Almost an eJournal Using the Library Catalog for Local Hosting and Management of Electronic Periodicals

Almost an eJournal: Using the Library Catalog for Local Hosting and Management of Electronic Periodicals Corey Seeman, M.A.L.S Director, Kresge Business Administration Library Ross School of Business, University of Michigan ABSTRACT In 2005, the Kresge Business Administration Library at the University of Michigan acquired a new electronic periodical for its collection that had to be locally hosted by the library and was not currently part of any article database Pressed with a need to present this resource to users in a way that would facilitate and promote use, a plan was developed to create individual records for each issue of this periodical and place them into the library’s public catalog The article describes the rationale for local hosting of electronic resources, licensing considerations, creating search and discovery opportunities for these items, the creation of library catalog records for the issues, workflow methods and the promotion for this material to the Ross School community Also discussed will be the ways that this program will be expanded to showcase other resources for the library community INTRODUCTION Special libraries purchase many unique periodicals that are not typically included in the traditional indices that our patrons use This reflects the narrow focus of the resources that are required by our patrons and customers While most of our electronic resources are hosted by our publishers and we provide access via IP authentication, many publishers who are not catering to the library market not have the technical means of making resources available via IP For these other electronic resources, the library is required to find a way to host the resources electronically While these are important resources, the lack of an easy way to search them drives down potential usage by our patrons The Kresge Business Administration Library of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan has been presented this problem with a large variety of resources that we purchase for our patrons While we have long been working with vendors on the local hosting of electronic resources (primarily PDFs that we could download centrally from a site), we have not had a process to truly promote these resources to our community as a whole In 2006, the Kresge Business Administration Library started a pilot program to better manage and describe these types of resources for our patrons The library developed a procedure to manage periodicals electronically hosted by the Library by creating records in the library catalog on an issue by issue basis By adding issue table of contents information to these records, we allow our patrons to search via keyword rather than select from a list of issues Additionally, this will also allow us to adopt this method for other resources without having to create additional databases for patrons to search This procedure was established for the journal Medical Industry Intelligence (MII) (Millennium Research Group, 2005- ) that provides excellent coverage of the medical device industry ABOUT THE KRESGE BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION LIBRARY The Kresge Business Administration Library is an independent library at the University of Michigan Instead of reporting to the University Libraries, the Kresge Library reports to and receives funding from the Ross School of Business, mirroring the reporting structure of most law libraries A leading business school, Ross appears in the top ten of three major rankings, including number in the 2006 Wall Street Journal among MBA level schools1 While we are independent, we still participate in many University Libraries purchases by contributing funds when the resources have a component that is related to business or the social sciences Additionally, we purchase some electronic resources that are available to the entire University of Michigan community, including our regional campuses at Dearborn and Flint The decision to make resources available to the broader University community (be it just the Ann Arbor campus or the whole system) often comes down to money By virtue of our independence, we have been able to purchase electronic resources that are specialized and expensive, but make them just available to the students, faculty and staff at the Ross School of Business As of Fall 2006, there are approximately 3100 students at the Ross School (BBAs, MBAs, Evening MBAs, Global MBAs, Executive MBAs, Ph.Ds, and Masters of Accounting Students) and an additional 500 faculty and staff This population of 3600 is far less than the comparable population of the University’s main campus (approximately 39,000 plus faculty and staff) or the system-wide count (approximately 49,000 plus faculty and staff) For some vendors, they often have a greater comfort level in making resources available just to the far smaller set of the Ross School of Business This is especially true of vendors who are first working with the academic community NEED FOR DIVERSE AND SPECIALIZED RESOURCES Over the years, the Kresge Library has met the diverse needs of the Ross School of Business community by acquiring print and electronic resources to support the general business curriculum and research What we have noticed at the library, as have many of our colleagues at other business libraries, is that many of our requests seek assistance in finding granular information that is not readily available in our larger or more general business resources At the Kresge Library, we are working with many students who are seeking