Title: Introducing MelvylT
1Introducing Melvyl-T
- Ellen Meltzer
- Cristina Campbell
- Felicia Poe
- CDL
- Spring 2003
- ellen.meltzer_at_ucop.edu
5/1/03
2Clarifying terms
- Melvyl-T is the Transition catalog T on the name
will be removed August 1, 2003 (http//melvyl.cdli
b.org) - Legacy Melvyl refers to the current CAT and PE
catalogs, to be discontinued August 1, 2003
(http//www.dbs.cdlib.org/)
3Clarifying terms
- Legacy Telnet refers to the current version of
the CAT and PE databases to be discontinued
August 1, 2003 - New version of Telnet now on board at
(telnet//melvyl.cdlib.org) and will continue
indefinitely
4Clarifying terms
- Merging records grabbing all the records for
the same item and bringing them into one display
or base record - Deduping records the process of removing
duplicate records
5Display record
- The Display record is chosen through a very
simple points system - Each record in a merged group gets one point for
every indexed heading (such as author, title, or
subject) - Those records with tables of contents notes (MARC
505 fields) get an extra 3 points - Electronic resources (856) get 5 points
- The Display record is the most complete of all of
the records in the merged group
6Why the heck did we do this anyway?!
7Why we made the change
- Wanted to merge CAT PE
- Melvyls underlying technology was aging
- (not to mention aging programmers!)
- Many enhancements in web-based service delivery
on the horizon - New services can be delivered over time that
wouldnt have been possible with legacy Melvyl
8Who advised us?
- 3 teams made up of campus librarians
- Database and Technology Team
- Education and Usability Team
- Services Team
- SOPAG advised us on policy decisions along the
way - Evaluation Liaisons
- Many other groups also gave specialized input
9Why were there delays in releasing the catalog?
- This was the first time Ex Libris worked on a
project of this magnitude - Much of the work was new development
- Logistics CDL and Data Center staff in Oakland,
Ex Libris staff in Chicago, New York, and Israel
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12Why legacy Melvyl Melvyl-T search results may
differ
- Melvyl-T has clean snapshots of holdings complete
for all UC campuses - Melvyl-T has complete records for all the UC
campuses and is up-to-date for UCD UCSB - Record loading schedules are different
- Indexing is different
13Why legacy Melvyl Melvyl-T search results may
differ
- The merging algorithm is different in the two
catalogs - The data is different in the two
14UCB UCLA
UCD
UCD UCLA UCSC
Display
Searching
Database Records
15Content of the catalogs is different
- CAT and PE have been combined
- Melvyl-T contains records for UC campuses plus
California Academy of Sciences, California
Historical Society, GTU, Hastings, LBL CRL - CSL records will be in by 6/30/03 (monographs and
serials) - Melvyl-T will not include CULP and SERHOLD
16Why legacy Melvyl Melvyl-T search results may
differ--more on serials
- Catalogs for CSU, LLNL, Stanford and Getty will
be accessed via links initially and eventually
via a cross-database search engine - These records will be more accurate up-to-date
than in legacy Melvyl
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18A word about Melvyl-T Telnet
- We love it, you love it, the faculty loves it,
but - Telnet software creators no longer supporting it,
e.g., NCSA - Its a submerging technology
- Telnet protocol is a potential security
breachrisk for the host system - Fulltext content not available via Telnet
- Request has much more functionality via the Web
19Telnets a little different
- Melvyl-T Telnet supports only basic search and
display does NOT have all of legacy Telnet
Melvyls features - Request and Update not included in this version
of telnet - Records cannot be sorted as they can in the web
version - Once again CAT and PE are combined
20 OK, so whats new and wonderful.
21Other new features, differences
- Circulation status for all campuses (incl. UCLA)
- Fastest searching is usually via keywords (NOT
exact title, exact journal title, author last
name first) - Left-anchored true Browse (unlike legacy Melvyl)
- Use Browse for Authority recordscross refs are
displayed here - Search Words as Phrase
22Use Words as Phrase to hone in...
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24Other new features, differences
- Truncation symbol is or ?
