Welcome to RACER 2.7 A New World for Patrons Amy Greenberg Donna Millard OLA February 2005

Today’s Presentation Brief Overview of the RACER Project Comparison of 2.2.7 and 2.7 User Interface Usability Testing Results on 2.7 Changes to 2.7 by the End User Instruction Working Group (EUIWG) The Future… Questions and Comments

Ontario Scholars Portal Ontario Council of University Libraries 20 Institutions Content Coordination via CNSLP Access to Scholarly Electronic Resources E-journals (EJOS/ScienceServer) Geospatial Data Get It! (SFX) Illumina O-Zone RACER RefWorks Scholars Portal Website

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Who’s Online? Brock Guelph Ryerson Trent Waterloo Western Wilfrid Laurier Windsor Carleton Lakehead York – Law library Nipissing Queen’s Toronto McMaster Laurentian

RACER Configuration Numbers 8952 location records (6731 of which are external locations) 189 external locations added on request 337,844 users registered 39 catalogues configured for Z39.50 searching 18 search profiles created

Project Team Tactical Implementation Team (TIG) OCUL ILL Sub-Groups Agnes Bai (Systems and Web Development Analyst) Shane Chan (System Administrator) Amy Greenberg (User Support) Sue McGillivray (Project Manager) Philip Springall (User Support) OCUL ILL Sub-Groups End User Instruction Working Group French Language Sub-Group …and many more!

ILL Staff Support Numbers 4923 User support questions answered 239 OCUL staff at 19 institutions with 17 2-day classroom and hands-on training sessions Ten 1-day hands-on specialized training programs

RACER Usage – Summary Each student and researcher in Ontario has access to a combined collection of over 20 million library items 128,000 requests in 2003 507,000 requests in 2004

RACER Usage – Monthly Stats 2003 2004 J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D

RACER Usage by Institution Libraries within the Institution using VDX Number of months in production Borrowing requests generated Lending requests received Total requests (borrowing and lending) Brock 1 19 14967 4237 19204 Guelph 3 38638 37816 76454 Ryerson 8072 9993 18065 Trent 6973 8349 15322 Waterloo 9 45492 55872 101364 Western 6 10485 33912 44397 Wilfrid Laurier 23595 16755 40350 Windsor 2 16637 13394 30031 Carleton 16 27028 18213 45241 Lakehead 13635 8998 22633 Nipissing 15 2537 496 3033 Queen's 4 10760 23471 34231 York 920 1281 2201 Toronto 24 13 56773 89916 146689 McMaster 10 11228 13464 24692 Laurentian 8 2320 2159 4479 Total 61   290060 338326 628386

RACER Usage by Institution

RACER Usage – Visits to ZPortal O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D 2003 2004

RACER Usage by End User Category 1% 2% 30% 4% 5% 6% 9% 12% 26% Education Student

RACER End User Benefits “One stop shopping” – access to Ontario university collections and other Canadian and American catalogues via a common search interface Patron initiated online requesting An easy to complete electronic request form with pickup location options Ability to track their requests is a new feature for users of interlibrary loan services Email notification for receipt or cancellation of materials

Improvements for End Users in the New Version of RACER From 2.2.7 to 2.7 Improvements for End Users in the New Version of RACER

Changes Made by the OCUL End User Instruction Working Group Since 2.7 ZPortal Upgrade Changes Made by the OCUL End User Instruction Working Group

New Search Profiles Updated Search Profiles from 2.2.7 Canada—Research Libraries/ Bibliotheques de recherche Incorporates OCUL, Canadian universities, CISTI and AMICUS

0 Results?

Help to Blank Request Forms

Updated Help Pages End User Instruction Working Group edited all Help pages to reflect OCUL policies and procedures Added relevant examples for our patrons

Usability Testing -- 2.2.7 and 2.7 Used same questions for both versions Find and request a book Find and request a journal article Check status of your requests How to change your personal information (ie. Email, phone, etc.) Focused on language, functionality and mental models

Language Results 2.2.7 Terminology unclear (ie. bibsearch) Title keyword searching unclear Article searching; typed in title of article not journal 2.7 Terminology understood if noticed Keywords anywhere not understood Still typing in title of article

Functionality 2.2.7 Help untouched Confusion about what OPACs to select and how to do it Advanced searching; did not notice the author repeated in all fields 2.7 Limited use of Help; did find answer to ? Most did not alter all selected; 1 did limit to one catalogue Advanced search; no difficulty using fields

Mental Models 2.2.7 *red text; noticed and understood Expect email links to contact staff Use back buttons 2.7 *blue text; not noticed Still expect email links Still use back buttons

What's Next? Expanded 2.7 functionality JEDDS file transfer integration French interface Additional reports Messaging with additional systems Pilot projects Peer-to-peer messaging with Australia Unmediated requesting Upgrade to 3.0 NCIP

Questions? Amy Greenberg Donna Millard EUIWG Members 416-946-8616 amy.greenberg@utoronto.ca Donna Millard 905-525-9140 ext. 22904 millard@mcmaster.ca EUIWG Members Michelle Fiander (Queen’s) Lucina Fraser (Ryerson) Anne Fullerton (Waterloo) Amy Greenberg (OCUL) Donna Millard (McMaster) Dan Sich (Waterloo)