information on the medical device and pharmaceutical industries that are not readily available in our existing resources To this end, we have expanded our collection to include resources that specifically address these industries that many of our students are working on And in large part, these key subject areas are very important among the companies that sponsor our Action Based Learning programs, such as MAP, which is the central academic approach at the Ross School MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) is the cornerstone of the school’s Action Based Learning approach that brings MBA students, at the end of their first year, together in teams to work with a company or an organization (including many non-profits) to examine a particular issue, problem or opportunity It is typically at this point during the first year that the librarians make their strongest connections with the students While these teams work on projects that span the scope of industries, services and organizations, many deal specifically with the Medical Device industry While there is no shortage of resources (including Market Reports) on the industry, they are quite expensive and often fail to provide the students with the type of news and information that they need Furthermore, many of the specific resources that the students want are not part of any established database, making the acquisition and dissemination to the school more challenging One such resource was identified in 2005 as serving a great potential niche for the school A new journal called Medical Industry Intelligence (MII) from Millennium Research Group2 of Toronto, Ontario appeared to be a great new resource that would help our students working with medical technology to better understand that market So with that, we embarked upon negotiations with the vendor for access to this resource for the students, faculty and staff of the Ross School of Business For this title, the vendor did not provide IP access to the title So from the beginning, we viewed this resource as one that we would have to locally host at the library We had a history of local hosting of electronic content at the Kresge Library, with similar resources that did not have IP access or a public face that could be shared with the entire school However, what traditionally was done was seemingly less than ideal Our practice for managing these resources as established, assumed that you knew what you where looking for in the title or other fields in the title record The Library had similar arrangements with the National Real Estate Index and created a cataloging record for the title as a whole.3 While this allowed patrons to go to a webpage and download particular reports and issues (if they could authenticate as a member of the Ross School of Business), the full scope of the resources there were not apparent in the catalog There were Metro Market Facts for Detroit and New York from 2001 to the present, general real estate market conditions and city by city reports for 40 of the largest markets in the country Typically, the webpage that a patron would go to would include just a series of links to the issue numbers or report titles So if you knew what you were looking for, then you could find it quite easily If you did not know what you were looking for, then you would very well not find it Using the example above, a search for real estate in cities like San Antonio would not yield any hits in the catalog This was viewed rightly, as a critical problem of the setup With the Medical Industry Intelligence, we had potentially greater issues with getting users to this resource Since this journal was new and not indexed anywhere, we sought a more dynamic and user-focused solution Besides the necessity of local hosting these resources, there were a number of benefits from the library providing the local hosting of electronic resources, despite the added work involved by the library With local hosting, you had archival protection and rights to these documents This is important for a research library interested in the long-term retention of information With some traditional resources, access ends at the time a subscription is not renewed Also with local hosting, there are virtually no broken link problems since you control the location of the file It is even possible that these methods could be used for non-locally hosted resources, but are particularly relevant for your patrons While these might be available via Google or another search engine, you can provide added significance to the resource by adding it to your website or catalog LICENSING CONSIDERATIONS In acquiring resources that need to be locally hosted, it is important that the vendor and the library are in agreement as to what the rights will be for access and use This maybe something that is clarified in a license agreement or outlined in a letter between the vendor and the library A clear understanding is best for both sides Some vendors offer different pricing for resourses that are placed on the company’s or organization’s intranet vs a single PDF use But most vendors not offer specific pricing for resources that will be shared locally vs those that are intended for one user When locally hosting electronic content, our goal is to make it available to the Ross Community However, we might have an opportunity to offer it to walk-in users, but this is done on a case by case basis In the past, this essentially has been done, but not keeping the material in its native electronic format Upon buying electronic report or title, we would print up the document, bind it, catalog it, and place it as part of the