Electronic Resources and Libraries March 1, 2011 Austin, Texas Craig Harkema, Charlene Sorensen, Karim Tharani Transcendental Metadata: A Collaborative Schema for eResource Description

Agenda  What is the problem  Benefits to dealing with the problem  Guiding principles  Methodology Information gathering Metadata creation Tool development  What we learned

University of Saskatchewan ~ undergrads ~ grad students ~ 1000 faculty including 44 librarians ~ $8.6M acquisitions budget ~ 800 electronic resources Electronic resource:  Anything digital available remotely via an electronic device  But not individual e-books or e-journals

 U of S librarians don’t feel like they have a handle on e-resources  Difficult for non-acquisitions librarians to understand the nature, extent and diversity of electronic resources  Not optimizing the potential of librarian expertise What is the problem Traffic Light Tree by Pierre Vivant Photo credit:

 Supporting librarian collaboration  Facilitating accountability Budget Service  Improving decision making and assessment Benefits Photo credit:

Guiding principles Appreciating different perspectives Developing discourse - Not a case study Keeping it fast and flexible - Not replacing an ERMS

Needs gathering & analysis  Held consultations with colleagues  Analyzed results  Identified themes: Need to be prepared for ongoing evaluation of e-resources Need more information to make decisions Need to be able to deal with new resource types Need information to be accessible Need to be self-sufficient

Transcendental metadata  Provides the foundation for tools  Is the link between librarian and technology  Takes into account non-acquisition librarians’ needs  Capitalizes on the strengths of multiple databases  Uses both social tagging and consultation- derived attributes  Is collaborative and distributed

 Attributes: - Source type - Liaison cluster - Bib# - Format/Type - Title - Locally hosted - Subject - Mobile compatible - License digitized - Perpetual access - Date acquired - COUNTER compliant  Locally responsive, not predetermined Transcendental metadata

Metadata sources ILS License database LiaisonsTags A-Z list Subject pages

Web 2.0  Collective intelligence  User-centered  Continuous feedback  “Data is the ‘Intel Inside’ the next generation of computer applications” – O’Reilly

Web 2.0  Smaller, more agile tools  Less threatened by marketplace  Focused target  Quick to revise  Open sharing of databases  Problem solving over marketability

Methodology – moving along… ① Gather needs – Consultations ② Analyze needs – Metadata creation ③ Implementation – Tool development a) Approach - How do we do this? Web 2.0 ethic Looking outside the library realm b) Solution - What do we do? Accessible Self-Service

Business Intelligence approach  Business Intelligence (BI): Solutions that assist decision makers in understanding the current state of their organization (Buchanan and O’Connell, 2006)  Characteristics of BI approach: User-centric, collaborative approach Transcends departmental/operational boundaries Gathers and integrates data from relevant internal and external sources to fulfill users’ needs Distinction of operational vs. reporting systems

BI solutions – components  Source systems Operational systems that have the necessary data e.g. ILS, ERMS, etc.  Data repository A database to store the summarized data e.g. data warehouse  User interface Tools for users to interact with the data repository for analysis, reporting, or mining Source: Oracle Database Concepts - Business Intelligence

BI USASK Data source  Catalogue  Subject pages  License database  A-Z list Data repository  Themes  Attributes  Tags  Integrated  Normalized BI tool  Self-service  Drag and drop  Drill in and out  Visualization

Getting the answers… Connect Tableau to Excel worksheet Drag-and-drop, filter and arrange desired columns using Tableau interface Use Tableau interface to visualize relevant data in different ways with various graphing options

What we learned  There is value in the process – voicing needs, gathering and organizing, prioritizing, acting  We can use involvement and expertise of all librarians  Web 2.0 mindset is a benefit within the organization – small, fast, iterative, responsive  It’s okay to take initiative – we don’t always have to wait for vendors

Questions?? Metadata Librarian Serials Librarian IT Librarian Thanks to University of Saskatchewan Archives for campus and city images.