System (UIAS)

Status Report April 2007

The interface to the Catalog of the CSU libraries has been enhanced to offer OpenURL support. This has allowed CSU libraries to interface the holdings of the nearly 15 million titles in the CSU libraries with electronic sources and the Illiad interlibrary loan management system. Users can check on local availability or transfer data to fully populated request forms using this mechanism. New servers are being installed at our data center in Los Alamitos that will host the web interface to the Catalog of the CSU libraries. The servers providing the web interface in the CSU libraries will be retired this summer once the migration to the new servers is completed. The new servers have processors that run six times faster than the existing servers hosting the catalog’s web application.

As of February 2006, the CSU Catalog contains 4,988,473 bibliographic records representing 14,674,058 titles held in CSU libraries.   

http://130.150.202.53:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=cpo 

MetaLib 4 will incorporate clustering of search results. Vivisimo’s Velocity clustering application - http://vivisimo.com/ - has been licensed to provide this new functionality in MetaLib version 4.00.

Clustering overlays a user’s search results Clusters organize search results into topic categories Each search result may appear in multiple clusters

Clustering Benefits:

Enables users to analyze their search results at a glance Exposes new or related topics for user Enriches the user’s ability to navigate search results Designed to reduce the user’s ‘information overload’

What are ‘facets’?

Facets also overlay a user’s search results Organizes search results into groups such as Author, Date, Journal, Type, etc. Each search result appears in multiple facets

Enhanced interoperability capabilities of the MetaLib X-Server offer libraries even more options for integrating MetaLib into their own environments.

Direct access to the SFX® A-Z list of journals through the MetaLib user interface enables users to take advantage of advanced SFX search functionality, browsing options, and pre-assigned or local e-journal categories.

Expansion of the MetaLib KnowledgeBase enables users to access a variety of new resources of global and regional interest.

Xerxes

David Walker joined the Unified Information Access Project in 2006 and from his base at the University Library at Cal State San Marcos; he continues to extend the Xerxes interface to CSU’s MetaLib X Server for the benefit of the CSU libraries that want to use MetaLib as the engine to dynamically drive library web pages while integrating MetaSearch functionality. The X Server provides libraries with a way to utilize the Metalib Knowledgebase and Meta-searching features while using a unique interface that the library controls.

Learn more about Xerxes here: http://xerxes.calstate.edu

SFX

The SFX server capabilities were doubled in March 2007 when the number of CPUs and the amount of memory were doubled. As SFX usage has grown in the last five years and the number of features has increased and the need for more server horsepower has become evident. This doubling of CPUs and memory fro SFX is just the first step towards moving to a brand new server in June 2007. The new server has arrived and will soon be installed and made ready for Ex Libris to migrate CSU’s consortial SFX application. The new server will offer processors that are more than fours time faster than the existing SFX server and we expect to see user response times improve while we provide a platform for increasing usage.

The System-wide Technology Initiatives Management Committee, in collaboration with the UIAS Project Office, provided a two-day training and Best-Practices workshop in early November 2006 at San Jose State’s beautiful M.L. King Library. This well attended event followed SFX web-training seminars offered in the Spring of 2006 and provided the first opportunity for CSU librarians and staff from every CSU library to exchange ideas and experiences with SFX.

Version 4 of SFX is expected later in 2007 but details are not yet available.
To see how the CSU libraries have implemented version SFX menus, please visit:
http://library.csusm.edu/csu/sfx/examples.asp

DSpace -- Institutional Repository

A goal in the CSU Council of Library Director’s Strategic Plan: Advancing Together: 21st Century Strategies for the CSU Libraries was the development of a plan for Institutional Repositories. A task force comprised of CSU librarians and library deans has been developing a systemwide an implementation plan for an Institutional Repository using DSpace as a platform. The DSpace application will be using a new XSLT-based User Interface named Manakin The Institutional Repository will become available for ingest of data files in June 2007.

The IR Task Force is putting together support materials and guidelines that will be distributed prior to the launch of the IR. Part of the architecture for the Institutional Repository is the reliance of standards for meta-data and the harvesting of meta-data so that institutional repositories through-out the CSU can be accessed via a single search. These same standards will allow CSU repository information to be shared with other repositories in California. The details of this architecture were outlined in a document entitled Recommendations for CSU Architecture for Institutional Repositories.