Steven Seifried, PhD,1 Virginia M. Tanji, MSLS, MEd,1 Annis Lee Adams, MA, MLIS;1 Carolyn Ching, MA,

MLIS,2 Sarah Jansen, MLIS;2 Paul Wermager, MLIS, MPH,3 Jessica Hashimoto, MLIS, MBA3

1John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa; 2Hawaii Medical Library; 3Science & Technology Reference Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI

To create a single point of access for electronic biomedical resources for researchers, educators, practitioners, and students in Hawaii. Many of Hawaii’s healthcare professionals and students have access to both Hawaii Medical Library (HML) and the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) Library. Finding what resources were available from which library had become burdensome for patrons and librarians.

• Collaborating

• Working with non-librarians • Learning the unique circumstances of

each other's organizations • Finding common ground on content,

design, and scope • Creating an attractive, efficient, user-

friendly interface • Assuring good computing performance • Defining the scope of holdings to include • Agreeing on vocabulary and fields for

searching • Developing a data model to meet technical

and librarian needs • Establishing and maintaining an accurate

list of titles and holdings • Including subject headings for thousands

of journals • Communicating different types of access

restrictions

• Created a collaboration among HML (a private, nonprofit subsidiary of a large healthcare system), the UHM Library, and the John A. Burns School of Medicine

• Garnered support from 13 healthcare-related organizations, who agreed to post links to ePOI on their websites and allowed announcements to their employees and students

• Examined existing similar projects • Maintained a project book and meeting minutes, which facilitated efficient functioning of the multi-institutional project group

• Downloaded records from LocatorPlus populated title-specific data, including journal title abbreviations, and defined the scope of the ePOI database

• Utilized reports from SerialsSolutions to maintain holdings data for HML and UHM Library; supplemented this with manual entry for data not contained in the SerialsSolutions reports

• User authentication (EZProxy) is maintained at each library

• Designed a minimalist layout that was modified based on patron feedback and pilot tests

Pathways to Online Information: a Collaborative Project for E-Resources

http://epoi.hawaii.edu POI POI

OBJECTIVE CHALLENGES

OBJECTIVE

METHODS

ePOI is the only multi-institutional portal of biomedical holdings in Hawaii. Users can search for e-books, e-journals, databases, and websites available from the two libraries using a single portal rather than checking multiple resource gateways. Initial user response has been enthusiastic.

• Title-specific data were extracted from

LocatorPlus • Titles selected for inclusion, but not

contained in LocatorPlus, were hand-entered

• Holdings-specific data are regularly updated by merging SerialsSolutions reports and manually entered lists

• Standard and custom reports are available to librarians

ePOI Website: Written in ASP Microsoft IIS Webserver Microsoft SQL Server 2000 User-platform agnostic Section 508 (ADA) compliant ePOI Database Structure and Content: 8 database object tables 16,000 titles in Title Table (not all held by UHM or HML) 12,468 Listings in Holdings Tables Data available for Administrative Uses e.g. holdings and use analysis Maintains use metrics e.g. user search types, search results, link-outs

• Search by journal title, phrase, or

abbreviation • Search by keywords in title and subject

headings • Search using Boolean operators in

Advanced Search • Browse alphabetical title list • Limit search to particular library or free

resources • Link directly to the resource via proxy server

authentication • Comprehensive User Guide

TECHNICAL SOLUTION RESULTS

ePOI FEATURES

DATA FLOW

• Further development of administrative

reporting • Analysis of holdings and patron use

patterns • Addition of health-related web sites • Consideration of broadening ePOI user

consortium to include other libraries with health-related collections

January - February 2004 was limited to word-of-mouth publicity and beta testing. Formal, widespread announcement and advertising occurred in March. Initial ePOI Usage Statistics January 1, 2004-April 30, 2004 The project group is encouraged by these numbers, especially since the first two and a half months were limited to informal publicity before the formal, widespread advertising took place.

The ePOI project represents a successful example of public-private collaboration among three entities and lays the groundwork for future collaborative projects. Researchers, students, healthcare professionals, and librarians are embracing the “one-stop shopping” of ePOI. Librarians from the local hospital libraries especially like the title abbreviation search feature because they can easily search using MEDLINE citations provided by their patrons. HML and UHM librarians will analyze usage statistics to help with collection development. Data collection will also be used for research and evaluation of patron search behaviors.

____________________________________________________________________________ ePOI was made possible by a National Library of Medicine grant under its Internet Access to Digital Libraries program. Grant number LM007788-01.

HML & UHM

Serials Solutions

Report

Manual Librarian Entry via Webpage

Search Results listed by Title and LIbrary

Search Title-Specific

Data

Retrieve Holding-

Specific Data

Manual Librarian Entry via Webpage

LocatorPlus data seed

User Input Search ePOI for Journal

Holdings

UHM User Access

Challenge

HML User Access

Challenge

Journal Provider Website

UHM Proxy Server

HML Proxy Server

Free Resource

University of Hawaii Patrons

(UHM)

Hawaii MedicalLibrary Patrons

(HML)

User Select from ePOI

Search Results

PRELIMINARY PATRON USAGE FUTURE WORK

Week2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Cou

nt

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

Page Hits: Total = 20,265Searches: Total = 6,124Link-Outs: Total = 2,907

Average:3.4 Page Hits/Search0.5 Link-outs/Search

Beta Test

CONCLUSIONS