Next Gen Discussion with time for General Questions

Summary of What Patti's Group Discussed

• Large search results from Next Generation Melvyl (NGM) are difficult to adjust.
• Facets should be customizable.
• People are confused by the overlap of the First Search version of WorldCat with our WorldCat Local.
• Clients have expressed that they would like to be able to make simultaneous interlibrary loan requests and NGM does not handle this.
  
• People don't like to use or teach NGM.
• People are worried that the FirstSearch version will going away. Patti mentioned that, like Melvyl, this is not anticipated to happen anytime soon. (Karen might have said that, but I was typing quickly.)
  
• Some felt strongly both pro and con about Amazon results appearing in NGM search results. Karen noted that only librarians were bothered by this feature in testing and focus groups.
  
• Right now librarians have difficulty locating conference proceedings in NGM.
  
• People would like to be able to limit by publisher.
• People wanted to know when or if NGM should be re-named.
  
• People want a more customizable interface than NGM currently has.
  

Martha's Group

• See Mitchell's blog notes because they were read off from his notes for the most part.
• One interesting comment (made by Patti) is that she'll send out an example of the Hathi Trust (see the link in the comments for this entry)
  
• Someone wondered how or whether OCLC could scale up all its projects and library management service. Karen replied that they have tried to model have circulation transactions based on 5% of the world's libraries participating in WorldCat as an integrated library system (ILS) and that the amount is staggering. It's how it would or will work.
  

Jim Dooley's Group

HOTS survey about language expertise led to a discussion of using those skills of bibliographers.
Another question was raised that NGM was because UC has budget troubles, but we are actually try to be able to try and get efficiencies that really concentrates on the hidden or the unique. To give attention to the resources that have been off the radar.
Questions about user service input other than saying it will be there. There is no indication of the form it will take, but don't really know. Martha comments that people may not have the "bandwidth" to do this kind of work.
Jim relates that doing surveys uncovering expertise is nice, but doing something with it is what remains critical.
Issue of finance climate makes it difficult to cooperate and move around money and it needs to be worked on. The human factors (amount of work, etc.) in terms of what we do and how we work, will have profound impacts on people. The people who need to do the work, need to buy into the process.

Karen's Group
The group mostly asked questions. The nuance of groups was felt to be important. Karen re-emphasized the common elements, but that the differences were in the report referenced in the OCLC report in her slides.
Also discussed the importance of working on CJK.
Feels its important to emphasize the beta nature of the FAS tags. There was a lot of interest in this issue. Had a discussion of why users don't tag. Noting that there needs to be a self-interest is a tag. The current look for WorldCat is more static.
Fiscal year '10 is the time for the getting more metadata exposure. For example, Ebsco will be allowing its metadata in WorldCat.
Also talked about what will catalogers do if mainstream publications are represented. Talked about the concept of redeploying labor to provide access to hidden or unique collections. The conversation also went in the direction of verification and selling it to faculty.
The use of Dewey for international resources. Outside the U.S. in Europe and in Australia, the Dewey work is used heavily for multi-language use. Pulls together information without using labor intensive subject analysis.

Question from General Audience
Placement of NGM encourages undergraduates to use it erroneously. Wonders how the stats will change.
How do you evaluate that a user is coming back?
Either it's a zero sum, or they don't shun it.
Karen suggests a click stream analysis. In her examination of some of these is that there are a lot of click throughs via Google. She says that knowing that kind of information buries that data. Using Armature, which is a tool that WorldCat uses, we might be finding more information on this. Patti is interested in this type of analysis and would like to do a presentation on the statistics. Karen noted that 80% of traffic coming from another location.

Summary of Sessions

After a short refreshment break we had small group discussions with the three panelists, and then a closing summary session. Then each panelist summarized the group discussion.