collection Keeping the resource in electronic format allows us to encourage the broadest use of the resource among the school’s students, faculty and staff When working with resources that we want to make available via locally hosting, it is imperative that you receive confirmation from the vendor that this is acceptable If a license agreement is involved, make sure that this procedure is explicitly stated During the discussion with the vendor, it is important also that they understand the scope of the users This is of a particular interest for a library like Kresge, an independent library at the University of Michigan, but one that has a public service mission To this end, access to the resource could any of these possibilities: • Which populations can access the resource? For Kresge, this would include: o Ross School Only - This is possible because the Ross School has a separate computing services department and has the ability to limit access just to current students, faculty and staff of the business school This is a useful and affordable way to expand resources by only providing it to the 3600 total people at the Ross School vs the 50,000 across the entire Ann Arbor campus o Ann Arbor Campus only of the University of Michigan o All University of Michigan (Ann Arbor along with regional campuses at Dearborn and Flint) • Other considerations include: o Electronic access to walk-in users - this is a particular issue for public academic libraries o Can print copies be made available to non-local populations? o Can the resources be used for Inter-library loan? In working with vendors, it is important to clarify what the bounds of the agreement are and that the technology is in place to see that it can be supported Our agreement included some elements that we could not easily manage in the electronic environment University access was allowed as view only, without printing Since this was harder to accomplish, we decided that we would just offer the print edition of these titles in the library to patrons not with the Ross School CREATING SEARCH AND DISCOVERY OPPORTUNITIES Having secured the rights to maintain these resources on our local intranet, we sought out the best way to make this available to our customers Our ability to provide this function is in large part because of our collaborative working relationship with the Ross School’s Computing Services Department Like the library, the Computing Services Department at Ross is independent from the rest of the University This allows the Kresge Library to have web-hosting and authentication that is unique to the Ross Community In turn, it allows us to offer vendors the opportunity for us to host resources on our web-space that is limited to the Ross Community only We have been able to offer this to a number of vendors where direct access to the electronic content is not easily managed for a library, especially where there is one password for an entire library to share While we use staff resources for hosting and managing these resources, the benefits to this type of system are numerous First, we are provided with archival access since we are hosting the files Second, our patrons not have to re-login to the sites with the passwords that they have provided Third, we are not limited to single users being able to login at once Fourth, we can integrate these resources more effectively with the collection as a whole Our stand alone library catalog4 gives us the ability to fine tune our resources to meet the needs just of our patrons While we have had a number of resources that we were providing local hosting for, we did not a great job of promoting the use of these items As mentioned before with the National Real Estate Index, many of the resources were stored on static web pages that were updated when new content was available It was decided that we should find a new approach to local hosting of electronic content to make the resources easier to find and therefore more readily used There were discussions about many different platforms to use to host electronic content Blogs are very useful for sharing data and can be used effectively for any search driven content While we tend to think about blogs in very limited fashion, they are an effective and easy means of sharing information and resources with others I have been using blogs for sharing information about non-profit organizations among others5 While this would have been attractive in many areas, it would have represented, for our customers, yet another place to search for content In this day and age of ever increasing silos, it is important that we try to consolidate and coordinate whenever possible Additionally, we wanted to look at the different ways that people find materials for their research This is particularly true of the library catalog and many of our more conventional databases If one knows what to look for, then he or she can search easily by author, title, or ISSN in a tool like the library catalog However, when a patron does not know what to look for, then their goal is often to enter a keyword or search term and see what is found With our changing database environment, we have different resources that search different parts of the data Library catalogs are limited to searching Metadata that is entered into the MARC Record Many other databases allow for full text searching, which brings up more hits, but often ones that are not exactly what the patron wants Further complicating matters for this particular title was the fact that it was a relatively unknown in the marketplace MII was not yet included in any database index and did not even have an ISSN While