The last session this morning is a Q and A with Ex Libris. I’m not blogging most of it, as I wouldn’t want Ex L to feel inhibited in their discussion, and most of it isn’t terribly interesting to the world at large.

However, one question has come up, that was also raised in the integration session this morning, which is about providing persistent deep links into Ex Libris products.

For example, this might be to deep link to a ‘search’ in the library catalogue, or to deep link to a specific resource within MetaLib.

This cannot be just for Ex Libris products – when we link to a library catalogues web interface to do a search, each vendor has a different link syntax. Perhaps some implementation of SRU?

Standardisation would make work such as the work we have done with Moodle and deep linking into our library systems easier to share, and transferable over different product versions and suppliers.

The last session this morning is a Q and A with Ex Libris. I’m not blogging most of it, as I wouldn’t want Ex L to feel inhibited in their discussion, and most of it isn’t terribly interesting to the world at large.

However, one question has come up, that was also raised in the integration session this morning, which is about providing persistent deep links into Ex Libris products.

For example, this might be to deep link to a ‘search’ in the library catalogue, or to deep link to a specific resource within MetaLib.

This cannot be just for Ex Libris products – when we link to a library catalogues web interface to do a search, each vendor has a different link syntax. Perhaps some implementation of SRU?

Standardisation would make work such as the work we have done with Moodle and deep linking into our library systems easier to share, and transferable over different product versions and suppliers.

Nick has left a comment on the post on MetaLib developments regarding usability (as opposed to accessibility), and I thought it was worth a post. In fact, a later session today covers a usability study.

I’d agree that there are usability issues for MetaLib. However, one message that has been consistently sent to Ex Libris over the last few years is that changing the interface is a huge amount of work for libraries, as it means retraining patrons, and this is bad for PR as well as requiring large amounts of work.

I’m very happy that we aren’t seeing substantial changes, as although it may not be an incredibly intuitive interface, the majority of our users have now been using the interface for at least a year.

In terms of continued development of the interface, Ex Libris has been asked about development of the Aleph OPAC in the light of Primo, and have given a committment to keep developing this, and I guess that the same will be true of the MetaLib interface.

One other point that has come through strongly at this conference is that with a complex product like MetaLib, it is unlikely that Ex Libris can deliver an interface that suits everybody (anybody?). Also, many institutions are interested in integrating MetaLib into other environments (portal, VLE, etc.) This leads to the x-server being even more important – and this is the method by which individual institutions can provide an interface which suits their particular requirements.

Nick has left a comment on the post on MetaLib developments regarding usability (as opposed to accessibility), and I thought it was worth a post. In fact, a later session today covers a usability study.

I’d agree that there are usability issues for MetaLib. However, one message that has been consistently sent to Ex Libris over the last few years is that changing the interface is a huge amount of work for libraries, as it means retraining patrons, and this is bad for PR as well as requiring large amounts of work.

I’m very happy that we aren’t seeing substantial changes, as although it may not be an incredibly intuitive interface, the majority of our users have now been using the interface for at least a year.

In terms of continued development of the interface, Ex Libris has been asked about development of the Aleph OPAC in the light of Primo, and have given a committment to keep developing this, and I guess that the same will be true of the MetaLib interface.

One other point that has come through strongly at this conference is that with a complex product like MetaLib, it is unlikely that Ex Libris can deliver an interface that suits everybody (anybody?). Also, many institutions are interested in integrating MetaLib into other environments (portal, VLE, etc.) This leads to the x-server being even more important – and this is the method by which individual institutions can provide an interface which suits their particular requirements.

The other panelists (including me) are now covering work at their instiutions (so excuse any sudden cut off as I have to speak!)

