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

2. Today’s Presentation Brief Overview of the RACER Project
Comparison of 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

3. 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

4. Placeholder for scholarsportal screen shot

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

6. 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

7. 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!

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. RACER Usage by Institution

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

14. RACER Usage by End User Category1% 2%
30% 4% 5% 6% 9%
12%
26%
Education Student

15. 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
notification for receipt or
cancellation of materials

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

32. 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

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

37. 0 Results?

38. Help to Blank Request Forms

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

41. 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. , phone, etc.)
Focused on language, functionality and mental models

42. 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

43. 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

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

46. 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

47. Questions? Amy Greenberg Donna Millard EUIWG Members
Donna Millard
ext
EUIWG Members
Michelle Fiander (Queen’s)
Lucina Fraser (Ryerson)
Anne Fullerton (Waterloo)
Amy Greenberg (OCUL)
Donna Millard (McMaster)
Dan Sich (Waterloo)