many users routinely search databases and then find the full text via a link resolver or integrated full text, that option would not be available for this particular title since it was very specialized and not yet included in the major abstracting and indexing services This would also be true for many comparable specialized titles that libraries, certain special libraries, would want to have in their collection If the title of this journal is known to the librarians, but not to the patrons, and there is no easy way for these issues to be found by patrons, we are almost guaranteeing that it will not be used As with the collections at many special libraries, librarians are challenged with describing material in such a manner that the narrow focus of a title does not diminish its ability to be found by the patrons These titles are not readily found in databases such as ABI/Inform, Business Source Complete, LexisNexis, etc., but are still very important to the users Our challenge then was to come up with a means to allow our patrons to find these titles, without needing to know about this resource ahead of time It needed to be accessible in a manner that would allow them to be easily discovered by our students and by our faculty From an administrative or collection development point of view, it is also very important that these resources be used to meet the needs of the students working in these areas With this in mind, we decided to take a different tact in describing and hosting the issues of this periodical The guiding principals were as follows:  Ensure that our patrons can easily search for issues that might be appropriate for their research  Ensure that our patrons can easily obtain the issues that are relevant to their research  Ensure that our patrons could easily find out about new issues  Ensure that our patrons did not have to go to yet another new database for searching in this journal  Integration into the existing resources of the library (no new silos) While there were many options for this, we decided in the end to create a system where each issue of this title had a unique entry in our library catalog We decided that it would make the resources easier to use and find if we created a separate catalog or each issue, something that would normally be reserved to a check-in box If would allow us to approach this work with greater flexibility to meet the needs of our students The key factor in these records is the transcription of the table of contents into the MARC record By virtue of having the contents in the MARC 505 Notes field, it would be included in our keyword index And if it worked, we could follow this approach and this also for other titles and stand along reports that we are getting in electronic format For these types of unconventional resources, we are very happy that we have our own library system and can enter these resources as we see fit CREATION OF ISSUE-LEVEL RECORDS IN OUR LIBRARY CATALOG In creating the scheme for how we would describe these items, we looked at other MARC records for electronic resources and made some adjustments to reflect the goals we were trying to accomplish From the outset, we were not looking to create the ultimate catalog records, but something that could easily be applied from one issue to the next and provide the level of access that we hope to get Furthermore, we wanted to exploit the features in our library catalog (Millennium from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) that would allow for easy searching and retrieval by our patrons Record Structure for the Issue Record This is the sample record that we used for one issue of the Medical Industry Intelligence (November 2005) For the public display, please see Figure Please note that I have included the initial link to the “master record” (listed as a MARC 856 field) that is listed as OLD The new link goes to the Medical Industry Intelligence launch page This is a change that we made in April 2007 as the content expanded for this title TITLE 245_0 Medical Industry Intelligence |f (Vol 1, no 9, November , 2005)|h[electronic resource] PUB INFO 260 Toronto, Ont : |bMillennium Research Group, |c2005DESCRIPT 310 Ten issues per year NOTE 505 Table of Contents: Medical Device Outsourcing: Lowering the bottom line, p 4; Image Guided Surgery: Directing orthopedic market growth, p 8; Bone Graft Substitutes: Augmenting revenue in the dental implant market, p 10; Endeavor III: Expected outcome, mixed reaction, p 12; Technology News, p 14; Corporate News, p 21 NOTE 500 Title from cover NOTE 506 Restricted to Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) constituents only NOTE 538 Application/pdf|iRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader SUBJECT 650_0 Medical instruments and apparatus industry |v Periodicals SUBJECT 650_0 Medical Technology |v Periodicals SUBJECT 650_0 Medical innovations |v Periodicals ALT AUTHOR 71020 Millennium Research Group (Toronto, Ont.) MARC 856 |uhttp://lib.bus.umich.edu/record=b243718|zView all issues (OLD) MARC 856 |uhttp://lib.bus.umich.edu/screens/per_mii.html|zView Main Medical Industry Intelligence Resource Page (NEW) LIB HAS 866_0 v.1 (2005)LIB HAS 866 Print version available in Kresge Library Periodicals MARC 962 000:000:URL:b243791:000254:0:0:0:0:0:0|tVol 1, no 9, November, 2005|vn|uhttp://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/secureall/MII/MII_01_09_2005Nov.pdf Some key aspects of this record First, the MARC coding that we have used to create these records has been developed through cooperation from reference librarians and catalogers to ensure that it matches to the catalog as a whole