Firstly, Peter van Boheemen (Wageningen University, NL). They use Blackboard and Sharepoint. They have developed a function to allow the building of ‘course libraries’ in the library system. When the tutor links from the course to the library system, they are automatically logged in as the owning ‘course’ rather than a personal login. This sounds a bit like the work done at Westminster a few years ago, where MetaLib e-shelves were setup for each course…

Secondly, Kingsley Boulton (York, UK). They are using Sentient ‘Discover’ product for reading lists, and Blackboard for a VLE (apparently the Sentient product is now being acquired by another company, and will be called just ‘Discover’). They are only adding reading lists for those courses that have a Blackboard presence. They have a ‘e-learning librarian’ to do this work. They went live in January this year, and used a Blackboard ‘building block’ (developed by Sentient) to integrate. The reading lists are completely controlled by the academics. The idea is that library staff will rely very much on the lists in Discover to get details of what academics need purchasing, moving to short loan etc. User feedback at York has been generally positive. York are also looking at a building block to integrate MetaLib with Blackboard using a ‘Building block’ and the x-server. The aim is to have single sign-on between Blackboard and MetaLib, and be able to present specific MetaLib resources based on the student enrolments.

Thirdly, Bob Gerrity (Boston College, USA) is going to talk about using DigiTool with the University environment. At Boston College there is a IDETS (Instructional Design/e-Teaching Services) who work along side library staff to deliver services for e-learning. Bob’s got an interesting list of strengths for the library team, and IDETS team – something they try to keep in mind as they work together.

Boston College have already done hooks to library resources (from WebCT) – search forms, deep linking, links to subject specialists – this sounds very similar to what we have done at RHUL so far.

However, they are now starting to use DigiTool to provide a platform for faculty members to create digital object repositories, which they can then use, and reuse, in their teaching. Bob is showing an example of pictures relating to Rome created by a fine arts students. An interesting aspect here is that the IDETS team provide a ‘rationale’ to the library to start the creation of such a collection, and the integration into learning objects.

This ‘Rome’ project is 461 images in DigiTool (in different versions), built a UI in Flash, which interacts with DigiTool with web-servercies API, php and the DigiTool PID, with supplementary material from Grove dictionary of art – a prototype seems to be available at Some impressive stuff, here, and our recent online picture gallery could have been done using exactly this technique – if we had DigiTool. Bob, said that they could probably develop several such resources per year, but in comparisson to the number of faculty and courses, this is just a drop in the ocean…

My talk seemed to go down well, and I’ll try to blog to detail later.

The other panelists (including me) are now covering work at their instiutions (so excuse any sudden cut off as I have to speak!)

Firstly, Peter van Boheemen (Wageningen University, NL). They use Blackboard and Sharepoint. They have developed a function to allow the building of ‘course libraries’ in the library system. When the tutor links from the course to the library system, they are automatically logged in as the owning ‘course’ rather than a personal login. This sounds a bit like the work done at Westminster a few years ago, where MetaLib e-shelves were setup for each course…

Secondly, Kingsley Boulton (York, UK). They are using Sentient ‘Discover’ product for reading lists, and Blackboard for a VLE (apparently the Sentient product is now being acquired by another company, and will be called just ‘Discover’). They are only adding reading lists for those courses that have a Blackboard presence. They have a ‘e-learning librarian’ to do this work. They went live in January this year, and used a Blackboard ‘building block’ (developed by Sentient) to integrate. The reading lists are completely controlled by the academics. The idea is that library staff will rely very much on the lists in Discover to get details of what academics need purchasing, moving to short loan etc. User feedback at York has been generally positive. York are also looking at a building block to integrate MetaLib with Blackboard using a ‘Building block’ and the x-server. The aim is to have single sign-on between Blackboard and MetaLib, and be able to present specific MetaLib resources based on the student enrolments.

Thirdly, Bob Gerrity (Boston College, USA) is going to talk about using DigiTool with the University environment. At Boston College there is a IDETS (Instructional Design/e-Teaching Services) who work along side library staff to deliver services for e-learning. Bob’s got an interesting list of strengths for the library team, and IDETS team – something they try to keep in mind as they work together.

Boston College have already done hooks to library resources (from WebCT) – search forms, deep linking, links to subject specialists – this sounds very similar to what we have done at RHUL so far.

However, they are now starting to use DigiTool to provide a platform for faculty members to create digital object repositories, which they can then use, and reuse, in their teaching. Bob is showing an example of pictures relating to Rome created by a fine arts students. An interesting aspect here is that the IDETS team provide a ‘rationale’ to the library to start the creation of such a collection, and the integration into learning objects.