Some thoughts and observations:

• Librarians worried about commercialism of Amazon ads on World Cat Local, but no other user group worried.
• Conference proceedings would be a useful limit--exists in current Melvyl
• A customizable interface would be a nice enhancement to World Cat Melvyl.
• Question: Are we overly simplistic about what user needs are? Amazon model not always relevant.
• Next Generation Technical Services group must consider impact of the Hathi Trust agreement for mass digitization.
• Big challenge: Ingesting non-Roman scripts.
• OCLC tagging systems using LC subject headings is currently in research phrase.
• Why do users tag, or who is more likely to tag? One view here: http://mstrohm.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/why-do-users-tag-detecting-user-motivation-in-tagging-systems/
• How can user-contributed metadata be trusted? Faculty sometimes concerned about Wikipedia etc.
  

Next Generation Melvyl at UC--Patricia Martin Presentation

Patricia Martin, Director of Bibliographic Services at CDL, is speaking about the implementation of Next Generation Melvyl at UC.

She begins with a summary of key findings from the 2005 Bibliographic Services Task Force report:

• Focus on what users want--Users care about delivery as much as discovery
• Reduced click streams key, even at expense of good description

In this light, remember that Next Generation Melvyl is meant for end users. Expert searchers, such as librarians, can still use First Search.

Still need to understand user behavior--do people click on something because it's at the top of the list or because it's what they want?

Need to define collections in new ways; print-digital distinction blurring. Also, unique special collections are more widely available.

Embed services where users are, such as learning environments, Web sites, desktops, and other applications.

Meet user needs and solve user problems. Try something, assess it, and change quickly if needed.

We need more Clickstream analysis and eyeball tracking to better understand user behavior.

The Ubiquitous Librarian is a strong proponent of innovative uses of Twitter in libraries. He recently joined staff at UCSB.

Librarians are a distinct class of users; will always have tensions between needs of end users and those of librarians.

Many reasons to partner with OCLC:

• Amazing record base--140 million records, 60 million in queue
• Similar visions/goals/interests
• Chance to leverage investment across institutions

Status of pilot: Melvyl still outpaces WorldCat Local. However, it hasn't fully been promoted and isn't always highly visible on library web pages.

10% of searches return no results at present. Could suggest alternate spellings in future.

Pilot: 10 campus specific views and 1 UC-wide view. Only one ILS represented per campus, which is sometimes a problem.

Interoperability with UC eLinks and Request is crucial; so far better success with UC eLinks than Request, in pilot.

Future task: Mining authority records for recommender services, a la Amazon.

For large record sets, retrieval speed will need to improve. Changes in the works.

Pilot to be extended until all outstanding requirements are met by OCLC--Request, multiple ILS's at one campus, retrieval speed. No firm time for when pilot concludes; "Melvyl not going away just yet."

Karen Calhoun Presentation--Summary

Karen Calhoun, Vice President of OCLC, is speaking about the possibilities opened by the Next Generation Melvyl project. Below are some stream-of-consciousness reflections.

Definition of "next generation": Moving away from purely local Integrated Library Systems, toward more local and coordinated action across a larger system. Essential components for such a system:

• Data Sharing
• Syndication
• Synchronization
  
• Linking

"Metadata switch": Ability, within very few clicks, to start anywhere and end up at your local library's holdings. Example: Search in Google Books that ends up in UCR catalog.

Catalogs should be user-driven. Report to read: Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want. Presentation version, from Charleston Conference 2008.

Blurred lines in metadata creation between experts and end users--another trend in cataloging.

OCLC currently conducting an "expert community experiment" that allows expert catalogers to make more changes to records than they could previously.

For detailed information, consider allowing users to add content to the record. From John MacColl, "Are Archives the New Libraries?"

Library of Congress had great success with adding images to Flickr. Similar plans in works for the University of California Digital Special Collections.

Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) a current project that seeks to understand how to make data more shareable across systems (see requirements above.) One aspect of FRBR: Generating tag clouds from LC subject headings that already exist.

Amazon can suggest related works based on people's purchases, an option not available within WorldCat. Can use clustered subject headings to suggest related works.

Law enforcement has strong interest in authority control, to ensure they are dealing with the right people.

