1. Managing end user’s access to electronic journals at the University of Parma, Italy: from local to global Davide Campari Assistant Librarian at the Medical Library of the University of Parma (Biblioteca Centrale e Storica “Gaetano Ottaviani”) davide.campari@unipr.it I NFORMATIO M EDICATA 2008 Budapest, September 2008

2. 2 AIM OF THE PRESENTATION  From local to global  The local solution : BIBEL  The global solution : SFX  The medical end user’s way to electronic journals  Using the customized PubMed  The University of Parma and SFX : organizational history As assistant librarian at the Medical Library and member of the university’s Sfx Staff, I wish to offer a simple outline of the way the University of Parma has faced the problem of providing its users with an easy way to reach all available online journals. Special attention will be given to the perspective of health science students and researchers.

3. 3 FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN LIBRARIES The case of catalogation The OLD librarian was building up his/her own isolated catalogue for his/her own isolated library The NEW librarian builds up his/her catalogue relating to and relying on a wider catalogue (in Italy, the SBN system) in a game of give and take

4. 4 IN THE END USER’S ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS IN PARMA  THE PROBLEM : granting easy access for all to the growing mass of online journals  THE SOLUTIONS : 2001 – BIBEL : a local home made system 2005 – SFX : a world-covering system produced by an international commercial provider (ExLibris) FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL

5. 5 THE LOCAL SOLUTION : BIBEL Alphabetical search Search by subject, title, publisher BIBEL’s end user’s search display

6. 6 BIBEL’s S earch R esults All operating metadata (urls, titles, subjects, publishers, etc.) inserted manually by the librarian journal by journal Click on title to get to journal’s home page THE LOCAL SOLUTION : BIBEL

7. 7 The PROs and CONs  PROs simple to use (on both sides: librarians and end users) simple to mantain  CONs growingly inadequate to cover the increasing and diversifying mass of subscriptions (packages sold by big publishers or providers) and free resources not interacting with other tools such as OPACs, databases and search engines THE LOCAL SOLUTION : BIBEL

8. 8 THE GLOBAL SOLUTION : SFX and its Knowledge Base KNOWLEDGE BASE (KB) : the core of SFX. Roughly said, it’s a huge mass of ready-to-use updated metadata covering publications and publishers from all over the world. The KB is organized in sections called “targets”. Roughly said, they are containers of titles having something in common (in most cases the same publisher or commercial package). The same journal can be included in as many targets as many are the possible channels of access.

9. 9 The librarian’s work on the local KB  By “activating” the single journals in the proper target the librarian makes them reachable to the end user  If the institution has access rights to a whole package/target, it can be activated with a single click  The librarian works on a local “copy” of the global KB. Editing is possible at every level in the local KB. Availability indications can be introduced when different from the global ones (“local thresholds”) as well as passwords and notes.  The librarian can contribute to the global KB by reporting errors and misses and also by proposing new titles (after freely introducing them at local level) THE GLOBAL SOLUTION: SFX

10. 10  CONs : its complexity in setup and maintenance requires a highly skilled librarian (with IT skills) as Project Manager its complexity in ordinary use led to the decision to reserve the work in SFX to a selected Staff  PROs : wide coverage of journals in their different channels of availability wide coverage of elusive resources such as free access online journals (there are targets dedicated to them) monthly updates by the provider possibility to create interactions with other tools such as OPACs, databases and search engines by means of an operation called Source Configuration interaction with the provider and with the other SFX professional users all over the world: their international mailing list is the most effective communication tool from the customers to the provider THE GLOBAL SOLUTION: SFX The PROs and CONs

11. 11 THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS First step: the library’s home page www.bibmed.unipr.itwww.bibmed.unipr.it Online journals (access to the university’s SFX catalogue)

12. 12 Search by title Graphical frame configured locally by the Project Manager Exact title Words in the title Begin s with THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

13. 13 Search results display In this case two channels of access are available (  object activated in two targets); useful when one of the two accesses fails. THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS “Full text available by…” To the home page of the journal or straight to the article if bibliographical data are inserted by the end user “Available from 1995” (Threshold) In this case a password is needed (note created by local editing)

14. 14 Search by category and subcategory THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS Categories and subcategories are created by the provider

15. 15 Search by publisher or ISSN THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

16. 16 Search by bibliographic data (“Look for the citation”) THE MEDICAL END USER’S WAY TO ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

17. 17 USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED (as created through Source Configuration) PubMe d

18. 18 Not the usual PubMed… USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED Customized URL

19. 19 The SFX button links the result of the search in PubMed to our SFX catalogue Publisher’s link SFX Link USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED

20. 20 USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED By clicking the SFX link, the search results display appears: Full information is given about the available years In this case, two accesses are given instead of one

21. 21 In this case, SFX gives the necessary password that the publisher’s link could not give In some cases the institution’s access to the journal is not through the publisher’s access: the problem is solved by the SFX link USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED

22. 22 When online full text is not available… USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED “Sorry, full text unavailable” “Click here for more options” (Please note that “Click here for more options” always appears in the search results display: in previous slides it may have been cut off by me for practical explaining purposes)

23. 23 …alternative options to get the article are displayed (and more) USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED Look in OPACs for the print version Contact the document delivery service See the impact factor of the journal (very appreciated by medical end users)

24. 24 The SFX link in Google Scholar… USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED SFX link

25. 25 USING THE CUSTOMIZED PUBMED …and in CINAHL (for instance) SFX link

26. 26 The University of Parma and SFX : ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY  Phase 1 : CONSORTIAL PURCHASING Actor : the Libraries Department  Phase 2 : INITIAL SETUP Actors : the Project Manager and an extended staff (librarians from all the major libraries of the university)  Phase 3 : MAINTENANCE AND UPDATING Actors : the Project Manager and a selected SFX Staff (6 librarians) : all the other librarians report to the Staff about new journals to activate

27. 27 The University of Parma and SFX: Organizational history General coordination General control on the state of Parma’s local KB Creation and configuration of local targets and special access limitations (when needed) Harmonization of the local KB to the monthly revisions of the global KB coming from ExLibris Configuration, translation and styling of the end user’s interface Cooperation with IT system managers (Parma’s local SFX system is hosted on a server at the University of Padua, member of the Consortium) Relations with italian ExLibris representatives Training and refreshing courses for colleagues and users The Project Manager’s role

28. 28 THE UNIVERSITY OF PARMA “SFX STAFF” The University of Parma and SFX: Organizational history Present day members Project manager : Evelina Ceccato Source configuration : Monica Vezzosi Members : Marina Bianchi Davide Campari Cecilia Cavalli Giada Costa Elisa Minardi

29. 29 … thanks everybody for your patience Disclaimer This presentation reflects the personal experience and opinions of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the University of Parma or its SFX Staff. The author has no relation with ExLibris except being a professional user of its products.