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NETWORKED  RESOURCES  REDEFINITION  IMPLEMENTATION  GROUP

NRRIG  Final Report
 
NRRIG:    David Block    Nan Hyland (chair)    Maureen Morris    Holly Mistlebauer    Marty Kurth

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In February 2001, a CUL committee called the Working Group on Networked Resource Access Before the ENCompass Era was formed to develop a proposal specifying how CUL should provide for the effective discovery of and access to Networked Resources over the next 20 months, i.e., until Endeavor's ENCompass product becomes available. The recommendations, which were approved by LMT in April of 2001, consisted of redefining the Networked Resources (NR) catalog to give more prominence to resources of significant reference or research value by excluding certain genres of material, most notably e-journals and e-books, from the public view of NR. In May 2001, the Networked Resources Redefinition Implementation Group (NRRIG) was formed to implement these recommendations. The committee consisted of David Block, Nan Hyland (chair), Marty Kurth, Holly Mistlebauer and Maureen Morris. NRRIG has completed its work. The newly named e-Reference Collection was implemented on Wednesday August 8, 2001. This report details the work done to accomplish the implementation.

CHARGE
Reporting to the Library Gateway Committee, the Networked Resources Redefinition Implementation Group (NRRIG) was charged to:

  1. Redesign the Networked Resources catalog to give more prominence to resources of significant reference or research value by excluding certain genres of material, most notably e-journals and e-books, from the public view of Networked Resources.
  2. Undertake a user study to determine current needs and behavior patterns of Networked Resources users before any significant redesign or redefinition is undertaken.
  3. Determine whether some type of separate listing or database of e-journals is needed either from the Library Gateway home page or from some intermediate "Networked Resources" index page, and the resources that would be required to create and maintain such a list.
  4. Redesign the Networked Resources public interface to provide better visual cues to distinguish between those types of resources that will remain in the e-Reference Collecion catalog.
  5. Redesign the Networked Resources browsable subject captions to provide more balanced access across disciplines to those types of resources remaining in the Networked Resources catalog.

WORK COMPLETED
TOWARD THE ABOVE CHARGE, NRRIG HAS:

  1. Conducted Focus Groups on Tuesday, July 10. A full report is forthcoming within the next few weeks.

  2. Set up the test Gateway (http://gould.mannlib.cornell.edu) to function exactly like the production version of the gateway. This meant fully implementing kerberos and the proxy server on the test gateway, which had not been done before.

  3. Created a working definition for the new Networked Resources. Towards the new definition, we have used the metaphor of a reference collection to characterize the new Networked Resources Collection. That is, Networked Resources would hold resources that primarily direct readers to information and are useful for supplying authoritative information. Using the vocabulary of the subject captions, these resources fall into the categories of catalogs and indexes. The nature of electronic resources will expand the idea of reference to include electronic journal collections, since they are accessed by an index. So, for example, Project Muse would be part of the new Networked Resources, although its component journals, such as American Imago, would not. While this will mean that titles will be removed from Networked Resources in the Library Gateway, all resources will still be available through the CU Library Catalog.

  4. Generated lists at http://ivy.mannlib.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/reports/subjectreports.cgi to see items listed by genre and by category. The "first cut" to remove items from Networked Resources was to keep everything that was assigned the genre "index" or "catalog" or had directory, encyclopedia or dictionary as an LC subject heading. These made the "keepers" list.

  5. IRPC was asked to look at the resources that will be removed and identify any that they would like to see remain.

  6. The test Gateway on Gould had all items removed that do not meet the criteria mentioned in item 4.

  7. All Networked Resources with an 899 were assigned the genre "index" to those items lacking it as a genre term.

  8. The Gateway Catalog description will be updated to allow a Status of "h" for "hidden." All other Status values remain as they were.

  9. The database was converted as follows:
    1. Any Gateway catalog records that have a genre that includes Index or Catalog or have a LCSH field containing the words Directories, Dictionaries, or Encyclopedias, were retained. All others were changed to a Status of "hidden", which will keep them from showing up in Networked Resources.
    2. Individual records removed in error (due to incorrect genres) will be added back manually by CTS.