This ‘Rome’ project is 461 images in DigiTool (in different versions), built a UI in Flash, which interacts with DigiTool with web-servercies API, php and the DigiTool PID, with supplementary material from Grove dictionary of art – a prototype seems to be available at Some impressive stuff, here, and our recent online picture gallery could have been done using exactly this technique – if we had DigiTool. Bob, said that they could probably develop several such resources per year, but in comparisson to the number of faculty and courses, this is just a drop in the ocean…

My talk seemed to go down well, and I’ll try to blog to detail later.

This morning the first presentation is by Jon Dunn from Indiana University, and as you might guess is about working with the Sakai course management system.

Later in the session, I’m contributing to the panel session, describing and discussing what we have done, and aim to do with Moodle and library systems at RHUL.

Jon is starting with an overview of course management systems or VLEs. He is making a strong case that it is essential for the library to go out and work with the VLEs – we cannot rely on the fact that students, or even lecturers, will come to the library (perhaps especially ‘virtually’), and so we must invest in integration between the VLEs and the library systems and resources.

At Indiana, they have been working specifically with Sakai (I hadn’t realised that Sakai comes from Hiroyuki Sakai – from the Iron Chef TV programme!)

Anyway Sakai began in 2003, with 4 institutions which wanted more control over institutional CMS and felt it would be more cost effective to develop in house, than to pay a vendor. From this Sakai has grown into a group of 105 paying partners, although only 8 institutions are in production, with 11 more scheduled for Q3 2006.

Sakaibrary is (unsuprisingly) a project to integrate library systems/resources with Sakai. It is a partnership between Indiana University and University of Michigan, and runs until 2008.

The project goals are:

To build tools to provide seamless integration of content from licensed library datases within Sakai for instructors
Leverage existing library technology infrastructure
Prototype functionality for librarians to present content in Sakai and students to discover licensed content within Sakai
Engage librarians, students and faculty in this process

Once the tools have been developed they will be released as open source (although you’ll obviously need Sakai to use them)

The project started with some tasks that different stake holders might do – a selection of these are:

Lecturers

Search for articles
Import references from Refworks etc
Create persistent links to articles for student access
Create customized search box or ‘canned search’ for students (e.g. automatically add keywords to search to keep it on topic)
Obtain assistance from library

Students

Access article found by instructor
Search for articles
Export references
Obtain help from librarian

Librarians

Create links to appropriate databases
Create customized search boxes
Create help guides and suggestions

Sakai defines ‘tools’ (frontend interface) and ‘services’ (backend functionality). Sakaibrary is working on the folloing deliverables:

Phase 1:
Library search tool – based on existing work (Twin Peaks Navigator, OKI), but to leverage metasearch technology.
Citation management tool

Phase 2:
Subject research guides

Jon is just demonstrating the integration. A nice interface add library resource appears as an option within the html wysiwyg editor, and this pops up a search window (just prototype at the moment), and then inserts a selected link into the course material. It wasn’t entirely clear what html was behind the link, but sounds like they are using a combination of OpenURL and RDF.

For the citation management tool, they have only got prototype screens at the moment, but the basic idea is to be able to import citations, or search for citations using library resources, and then add to your citation list.

The subject research guides will provide functionality like ‘constrained searches’ where searches are limited to specific areas to help guide the students to appropriate resources.

The tehcnologies being used at Indiana are Unicorn, MuseGlobal, and SFX. At Michigan they use Aleph, MetaLib and SFX. This means the project is determined to get the functionality across different library systems. To acheive this they are using OSID (Open Service Interface Definition) which came out of the MIT OKI.

The key OSID function is the respository query and delivery (OKI Repository OSID). Since this was already implemented in Sakai, it was a logical choice. University of Michigan is using the x-server to access MetaLib functions, using CQL as internal query representation, and OKI Repository OSID for communication with Sakai. Similar work happening with MuseGlobal at Indiana.

Some interesting comments from Michigan regarding the MetaLib X-Server – some XML encoding and validation issues, and the lack of ‘appending merge’ option – to try to allow paging through merged results, even though you don’t retrieve all results at once.

