Alberta Library Interface

OCLC SiteSearch Users Group Meeting

3 May 2000

Agenda

• Consortium context: The Alberta Library

• Role of SiteSearch– Virtual union catalogue– Portal management system– MyLibrary

• The Alberta Library (TAL)– province-wide library consortium– umbrella organization for …

• Knowledge Network (KN)– provincial organization of post-secondary

libraries

• APLEN (Alberta Public Library Electronic Network)– represents the public libraries in the province

Consortium Context

• Membership in TAL– 4 universities– two dozen colleges and university colleges– almost 300 public libraries (with seven regional

systems)– a handful of government and special libraries

• … serving a population of 2.9 million

Consortium Context

• "Campus Alberta"– initiative of the provincial government– unification of post-secondary system– libraries were the first to claim the money

Consortium Context

• Campus Alberta Funding for KN– one-time funding: $20 million

• $16 million distributed to the institutions

• $4 million reserved for collaborative projects

• Other Campus Alberta Projects– online course registry

• interesting metadata problems

Consortium Context

• "Alberta Library Interface" (ALI)– project: develop a common interface to online

resources– started as KN (post-secondary) response to

Campus Alberta: CALI– APLEN (public library) involvement planned

for later phase, but moved up: ALI

Consortium Context

• ALI Pilot Projects– virtual union catalogue– integrated database searching– portal management system

Consortium Context

• Consultation– the Downey report– five "road shows"– online forum

• Response– "at last!" …– … but give us local branding

Consortium Context

• So … ALI's mandate:– create a common interface …

• but make it look different in every library

– strike a balance between centralization and distribution

– make sustainable change with one-time funding– make it good enough that libraries will adopt it

voluntarily– make a level playing field for big and small,

public and post-secondary libraries

Consortium Context

ALI Pilot Projects

• Virtual Union Catalogue

• Portal Management System

• MyLibrary

• Virtual Union Catalogue– using WebZ– to be administered centrally– to include integrated database searching– therefore will require sophisticated

authentication/authorization

Pilot Projects

• Z39.50 Environment– servers:

• the four universities

• two colleges (out of two dozen)

• two urban public libraries (out of a dozen)

• three regional public library systems (out of seven)

– systems• all major vendors

• Dynix dominates in numbers; large institutions use DRA, Sirsi, III

Pilot Projects

• Licensed Databases– searching integrated with virtual union

catalogue– access control issues

Pilot Projects

• Advantages of WebZ– flexible interface design– sophistication of Z39.50 engine

• cross-database capabilities

• deduping

– scalability

Pilot Projects

• Desiderata– web-form management of the interface– distributed authentication (cross-vendor)– distributed ILL– draw database vendors into Z39.50

interoperability debate

Pilot Projects

• Portal Management System– management of online resources using backend

databases– separation of content and presentation– flexible enough to allow easy development of

new systems– supports collaborative development

Pilot Projects

• Prototype: XML/XSLT– pathfinder system– using Apache's Cocoon– using Dublin Core– looking at integration with SiteSearch

Pilot Projects

• But… what about CORC?– commercial version for release in July– let OCLC implement DC, bibliographic

database– interface management à la WebZ– integration with Database Builder

Pilot Projects

• MyLibrary– two levels:

• customization of WebZ environment

• full MyLibrary toolkit for library websites

– not there yet– persistent User State Object?

Pilot Projects

• Conclusions– extending SiteSearch from resource discovery

to resource development and management– collaboration is the key– using the web to lower the technical barriers