A little more with SFX...

I can honestly say that if I hadn't done a presentation last week on Find It, I would have been so confused in class this morning. I'm so relieved that I put in the initial work (not just to get my presentation completed), but also because I provided myself with a solid background understanding of OpenURLs and link resolvers. Judith Louer, from CTS, came in today to show our class the workings behind SFX and what she sees everyday at work. After doing my own research about it, I knew it was complicated and knew it was a huge job, and listening to her speak confirmed this. Once again, Find It works by combining the forces of our library (but I guess it's more than a library...it's a HUGE library system for a research institute with 42,000 students), all of our vendors (according to Sue Detinger, we work with over 2000), and Ex Libris, who "manages" the software. This adds up to a lot of chaos. Today, I learned that bibliographic information provided by the vendors for each article/journal, doesn't really match up with the library's cataloging practices. Ugh. One more thing to complicate Find It - making sure our data is adjusted to fit our format. It was nice to hear from the person who contributes to keeping it all running.

The readings for this week were great - they were easy to understand (which I sometimes need with tech information) and were also interesting. I won't write too much about them, but they confirmed/solidified things I already know/have heard of in other classes. I especially liked learning about CrossRef and how it works due to a collaborative effort between several publishers.

I'm still a little bit shaky on the difference between OpenURLs (and the information they carry) and DOIs. I'll have more on that next week...

Notes on the readings: (there is some overlap here with my other readings and entries, so these aren't comprehensive reading notes, just the most important points)

"E-Journal Management Tools" (Jeff Weddle and Jill Grogg)

This article summarizes several different management tools for e-journals. Because of the explosion of e-journals in the past decade, learning how to work with and organize these resources has become a major part of librarianship (and the job of the ER librarian(s)). I will briefly summarize each tool.

1. A-Z lists: This is one of the first ways that libraries decided to manage their journals. However, now that one journal may have several different points of access, the management of these lists is too costly and complicated. However, many vendors now provide the lists to the library and the journals can now be categorized differently, like by subject. Depending on the size of the A-Z lists, libraries may want to outsource this management work to the vendor, or they may be able to manage it on their own.

2. OpenURLs and Link Resolvers: Because of my presentation, I've already spent a lot of time covering this aspect of e-resources, but want to include the two essential elements mentioned in the article. In order for the framework to function, these elements must be in place:

a. "localized control (often via the knowledge base)"

b. "standardized transport of metadata, specifically the metadata which describes the users' desired information object."

Note: localized control is covered in next week's blog.

3. DOI and CrossRef: DOI is a persistent object identifier, not a location identifier. CrossRef is a database that works to connect DOIs with their URL (they also work with openURLs). However, the DOI is assigned by the publisher and will go back to the publisher's website unless a link resolver is used to direct it elsewhere.

4. Link Resolvers:

a. LinkSource (EBSCO)

b. SFX (Ex Libris: used by UW-Madison)

c. OL2 (Fretwell-Downing)

d. Article Linker (Serials Solutions/ProQuest)

5. Federated Searching: Most students don't know what kind of search they're running when using a "subject based database list" or the "articles tab" on UW library's website. A federated search allows the user to search across multiple databases, but will only pull up about 30 citations (or some other designated amount) from each database. While the federated search features may be limiting, the user is able to search multiple databases with one click.

"CrossRef" (Amy E. Brand)

This article explains the history and workings behind CrossRef, a nonprofit organization created by publishers to run a cross-publisher citation linking system and act as an official DOI registration agency. Here are some points I would like to highlight:

- CrossRef adds between 2 and 3 million DOI records per year and in the future will include: patents, technical reports, gov docs, datasets, and images.

- A DOI consists of a prefix (the content owner, like CrossRef) and a suffix (item information provided by the publisher - may include year, journal acronym, etc).

- DOIs are very reliable because they are attached to an item NOT a location because locations constantly change.

- A CrossRef shortcoming: it does not take the researcher or the institution into account

- The publishers foot the bill for the CrossRef service, and it's supposed to be invisible to the user. However, it seems like it's the most worthwhile for an institution's library to work with CrossRef AND maintain their own local control.

The Process:

1. Publisher exports metadata to CrossRef.

2. DOI is requested based on metadata.

3. System exports articles with their DOI attached.

4. Users retrieve articles through the assigned DOI.

How do OpenURLs and DOI's work together (with Crossref)?

"The DOI and OpenURL work together in several ways. First the DOI directory itself, where link resolution occurs in the CorssRef platform, is OpenURL enabled. This means that it can recognize a user with access to a local resolver. When such a user clicks on a DOI, the CrossRef system redirects that DOI back to the user's local resolver , and it allows the DOI to be used as a key to pull metadata out of the CrossRef database, metadata that is needed to create the OpenRUL targeting the local resolver. As a result, the institutional user clicking on a DOI is directed to appropriate resources." I typically don't include quotes this long; however, this paragraph made the relationship between DOIs and OpenURLs click for me.

"On the Road to the OpenURL"

Back in 1999, several groups met to discuss reference linking and its challenges. This group included: National Information Standards Organization (NISO); Digital Library Federation (DLF); National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services; and the Society for Scholarly Publishing. They came up with three components of a successful reference linking system:

1. identifiers for works

2. "a mechanism for discovering the identifier from a citation"

3. the ability to take the reader/researcher from the identifier to a specific item

The answer (or one of)....an OpenURL.

-internal linking vs external linking: (internal)staying within one system, but this is often too confining. External linking allows the user to move between their current system, ILL, doc delivery services, online bookstores, and library catalogs.

- OpenURLs provide the local control that libraries need (whereas DOIs are more for publisher websites).

- an OpenURL identifies an item through its metadata, not a copy of the item. Example: when we work with Find It, the user may be directed to more than one copy of the item from different vendors. The link resolver matches the item up with the appropriately matching metadata.

"Beyond OpenURL: Technologies for Linking Library Resources"

This article provides an overview of linking tools used in libraries and covers where we have gone since moving away from static URLs and where we need to go in the future.

- presently working with OpenURLs and DOIs. This started about 10 years ago with the CrossRef initiative.

- DOIs don't rely on a knowledge base to complete the link. They go from request to DOI software to the content provider (most likely the publisher).

- dynamic linking: the link resolver works with the request and is able to point the user to additional materials like dictionaries and subject encyclopedias.

- conceptual and associative linking: this is the "more like this" linking (commonly seen on Amazon)

Additional Web 2.0/Library 2.0 tools: blogs, wikis, social network (College library on Facebook), chat (which I love), and RSS feeds. I also read about blikis (blog/wiki) and while they seem like a good concept, the name seems a little ridiculous. Maybe I'll just have to try one out.