1 NDLTD Union Catalog Panel Session 1C, Auditorium Introduction and Opening Statement ETD 2011: 14 th Int. Symp. on ETDs Cape Town, South Africa Edward A. Fox Executive Director, NDLTD, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA USA

Panelists Uta Ackermann, German National Library Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net Ana Pavani, PUC-Rio, Brazil Sharon Reeves, Library and Archives, Canada Peter Schirmbacher, Humboldt-Univ. Berlin Peter E. Sidorko, University of Hong Kong Hussein Suleman, University of Cape Town

Parts of the Discussion Giving background on our Union Catalog, covering history and technology. Explaining problems with our current situation. Explaining alternate scenarios to move forward. Discussing from the perspective of a university library. Discussing from the perspective of computing organizations. Discussing from the perspective of national libraries. Developing list of pros and cons, recommendations, etc. to move forward.

Presenter Perspectives Ed - Introductions, overview Peter HK - university view, librarian view Uta - German National Library view Sharon - national (Canada) view Hussein - national (SA) + regional (Africa) views Ana - regional (Latin America) view + language (Portuguese) view Iryna - international view, open access Peter GE - technology and standards views Hussein - union catalog

History/Background - 1 Since federated search with a large number of sites leads to all types of problems, we decided that the harvesting of information from repositories would be a better approach, and therefore decided to use the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), repositories at local (and in some cases state, national, or regional levels) sites, and have a Union Catalog.

History/Background - 2 The Union Catalog was run at Virginia Tech early on, then taken over by OCLC, which still runs it. But about a year ago, the person handling it for them in their Research Division retired, and since then they have not done additional harvesting. So, the contents were frozen and have not been updated.

History/Background - 3 Hussein Suleman offered to take this over and has been working on it. But it is not an easy chore, and there are many problems. Hussein can comment on all that. He also can comment on what local sites can do to help make all this better, and what long term prospects might be, if this is our ongoing solution.

History/Background - 4 Vinod Chachra, at VTLS, who runs a service that builds on the Union Catalog (supporting metadata based search and browsing), offered to take over the Union Catalog, but there would have to be a sustainable business plan that ensures quality of content, reliable and useful services, and assistance for new members of NDLTD. He suggested that we get money from member dues, only harvest from members so they are getting a benefit that will be motivational, and launch a distributed effort to improve the quality of the local and central data, as well as of related systems, etc.

History/Background - 5 The NDLTD Board deferred decision on all this till our panel runs and collects comments from the community. In addition to all this, it should be noted that many sites don't know how, or don't have interest in, running OAI-PMH. So we don't have even all the metadata that is online and accessible. Further, much of what we have has lots of errors, including many records without correct URLs.

Questions - 1 What is a repository of ETDs? How can an ETD repository improve its reliability, sustainability, etc.? What is a union catalog? Why does NDLTD run a union catalog? Where does the data come from? What was the role of OCLC, and how does it still relate to the union catalog? What happens in Cape Town relative to the union catalog? How can a university provide data to the union catalog?

Questions - 2 How does a university get started in providing data to the union catalog? What standards apply? How can quality be improved locally? What services build upon the union catalog? What can we observe from each of these services? How can we get more universities to contribute to the union catalog? What are national and regional activities related to the union catalog? How can these broader activities add value, enhance quality, increase coverage, etc.?

Charging? Cost: who pays, when, how much Support: who provides, when Should members only get special services? What services? Should there be, for higher dues, 'member plus' services? What? Should there be a charge first time to join the Union Catalog, with reductions if quality is higher according to standards? Should there be enforcement of standards and penalties like temporary removal if content standards are not implemented?

Getting Discussion Started Background technology: OAI, harvesting, union catalog, services using it Scale: locally, nationally, regionally Implementation: systems, standards, procedures Quality: logging, checking, improving content (data + metadata) and services

Next Sharon and Hussein to keep you engaged and involved in the discussion Short Position Statements Lots of Discussion Thank you for your time, interest, and comments!