and allows patrons to retrieve the data more easily The particular MARC fields used in the record are as follows: • 245 Title field In this field, we record the date of the particular issue in the subfield f as follows: “|f (Vol 1, no 9, November , 2005)” This allows for easy identification, display and searching Additionally, in 2007, the title changed to four different quarterly • • • • • publications So we just changed the title to the new issues, but left much of the existing information the same 505 Notes field This is transcribed from the issue and entered without change By virtue of having this field in the record, then all of these terms were part of the keyword index We made a conscious decision not to add issue specific subject headings to the records to make this process quick for the library staff This way, we would rely on the keyword indexing of the system, which is by far and away the most commonly used search by our patrons The article titles seemed to also be clearly related to the subject matter, so this allowed us not to require additional access terms 506 Notes field Describes the limited access to Ross School of Business Only 650 Subject fields As mentioned above, we have decided not to change the subject headings for each issue So these are not updated on an issue by issue basis This will be expanded for each of the new quarterly publications (CardiovascularIQ, ImagingIQ, etc.) 710 Alt Author field Using this field to enter information about the Millennium Research Group, the publishers of the periodical Many students will look to particular market research publishers for additional titles and may know the firm’s name without knowing the particular reports they produce This is also the single term that pulls all these resources together, including white papers that we had access to on the Medical Device Industry 866 Lib Has field Used to describe that the print version is available in the library This is the version that can be used by the general public Second, the full text version of the file is located in the MARC 962 field This is the locally defined field for the Millennium Media Manager It displays the link to the patrons within the record to the full text The URL for the full text shows the path for the resource that is on our secure web-space Third, each record has a generic link to a master record (that allows you to view links to all records We felt this was important to ensure that people realized that there might be related material Originally, this pointed to a master record (http://lib.bus.umich.edu/record=b243718) that includes 856 links back to the individual records We changed this because of the large number of titles that we were managing to a launch page (also described below) The URL for this new page is: http://lib.bus.umich.edu/screens/per_mii.html We are calling it an integrated launch page, because it has different ways to search the resource (see Figure 3) Highlights of this page include the display of an RSS of new issues6 (from the Innovative RSS Feed Builder product) that include the table of contents; a search widget that allows users to search just the issues of the Medical Industry Intelligence and other Millennium Research Group titles for keywords; and a link to browse the titles We hope that this becomes a standard stop for people doing work in this area The RSS Feed is a new product from Innovative Innovative’s Millennium System that allows you to create feeds for records that meet certain criteria in the system It is setup to display all new issues of the journal Fourth, we are able to include many of the data elements in the template for creating new issue records (See Figure 3) The Innovative Interfaces record template system in Millennium allows you to key a new record with both the fixed and variable length fields (MARC) already populated with data So this allows us to have greater consistency between the records for different issues The only changes that we make are the link to the record, the table of contents notes, and the date information This speeds up the process tremendously The graphic of the template is attached to this document Fifth, by keeping the records consistent, we can allow for dynamic searches to be run from anywhere For example, we can create a search that can be run at anytime that looks for the title to be Medical Industry Intelligence or the author to be Millennium Research Group WORKFLOW METHODS USED TO PROCESS THE MATERIALS From a management perspective, we sought to create an approach to this process that was efficient, but effective means of managing the description and access issues associated with additional titles that were made available The goal was to create a sustainable system where new issues can be added quickly to the catalog and not be subject to an eternal doom of original cataloging To this end, the library needs to start with some assumptions about these records These assumptions are: KISS- Keep it Simple Stupid There is no easier way to kill a project than to make it more complicated that it needs to be If this process is easy, it can be replicated for all the new issues that arrive and our patrons will get the resources more quickly Our goal was not to wait for the perfect cataloging record, but to place a resource out there for our patrons that they could use soon after it was published It will be different This whole cataloging approach is different, so if it does not match up with everything we have done to date It is important that we are flexible in our method and not force this material to fit the other criteria that we use in the library For these