VIVA ad hoc Technical Issues Committee on Content Linking and Management for Electronic Serials and other Digital Materials
Minutes for November 22, 2002
Charlottesville, VA

Present: Rae Best (GMU), Amy Boykin (CNU), Glenn Bunton (ODU), Linda Carder (Lynchburg), Mary Ann Chappell (JMU), Deanna Chavez (RMU), Elaine Day (Averett, Chair), Liz Kent (Sweet Briar), Katherine McKenzie (W&M), Leslie O'Brien (VT), Jamie Redwine (Hollins), Gary Stottlemyer (UVA).

1) E-serials management survey-there were 29 responses from a possible 55 libraries representing 44 institutions. The deadline for survey responses will be extended until December 15th. Elaine will send an email to the VIVA directors, asking them to submit responses or contact committee members with comments, and including a progress report from the committee. Jamie wrote up a summary based on the results Leslie tabulated, which was distributed before the meeting.

2) Reference linking/access integration survey-agree that it is needed, but what specifically do we want to know? The first survey is giving us some idea of institutional expectations and technology resources. For example, most respondents have a Z39.50-compliant catalog, and we will want to focus on that for federated searching. A question about programming support available at the library should also be included, to see if we replicate the same response from the first survey. We agree that standards are critical, so we might want to find out the level of knowledge about linking and searching standards? It may be necessary to do some explication of terms to put questions about complex issues in context for the respondents. Glenn can put the questions in survey form, if we send him the concepts we're trying to get at. There was further discussion about consortial approaches to reference linking. Mary Ann, Elaine, Jamie, (Gary) are charged with working on questions and sending them to Glenn for the mockup survey.

Questions/concepts to tease out in survey:

• How ready are libraries to implement federated searching? What is the value placed on it?
• What is the current level of awareness on standards for content linking?
• Top tier institutions in other states have SFX and Metalib; why have no Virginia universities implemented these products?
• Governor Warner wants less duplication of state resources-can VIVA institutions position themselves to implement content linking cooperatively, for example with a statewide authentication and resolution service? Can content linking solutions be shared with, and partially funded by Virginia IT companies?
  

3) Report to VIVA steering committee (outline below). The report will emphasize the importance of standards, assess currently available and emerging technologies, and illustrate technologies with descriptions of selected applications. The report will be oriented to the scholar/user perspective.

• Environmental scan-we'll add the UNC-Greensboro JournalFinder software to the list of e-serials management vendors and the ARL scholars portal to the section on content linking and access integration.
• Product illustrations will give basic information, omit pricing, and refer to the product web site for vendor descriptions. A grid will used to compare claims of vendors. We will begin with user expectations of the technology, and try to determine potential of selected applications in meeting those needs. So far, Liz has reviewed EBSCOHost EJS, Jamie SFX and Serials Solutions.
• Mary Ann presented an overview of reference linking technologies, intended as a transition from the environmental scan to illustrations of current available applications. She will extend the overview to include access integration /federated searching as several vendors address both areas with closely related or integrated products.
• Serials Solutions has offered to assist with analysis of VIVA e-journal titles.
  

4) Semantic web-brief discussion of taxonomies and ontologies enabling intelligent agents to make inferences and exchange information across subject and organizational boundaries. This technology is in its early stages, though XML syntax is widely deployed in unidirectional metadata applications.

5) Bibliography updates-Katherine agreed to standardize the bibliography in APA style.

6) Economics of content linking with document delivery-a brief discussion on Ingenta and the cost of document delivery versus individual journal subscriptions. Why pay big dollars in advance for bundled e-journal titles, without knowing how much anyone is going to use them? Pay per view is theoretically more cost effective as an extended content linking service, though while vendors control the user interface, it may instead become a "wormhole to the poorhouse."

7) Educational program-we'll shoot for spring break [timing of workshop adjusted in subsequent e-mail communications to May 2003] at a central location (TBA). Rae volunteered to help with local arrangements. Discussion yielded a very detailed first draft of the program, which is appended to the minutes.

8) Next meeting-the committee will meet at Lynchburg College, prior to ALA Midwinter, in January 2003.

Action items:

• Everyone will send copies of their draft documents to Jamie to put on Blackboard several days before the January meeting.
• Jamie, Mary Ann, and Elaine will draft questions for the second survey and send to Glenn. Glenn will build explanations of the technology into each question.
• Katherine will standardize the bibliographic citations.
• Jamie will adapt his e-serials management product reviews to the expectations/analysis format, including a grid for comparison across applications. With this example, we will follow the same general pattern for illustration of technologies in other e-serials and content linking applications.
• Elaine will ask Kathy Perry for advice on program planning (current budget, number of attendees, etc.)
• Rae will begin scouting locations for a program in Richmond or other convenient location, most likely in March 2003 [May 2003]

Leslie O'Brien
Virginia Tech

VIVA ad hoc Technical Issues Committee on Content Linking and Management for Electronic Serials and other Digital Materials
Report to the VIVA Steering Committee
Spring 2003

OUTLINE

I. Introduction & Environmental Scan (Elaine, Gary, Mary Ann)

II. Electronic Serials Management (Jamie, Liz, Leslie)

a. Survey results

b. Product overviews-brief summary, tabular form

i. Serials Solutions (Jamie)

ii. TDNet (Linda/Leslie)

iii. Jake (Liz)

iv. UNC-G's JournalFinder (Leslie)

III. Content Linking & Access Integration

a. Content Linking (Mary Ann, Jamie)

i. Survey results

ii. Product overviews-let vendor know we're using screen shots

1. Ex Libris SFX (Jamie)

2. Endeavor LinkFinder (Mary Ann)

3. Fretwell-Downing Informatics OpenLinking (Gary, Elaine)

b. Access Integration/Federated Searching (Gary, Elaine)

i. Survey results

ii. Product overviews

1. Ex Libris MetaLib (Jamie)

2. Endeavor ENCompass (Mary Ann)

3. Fretwell-Downing Informatics zPortal (Gary, Elaine)

4. MuseGlobal (Elaine)

5. WebFeat (Elaine)

IV. The Semantic Web (Gary, Elaine)

V. Conclusions & Recommendations (Elaine, everyone)

VI. Appendices

a. Glossary (Jamie, Mary Ann)

b. Bibliography (Elaine, Katherine)

c. Level of compliance by VIVA vendors (chart)

VIVA ad hoc Technical Issues Committee on Content Linking and Management for Electronic Serials and other Digital Materials
Educational Program - Draft Outline

10:00-10:30 Introductory session/big picture
Brief introduction by Elaine to:

• e-serials management
• content linking/access integration
• developing standards

Breakout sessions, running concurrently for technical and public services/administrative attendees
Committee members take notes and facilitate discussion, perhaps bring someone in from outside committee to do presentation on the issues.
Consider webcast/audiotape/videotape
Keep visual aids to a basic level of complexity to allow for discussion of broader issues

10:45-12:00 Topic I: e-serials management

• Implementations/case studies (selected applications)
• Moderators: Jamie, Leslie, Liz
• Recorder: Linda

12:00-1:00 Lunch on site, box lunches with discussion

1:15-2:30 Topic II: content linking and federated searching

• Implementations/case studies (selected applications)
• Moderators: Mary Ann, Gary, Elaine
• Recorder: Deanna

2:45-3:30 Closing session/ Discussion /Questions
Elaine/Kathy Perry/Eileen Hitchingham or Ralph Alberico

• Recommendation for action/next steps
• Opportunities for better collaboration
• Private/public partnerships