Goal for FY09: Launch Next Gen Melvyl cataloging. Hoped for announcement at ALA.

"Cloud computing" similar to serving up electricity from the grid. Eventually don't even think about it. YouTube video (10 minutes): "What is cloud computing?"

OCLC wants to build cloud services on top of WorldCat to support library resource management.
More info: OCLC Web Scale management services.

Imperatives, in closing:

• Expose your metadata!
• Open up metadata silos
• Develop evidence-based, user-centered definitions of metadata quality; engage with users as metadata contributors
  
• Mobe metadata management to the cloud
  

Committee reports posted to Spring Assembly schedule

Committee reports for the Spring Assembly are linked from the meeting schedule.
http://lauci.lib.uci.edu/springprogram2008/Schedule.htm

Draft Minutes, Fall Assembly 2007 Nov.15-16, 2007, UC Merced

o Research and Professional Development Committee – S. Dunlap (UCSD)
LAUC Minigrants Program -- [Sample] Call for Minigrants Spring 2008 -- R&DP Revised Calendar

o Diversity Committee – Chimene Tucker (UCSB)

o Heads of Technical Services (HOTS) Summary of Activities FY2007-08 - Tony Harvell (UCSD)

o Resource Sharing Committee (RSC) Report - Lisa Mix (UCSF)

With regards,

Mitchell Brown
UC Irvine vice-chair

Questions about OCLC Worldcat

-- answered by Bill Jordan, Patricia Martin and Sara Davidson


Should UCs be worried about the numbers of ILL requests skyrocketing?
There are 3 request silos. Local opac to summit requesting at one click. But for ILL you had to go to another system. They were losing them between local and summit and most to the hop to ILL.


Interlocation information: 94707 - is that a zip code? Will students have to know their own location zip codes?
It defaults to local zip code by plugging in the zip code associated with your IP address.


WorldCat will have articles from Eric and the 3 others. But will this preclude students from going to databases not covered by WorldCat?
It's something that's already happening and it's not really affecting it much.


Is there an option to keep including more databases in worldcat? Yes. OCLC is looking into it. They are competing with Google and Google Scholar.


Ease of use and functionality for our users - students and faculty. We can send anyone to Google but the research functionality is what we can add to searching. What will be doing that Google can not do?
We're interested in doing things that Google can not do. Where will researchers go is what we'll find out in user testing. We'll have to find out if researchers dislike OCLC and if they do, why. OCLC is only replacing Melvyl, not local OPACs available where researchers may wind up going.

At UW, a researcher stumbled upon a Ayurvedic video in WorldCat, can you get this for me? He was pretty happy. He found it once a long time ago and was never able to find it again until he tried WorldCat so perhaps WorldCat can be a big win. It's not going to work for every researcher but there will be researchers who will be able to use WorldCat.

One of the questions we need to find out is where they start right now in their research. Do they go to Melvyl? Do they go to their local OPACs? Quite a few people seem to go to Amazon according to one survey at Merced? Humanities and Soc Sci are more likely to start in catalog as opposed to the Science faculty. Most seem to also start more in Google Scholar as opposed to OPACs.

We also need to look at special collections and music collections in terms of the needs of our researchers.

How has the level of requests for on order and in process materials changed since they no longer are in local OPAC at UW.
Bill doesn't know but Jackie can tell you.


What are the implications of OCLC deciding not to publish certain information in records.
The broad universe of users found that info is not useful. Some of the bibliographic details are important to faculty and researchers. OCLC is trying to balance this still.

In the assessment of FRBRization it came up in passing in a usability test but the test was created badly. They thought they would search by title but searched by date instead and their item came right up. In Frbr, the local info doesn't go to the top which makes it confusing in searching for specific edition.


Why the implementation before the UC eLinks are ready? It goes to trying a new perpetual data and getting used to not having a perfect product. We've delayed the pilot several times and if we kept delaying, we'd never get there. There was an executive decision made. There is a backdoor way of requesting that looks totally different but there will be a way to request items.