- Phrase/proximity searching
- Use with a number to retrieve records that
contain terms within a number of words in any
order, e.g., tom 5 jerry - Use ! followed by a number for words in the same
order, e.g., jerry !5 tom where jerry must come
first
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26Basic Search
27Advanced Search
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30Command Search
31You can Browse by
32Or, browse by
33Browse
34Most recent search
35Most recent and previous searches
36Combining searches
37Combining Searches
38Combining searches
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40Handling results
- Can display in Short, Long or Review formats
- Can sort by Author/title, Title, Date (most
recent first)
41Records merging issuesreview
- When records are retrieved, they are merged or
deduplicated on the fly - There is a Display record
- Display record is decided upon by a numerical
weighting factor which includes things like
subject headings, if it has a ToC, if it is an
online record
42Records merging issues
- If 300 individual records are retrieved, there
may only be 120 to view after they are
de-duplicated (happens behind the scenes) - No problem!
- However, for large retrievals, the system only
de-duplicates enough for you to see 1,000 records - Example subject united states civil war reports
a search result of 30,370 individual
recordsNOT de-duped
43Records merging
- You can display and sort only the first 1,000
deduped records (similar to receiving and
displaying partial results in legacy Melvyl) -
44Records merging impacts
- Records added most recently to the database are
the first to be retrieved - 1,000 records displayed may not be the most
recently publishedtheyre the most recently
added to the database - SO, if your result set is higher than 1,000, this
number can not be used as a count of distinct
titles in the database
45Handling large search results, as all good
librarians know
- Look at some records, click on relevant subject
headings - Add another term to your search
- After looking at an item, use Browse to hone in
on possible other items - Apply optional limits
- Chunk up in time periods, e.g. 1990-2003
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47Truncation issue
48Truncation Issues
- System allows you to truncate after only one
letter - Ex Search for (un otters) in one search box ?
zero results - Message is Your search term(s) found too many
results. Please refine your search - Try again in Advanced, search for un in one
box, otters in the second box
49Avoiding truncation problems
50What are collections?
- Entire Collection
- Online Resources
- Scores
- Sound Recordings
- You can Browse within a collection
51Caution!
Displays work best with most recent versions of
Internet Explorer or Netscape (or others) IE 5.0
and above and Netscape 6.0 and above are
recommended To display non-Roman alphabets, you
must have a font that can display the
charactersAriel Unicode MS Some older browsers
and older computers can use non-Roman character
displays, but it may be necessary to download
fonts for individual languages one at a time.
52Caution!
- In some browsers when screen size (and hence font
size) is much larger than the default settings,
the entire Web page is not visible on the screen - Result
- In Melvyl-T, horizontal scrolling is required to
view right hand portion of the Advanced search
screen, where the Results box is found - Catalog users may believe their searches
retrieved zero results if they cant see results - Important for Melvyl-T other databases
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55Saving Records
- To view saved records within a session, go to
Print/Email, and select preview - To save records across sessions, you must have
first signed-in - View each record in the Full Record format, click
on Save Across Sessions - Name the search folder you want to save them in
56Saving records
- Put them in the desired folder
- To see them again, go to My Workspace
- Click on Items Saved
57Updates My Workspace
58Overlap period
- April 2003 August 1, 2003
- Legacy Melvyl retires as of August 1, 2003
- How will we connect to each version of the
catalog in the interim?
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60Linking from UC-eLinks to Melvyl-T
- When will we start linking to Melvyl-T?
- Wanted to test initial load on Melvyl-T from
day-to-day users - Wanted to wait till end of the semester or
quarter to make the changenot confuse our users
with a new interface
61What will it look like?
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63You can test out UC-eLinks with Melvyl-T
- http//www.cdlib.org/libstaff/sharedcoll/a-i-trans
/sfxtest.html
64Where can I get more help?
- Help screens
- Guides
- http//www.cdlib.org/guides
- http//www.cdlib.org/libstaff/comm/outreach/
- Feedback
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68Tell us what you think, and help us improve
Melvyl-T