unique titles, we need to ensure that we have a unique approach Make it easy to add new titles While this ties back to point number 1, we wanted to ensure that our library system was doing the work for this project that it can easily With our Innovative Interfaces system, we have access to sophisticated templates that include text and allows us to control what prompts are being asked for This way, we create a new template for each title and use that to create the new records for arriving issues The creation of the template should be the hardest part of this whole work Once this is done, the addition of new issues must be easy for it to be carried forward This also reduces problems with inconsistent records and increases processing time dramatically Focus on the search terms We include the table of contents as a 505 notes field This is part of our keyword search and so these terms are now very findable This is what we know our patrons use when they are searching in our catalog In an effort to keep this process moving, we have elected not to add subject headings for each issue, but to rely on the terms that are indexed in the keywords Finally, our mantra for this project “Lets not split hairs, when no one cares.” We can spend hours and hours cataloging a resource for the library However, if we add the table of contents to a field that is part of the keyword search, we can be confident that 95% of our users will find the resource The added work of fine tuning the record at the expense of other work will not dramatically increase our patron’s access to the record 6 Use and review It is important that we continually review this process and make modifications and changes as we see fit In changing the format to allow us go from a master record (which require manual linking to the individual records) to a launch page, we have increased efficiency and provided our students with a worthwhile resource for browsing and searching these titles Apply to other titles We will be able to apply this to other titles as we move forward With each passing title, we will hopefully learn new tricks, but all the while, make resources more findable by our patrons CONCLUSION As with any project, the proof is in the pudding One year into the project, we discovered that we not have a means of tracking usage We are going to change that method so that we can evaluate this project more effectively We have anecdotal evidence that it is being used through the interaction with the librarians who are working with the medical device MAP teams We would expect and hope that as we find ourselves with 27 issues of the Medical Industry Intelligence and related Millennium Research Group resources, that we should be able to see and increased value in these resources as a whole By virtue of creating MARC records for each of these issues, we feel that we have met our goals of providing a place for these documents that can be more easily found by our patrons without forcing them to approach this in one particular way We are following this same path with other publications that we are managing including the digital copies of the Dividend8, the magazine for the alumni of the Ross School of Business Additionally, we are using this for electronic copies of market reports that we can share with the members of the Ross Community Figure 1: This is the public display of the records in our catalog Figure 2: These are two screen shots from the launch page (http://lib.bus.umich.edu/screens/per_mii.html) Figure 3: Template for new records The Arrow shows the fields that are prompted when keying the new record The person, upon creating the record, will only update the title, add the table of contents, change the cataloging date and add the media field (962) after the record has been saved These four steps allow us to maintain this system easily ENDNOTES For more information on the school (including national and international rankings), please visit: http://www.bus.umich.edu/NewsRoom/FastFacts.htm For its MBA program, the Ross School ranked: #1 in Wall Street Journal, 2006; #5 in BusinessWeek, 2006; #9 in Economist, 2006 and #11(tied) in U.S News and World Report, 2006 See http://www.mrg.net See this direct link to our catalog record: http://lib.bus.umich.edu:80/record=b184569; the electronic resources are stored on a single page here: http://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgePublic/Journals/nre.htm http://lib.bus.umich.edu/search.html See my blog entitled “Nonprofit Resources (at Kresge Library)” at http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/nonprofit/ http://lib.bus.umich.edu/feeds/mii.xml http://lib.bus.umich.edu/search/t?medical+industry+intelligence to search for the issues of the original title Use http://lib.bus.umich.edu/search/a?millennium+research+group to search for all titles published by this vendor For the collection, please see: http://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/Collections/Dividend/ For a sample issue, please see: http://lib.bus.umich.edu:80/record=b245273 ... news and information that they need Furthermore, many of the specific resources that the students want are not part of any established database, making the acquisition and dissemination to the. .. webpage and download particular reports and issues (if they could authenticate as a member of the Ross School of Business), the full scope of the resources there were not apparent in the catalog There... providing the local hosting of electronic resources, despite the added work involved by the library With local hosting, you had archival protection and rights to these documents This is important for