Will Melvyl go away once WorldCat pilot goes live?
No. And we're assuming that all campuses place WorldCat will be placed on the front page and Melvyl hidden somewhere else so that people will be more likely to use WorldCat and we'll be able to get more feedback about it. Melvyl as it exists now will be run for another 2 years after WorldCat pilot goes live.


Which campuses will go live first?
UCSD and UCLA will go first but every single campus will have a local view and then there will be a UC-wide view.


What if WorldCat doesn't fly after 2 years. The consensus is we aren't getting everything we wanted in the BSTF report. Has there been discussion about a Plan B?
We can always go back to the Aleph platform. We'll keep Melvyl up and running and we'll proceed from there. We can go back to Melvyl or find another project. CDL keeps their eye on other new interesting projects that come up - Georgia Pines or Indeca and other projects - and we'll still have a Melvyl team and UC will come back together and decide what to do next.

There was never a promise that we'd get everything we wanted in the BSTF report. There is also not a product out there that would give us everything we wanted.

Aleph is also limited in terms of what we want it to do and that is why there is so much exploration going on right now.


Bill mentioned materials that are not going to be in WorldCat pilot. What percentage of stuff isn't going to be in the pilot?
15% of our records do not have an OCLC record number. That's quite a significant amount of record clean ups.


Frequently I have students where we go into databases with UCeLinks. If it says the article is not available online but we do have online access to this journal, often I will tell them to go to Melvyl to go look for it. Will that kind of linking information going to be available in the pilot?

You will see that screen that will tell you if it's available online. The functionalities will be the same. The screens might not look exactly the same but you will be able to link through t the article.


Has OCLC been able to provide data about just how much the tools are being used?
Some of the Web 2.0 stuff isn't being used. It'll be interesting to see what will happen when one person posts a review and then others feel more comfortable to do use it.


What are your plans for special collections and archival materials.
It's still very much in discussion. They're still tinkering with the tags available for records. It's be nice to see them turn it all on, and most users won't go down that far anyway, and some will. Right now we're telling them to use our local catalog because it's better.


Looking into a transactional log of the WorldCat catalog and see how people are doing searches. Can you give us details about how people are doing their searches and their successes/failures?
No.

A profession of dial-twisters

From BJ: "Librarians are inveterate dial-twisters... if there's not a dial to twist we ask them to put some dials on there to twist. OCLC has to resist all the requests for local customization if they are going to get anywhere, and instead focus on commonalities between organizations."

Also: "OCLC is very responsive to data... (rather than "staff feel that...")." Bring data to the table.

On the whole, OCLC has been good to work with for UW.

Is this a pilot or a done deal?

Sara talked all about the pilot project. Patricia Martin then demo'd it.

From Patricia Martin -- there will be a new OCLC symbol for SRLF (ZAS). Apparently there are 140 symbols+ for all the campuses, so that needs to be cleaned up. They are also working on a brand-new symbol for the mass digitization content, so all the campuses can access it the same way.

The pilot will only work with SRLF, not NRLF.

Martin says... "this is a lot for something that is just a pilot" because they haven't committed yet. I agree... and I think that's something many of us are wondering about.

She says... is this a pilot or a done deal? Martin says she hopes she's leaving us with the impression that this is still an open question ... at the end of evaluating the pilot project hopefully we'll know the answer.

how will the project be evaluated?
* evaluation of partnership
* performance benchmarks
* UC and OCLC user assessment
* OCLC pricing model
* OCLC business plans

Ways to give feedback:
* single point of content -- libraries pilot site
* survey
* feedback link
* news from OCLC

Why rework Melvyl?

Sara is talking about the justifications for working on a next generation Melvyl project... the BSTF report provided a lot of reasons. There's also a desire to have better search and navigation, better records, journal article integration (?). Also, social networking features*, additional language interfaces, and opportunities for streamlining cataloging practices.

* i.e. she mentioned incorporating catalog records into social networking services like facebook. I'm not so sure this is actually social networking, but rather a different way of thinking about information...