With SFX, they have found it fine, but apparently have found it isn’t possible to customise the menus based on the fact the Source is Sakai – but I’m really suprised, as this should be possible?

The Search and citation management should be ready for testing Q3 2006, and the subject research guide tool in Spring 2007, with Open source release in mid to late 2007.

Some unanswered questions are:
Who will use search within the CMS? Possibility that lecturers won’t, as they have references from other sources already, which is one reason to support import from other areas.
Will metasearching ever be good enough?
Will OpenURL link resolution work consistently enough for full text access?
How will the Sakai development model work in libraries?
Will other institutions step up to tackle other library integration?

Some really good stuff here – and perhaps raising the bar on what we need to look at in terms of integrating citation level information into the VLE – so far we have only discussed integrating service/resource level information (e.g. ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Nature Online) – because this seems easier.

It would also be very interesting to look at how much (if at all) Moodle supports OKI Repository OSID, and whether we can use this for our own integrations. I really liked the way that adding a library resource to the html, was integrated into the html editor – very nice, and perhaps extendable? (it wasn’t clear how this was acheived)

This morning the first presentation is by Jon Dunn from Indiana University, and as you might guess is about working with the Sakai course management system.

Later in the session, I’m contributing to the panel session, describing and discussing what we have done, and aim to do with Moodle and library systems at RHUL.

Jon is starting with an overview of course management systems or VLEs. He is making a strong case that it is essential for the library to go out and work with the VLEs – we cannot rely on the fact that students, or even lecturers, will come to the library (perhaps especially ‘virtually’), and so we must invest in integration between the VLEs and the library systems and resources.

At Indiana, they have been working specifically with Sakai (I hadn’t realised that Sakai comes from Hiroyuki Sakai – from the Iron Chef TV programme!)

Anyway Sakai began in 2003, with 4 institutions which wanted more control over institutional CMS and felt it would be more cost effective to develop in house, than to pay a vendor. From this Sakai has grown into a group of 105 paying partners, although only 8 institutions are in production, with 11 more scheduled for Q3 2006.

Sakaibrary is (unsuprisingly) a project to integrate library systems/resources with Sakai. It is a partnership between Indiana University and University of Michigan, and runs until 2008.

The project goals are:

To build tools to provide seamless integration of content from licensed library datases within Sakai for instructors
Leverage existing library technology infrastructure
Prototype functionality for librarians to present content in Sakai and students to discover licensed content within Sakai
Engage librarians, students and faculty in this process

Once the tools have been developed they will be released as open source (although you’ll obviously need Sakai to use them)

The project started with some tasks that different stake holders might do – a selection of these are:

Lecturers

Search for articles
Import references from Refworks etc
Create persistent links to articles for student access
Create customized search box or ‘canned search’ for students (e.g. automatically add keywords to search to keep it on topic)
Obtain assistance from library

Students

Access article found by instructor
Search for articles
Export references
Obtain help from librarian

Librarians

Create links to appropriate databases
Create customized search boxes
Create help guides and suggestions

Sakai defines ‘tools’ (frontend interface) and ‘services’ (backend functionality). Sakaibrary is working on the folloing deliverables:

Phase 1:
Library search tool – based on existing work (Twin Peaks Navigator, OKI), but to leverage metasearch technology.
Citation management tool

Phase 2:
Subject research guides

Jon is just demonstrating the integration. A nice interface add library resource appears as an option within the html wysiwyg editor, and this pops up a search window (just prototype at the moment), and then inserts a selected link into the course material. It wasn’t entirely clear what html was behind the link, but sounds like they are using a combination of OpenURL and RDF.

For the citation management tool, they have only got prototype screens at the moment, but the basic idea is to be able to import citations, or search for citations using library resources, and then add to your citation list.

The subject research guides will provide functionality like ‘constrained searches’ where searches are limited to specific areas to help guide the students to appropriate resources.

The tehcnologies being used at Indiana are Unicorn, MuseGlobal, and SFX. At Michigan they use Aleph, MetaLib and SFX. This means the project is determined to get the functionality across different library systems. To acheive this they are using OSID (Open Service Interface Definition) which came out of the MIT OKI.