  10. The Networked Resources button was changed to reflect its new name: e-Reference Collection. References to the words "Networked Resources" were to the new name as well.

  11. The proxy server generation procedure was updated to include "hidden" resources along with the "active" ones.

  12. The Glimpse Index was checked and tested to insure that only "active" resources are indexed.

  13. Selectors and member of IRPC identified resources that should remain. A list of all resources that were to be added was compiled and sent to CTS.

  14. CTS was able to re-add deleted resources on August 1, 2001.

  15. An announcement was added prior to the change in order to "warn" patrons.

  16. An announcement was implemented after the change to "remind" our patrons.

  17. ProQuest titles are no longer pulled into the Gateway search function.

  18. The Gateway connection cgi still allows connections to "hidden" resources that were previously added to MyLinks by MyLibrary subscribers. MyLinks will no longer allow for the selection of these resources. By doing this, no changes need to be made to the MyLibrary software.

  19. The "no hits" error message was changed and offers tips on finding ejournals.

  20. A "standard response" has been written and sent out to IRPC to help with email inquiries.

  21. The Documentation Committee updated Library Gateway Help pages that were affected by the change.

  22. A publicity committee has been formed and is working on continuing publicity efforts.

REVIEW OF THE CHARGE AND COMPLETION STATUS
In order to work as efficiently as possible, we prioritized the items in the charge at NRRIG's first meeting. In our initial efforts, we focused mainly on the first two items. All items are outlined below along with the progress made toward them.

  1. Redesign the Networked Resources catalog to give more prominence to resources of significant reference or research value by excluding certain genres of material, most notably e-journals and e-books, from the public view of Networked Resources.

    Implementation was completed on August 8, 2001

  2. Undertake a user study to determine current needs and behavior patterns of Networked Resources users before any significant redesign or redefinition is undertaken.

    The focus groups were conducted on July 10th.

  3. Determine whether some type of separate listing or database of e-journals is needed either from the Library Gateway home page or from some intermediate "Networked Resources" index page and the resources that would be required to create and maintain such a list.

    In the focus groups, patrons expressed a desire to be able to see what online journals are available in their field. An alphabetical listing of available online journals would not accomplish this. In Voyager it is possible to generate such a list using a relevancy keyword search. We recommend providing instruction on how to do this in our instruction classes and in gateway help. The CTS and ERC are also looking at products such as SerialsSolutions and will address this issue.

  4. Design the Networked Resources public interface to provide better visual cues to distinguish between those types of resources that will remain in the Networked Resources catalog.

    Focus group participants mentioned that they recognized MyLibrary because of the logo, even if they didn't use it. Some mentioned that it would be a good idea to create a logo for the new Networked Resources. Since the types of resources remaining in the gateway would be more like each other in the new design, such visual cues may not be as necessary. A logo for the new e-Reference collection is desirable as would icons for the different types of remaining resources. A designer has been assigned to the task. The Gateway Committee will take up oversight of the logo design.

  5. Redesign the Networked Resources browsable subject captions to provide more balanced access across disciplines to those types of resources remaining in the Networked Resources catalog.

    The subject captions in the test gateway currently reflect the new Networked Resources with its initial "machine cut", i.e., they do not have resources re-added that selectors have identified. In this implementation the number of resources has been reduced to about eight hundred. In looking at the subject captions, there are none that appear with nothing in them. In general, the captions seem better suited to the contents than they have in the past so the committee decided to leave them as they are.

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    NRRIG would like to thank others who contributed to the successful implementation of the e-Reference Collection:

    Programming Virtuoso:e-Ref. Collection Publicity Committee:
    Frances WebbJim Morris-Knower
    Catalogers Extraordinaire:Lee LaFleur
    Nancy HolcombSuzanne Cohen
    Jim LeBlancPat Viele
    IRPC Documentation Committee:Martha Walker
    Betsy GambleFocus Group Volunteers:
    Angela Horne, Co-chairVirginia Cole
    Mihoko HosoiElaine Westbrooks
    Lee Lafleur, Co-chairKathy Chiang
    Leah SollaPat Viele
    Kornelia TanchevaPhilip Herold
    Lisa Dayton

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