The future – what needs to happen? The library view

Hazel WoodwardUniversity Librarian, Cranfield University

Discovery and access: standards and the information chain, London, 7th December 2006

Harvesting – OAI-PMH

• A great technical development for libraries enabling us to access material more widely and exploit it for different purposes than originally intended

• ‘Hidden’ resources can be surfaced• Low cost interoperability• Accessing multiple repositories enables

construction of new kinds of services to better serve our users

Harvesting – OAI-PMH

• Now need to move on from Dublin Core and develop richer formats

• E.g. (PALS) ONIX for Licenses Project. Huge potential for populating electronic resource management systems (ERMs)

• E.g. (JISC) Electronic Theses Online Project (ETHOS). Using UK ETD DC – a much richer standard than DC

Search and retrieve services

• Lot of work by both publishers & libraries has gone into developing Z39.50 (bit generous to call it a standard!)

• Now need development of SRW (search & retrieve by web services) & SRU (search & retrieve by URL)

• Advantages of SRW/U over Z39.50 include: simpler; lighter weight; wrapped in XML

• Services already utilizing SRW/U include OCLC, Intute & COPAC

Open URL Link Resolvers(The Charleston Report Survey 2006)

• Difficulty resolving links to the article level for every publisher/ vendor

• Lack of (or limited) documentation from publishers/ vendors for setting up links between resources

• Inconsistencies between resolver and vendor requirements for successful linking

• Discrepancies or errors in journal coverage data that prevents the link resolver from offering an appropriate link

Open URL Link Resolvers(TCR Survey –improvements requested by librarians)

• Better support for special types of documents e.g. dissertations, working papers

• More flexibility & ability to customize OpenURL resolvers at the library’s end

• More accurate e-journal holdings information

• Become less dependent on standard numbers e.g. ISSN & ISBN

Keeping up-to-date – RSS feeds

• Keeping up-to-date & current awareness– Tables of contents– News– Events

• (PALS) TOCRoSS Project (Table of Contents by Really Simple Syndication)

• Need to develop increasingly sophisticated ways of using RSS feeds – moving towards personalised services

And finally

“Librarians MIGHT know it’s not free on the Web, that I am only getting the article because someone paid the bill, but then again, other staff in the library might NOT know it’s because someone paid the bill. And the end user isn’t asking WHY they got it; they just know they got it.”

“So, for a modest proposal. Along with the obligatory copyright statement, could publishers please add, so it prints when the article prints, an obligatory THIS ARTICLE BROUGHT TO YOU BY UNIVERSITY XYZ.”

Chuck Hamaker. Post to LIBLICENSE-L. August 2006