The key OSID function is the respository query and delivery (OKI Repository OSID). Since this was already implemented in Sakai, it was a logical choice. University of Michigan is using the x-server to access MetaLib functions, using CQL as internal query representation, and OKI Repository OSID for communication with Sakai. Similar work happening with MuseGlobal at Indiana.

Some interesting comments from Michigan regarding the MetaLib X-Server – some XML encoding and validation issues, and the lack of ‘appending merge’ option – to try to allow paging through merged results, even though you don’t retrieve all results at once.

With SFX, they have found it fine, but apparently have found it isn’t possible to customise the menus based on the fact the Source is Sakai – but I’m really suprised, as this should be possible?

The Search and citation management should be ready for testing Q3 2006, and the subject research guide tool in Spring 2007, with Open source release in mid to late 2007.

Some unanswered questions are:
Who will use search within the CMS? Possibility that lecturers won’t, as they have references from other sources already, which is one reason to support import from other areas.
Will metasearching ever be good enough?
Will OpenURL link resolution work consistently enough for full text access?
How will the Sakai development model work in libraries?
Will other institutions step up to tackle other library integration?

Some really good stuff here – and perhaps raising the bar on what we need to look at in terms of integrating citation level information into the VLE – so far we have only discussed integrating service/resource level information (e.g. ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Nature Online) – because this seems easier.

It would also be very interesting to look at how much (if at all) Moodle supports OKI Repository OSID, and whether we can use this for our own integrations. I really liked the way that adding a library resource to the html, was integrated into the html editor – very nice, and perhaps extendable? (it wasn’t clear how this was acheived)

Because of the bimonthly updates to SFX, the ‘versioning’ seems to matter a lot less than with other products. Perhaps this is also because the functionality is simple, and stable.

Ex Libris are planning to move to releasing semi-monthly (rather than the current monthly) KB updates (although you can take them when you are ready – you don’t have to take them every fortnight if you don’t want!)

Some other recent and ongoing enhancements are:
A-Z title list improvements
OpenURL 1.0 SAP2 XML
Better linking for conference proceedings (starting with IEEE)
Enhancements to KB data

SFX is now moving beyond just being a ‘link server’, this is being supported by work on:

Support for ANSI/NISO Z39.88-200 (OpenURL 1.0) – SAP2 including multiple Context Objects
Dynamic A-Z list
Citation Linker
KBTools: exports, collection development analysis
Integration with ERM
Strong consortium support
Support for ONIX SOH 1.0 (Onix Serial Online Holdings) – for initial and ongoing subscription maitenance

This last one is something I need to investigate more – but presumably this will allow our suppliers to supply machine readable holdings information which SFX can consume, and use to update our local thresholds – this is potentially incredibly powerful, but I’m a bit wary about the accuracy of supplier data, as in the past it hasn’t always been that good (even though you’d really expect them to know)

The figures for the KB are impressive with almost half a million object portfolios over about 1500 targets. We are also seeing growing numbers of e-book targets – 56 targets, and 360,000 objects.

A real challenge here is how our users access e-books (see my earlier post relating to the possible need for a special interest group for this). If we loaded extensive e-book records into our catalogue, they would swamp our existing catalogue (e.g. EEBO roughly 100,000 records, our catalogue roughly 300,000 records).

I think that probably we would expect our users to access services like EEBO direct, or via MetaLib. However, as Nick pointed out in a comment to a previous post, there is also a move towards buying individual titles – so more like a ‘print’ replacement – in this case, where else are they going to live except the library catalogue?

SFX 4

SFX 4 is on its way (currently slated for Q3 2007), and some highlights include:

Enhancements to the admin interface including task-based wizards which are intuitive and workflow oriented
Further integration with Verde and sharing of KB data
Better integration of print holdings (definitely very interested in this
Improvement of end-user ‘menu’ linking experience
Further international support
Improved management of statistics
Towards KBUpdate ‘on-demand’

Some disappointment here that the integration of print holdings isn’t already here. We saw a presentation (just mentioned again in fact) last year where a library had done it, but by going deep into the SFX code and changing it – which Ex Libris won’t support, and I don’t want to do.

Last year I blogged about this, and it’s nice to note that 62 libraries have taken up this free service from Ex Libris.