MetaLib Making Eresources Earn Their Keep

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MetaLib - Making E-resources Earn Their Keep

• Frank Parry
• USTLG, Edinburgh
• 17 June 2004

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Loughborough the facts!

• 13,500 students
• 2,800 staff
• serials 4000 print, over 6000 electronic
• books over 400,000
• databases over 200

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E-resources earning their keep

• what e-resources?
• e-journals and databases
• monitor usage statistics value for money
• promotion
• database of the month
• training sessions
• and nowMetaLib!

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Portals

• JISC describes portals as
• a network service that brings together content
  from diverse distributed resources using
  technologies such as cross-searching, harvesting,
  and alerting, and collates this into an
  amalgamated form for presentation to the user.

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Commercial portals offer

• grouping of databases
• simultaneous searching
• (through Z39.50, web scraping and xml)
• collation of results
• de-duplicating
• links to full text

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Some commercial portals

• DigitaLink / iPac (Epixtech)
• ENCompass (Endeavour)
• Rooms (SIRSI)
• MetaLib (ExLibris)
• Millennium Access Plus (MAP) Portal (Innovative)
• TalisPrism (Talis)
• ZPORTAL (Fretwell-Downing)

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OpenURL is

• a linking technology a protocol for
  interoperability between services
• hotlinks from databases leads a user to
  appropriate full text resources

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Portals and linking at Loughborough

• MetaLib
• portal of all our databases
• simultaneous searching of compliant databases
• SFX
• openURL
• links article records to library catalogue and/or
  e-journals

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Implementation of MetaLib SFX

• large team approach
• Systems, Support Services Academic Librarians
• long time scale
• March September
• smaller, separate team implemented SFX

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Discussions

• look and feel
• branding
• contents (electronic print)
• authentication (VLE username password)
• Librarys web pages (which should exist)
• information skills

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Cataloguing configuring

• cataloguing easy
• form driven
• quality content
• testing
• configuration not so easy
• who should configure?
• technical staff / academic librarians
• how many databases are cross searchable?

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Pilot and live

• piloted with 3 Academic Departments
• focus groups
• Questionnaire
• positive feedback
• live in September 2002
• smaller MetaLib group (four people)
• on average half a day per week

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What has it meant for the Library?

• role of library staff
• very little change
• enquiries are often easier to answer
• training simpler
• Handout http//www.lboro.ac.uk/library/dbase/metal
  ib.html
• Online tutorial http//inhale.hud.ac.uk/perl/jump.
  pl?13-56
• increased use of databases

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Statistics

• increase in usage of databases
• 609

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Statistics by database

• usage down
• Psycinfo -63
• Lexis-Nexis -51
• Mintel -36
• RAPRA -31
• UKOP -6
• Art Abstracts -12
• Compendex -4

• usage up
• Zetoc 1385
• SportDiscus 1207
• ICEA 225
• INSPEC 73
• OCLC 79
• ABES 36
• IBSS 31
• Beilstein 23

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Top ten databases in 2003
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What does MetaLib mean to our readers?

• students
• less reliance on Google?
• cross searchable versus most appropriate?
• researchers academics
• using MetaLib cross search more than anticipated

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The future

• investigate
• usage statistics for e-journals
• searching behaviour of readers
• incorporate new features of MetaLib
• e-journals

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Thanks.

• Parts of this presentation were originally
  created for a conference paper delivered by Ruth
  Stubbings