CSUL-S Program Summary

Demystifying Metalib

April 29 at California State University Fullerton

The CARL interest group, California State University Librarians-South (CSUL-S) held a half-day program on federated search tools, specifically Metalib, on Friday, April 29. CSUL-S always faces the challenge of organizing a program to attract professionals employed in a variety of public and technical activities. We found this program filled our charge admirably. 52 attendees were almost evenly split between CSU and non-CSU professionals, with five library school students rounding out the group. There were catalogers, systems librarians and instruction librarians to name a few of the professional activities represented. This emphasizes the interest in federated search tools throughout the profession as such tools have an impact on all facets of library service.

The day began with a hot breakfast and moved into a three-part program. Marvin Pollard, UAIS Project Manager of the CSU Chancellor's Office, began with an overview of the rationale and progress of the project. He led the attendees through five modules, including Quick Search, Find Database, Find Journal, MetaSearch and My Space and how they are being customized by different CSUs. He also discussed how this tool interacts with the SFX cross-linking software in use by the CSUs. Metalib offers a separate management interface (M interface) to allow librarians to customize resource choices and result ranking rather than only having presets that may not fit a particular institution's needs.

David Walker, Web Developer Librarian at CSU San Marcos followed with a presentation on the technical aspects of customization as experienced by CSUSM's preparation for implementation. This work is all open source and will be available to others after going live. He discussed the application of the X-server technology for customization and compliance with standards such as CSS and ADA and future value-added features such as citation builders. There are no easy solutions to the issues of staff with appropriate technology knowledge and server capability, but cooperative sharing of knowledge will go a long way.

The day ended with a panel featuring short presentations by Norm Hutcherson, Bibliographic Control Coordinator at CSU Bakersfield and Susan Tschabrun, Coordinator of Library Instruction & Systems Librarian at CSU Fullerton demonstrating their current implementations of Metalib and discussing specific practical issues. Bakersfield discussed in particular the implementation of periodicals information and record clean-up and Fullerton discussed the benefits of being a later adopter, and like Bakersfield, is implementing in steps. Fullerton is considering the integration of Blackboard with Metalib among other interesting tasks.

The earlier presenters joined the panel for a Q&A, which turned out to be all too short.

Full reports on the presentations and panel will be posted to the CSUL-S website as well as the bibliography on federated searching distributed with the day's program and a list of CSU libraries' web sites that have Metalib live.

Submitted by Judith A. Downie, CSUL-S President

Keynote Presentation:

Marvin Pollard from the Chancellor's Office gave a detailed overview of the latest version (3.12) of MetaLib, a federated search system from Ex Libris. MetaLib was selected three years ago and is the 3rd generation effort at federated searching in the CSU. He began by giving a brief synopsis of why MetaLib was selected. A report issued by Gartner Research in November of 2004, reinforced the selection reasons. The report specified that by 207, libraries will need to offer advanced searching and offer better alternatives to Google and its ilk. These alternatives are needed both for quality of searching and to provide legal access to resources. Federated search portals give librarians a way to direct patrons to resources that have been selected by the librarians and a way to manage user access. One standard that assists with this process is Open URL. MetaLib offers a tight integration with SFX, the CSUπs Open URL resolver.

MetaLib 3.12 consists of five modules: Quick Search, Find Database, Find Journal, MetaSearch, and My Space. Quick Search is a simple search process for novice users. Find Database allows users to locate databases and other tools of interest. Find Journal is as the name says. MetaSearch is the searching of multiple databases for advanced users. And lastly My Space allows users to manage their personal data.

Quick Search is designed to be Google-like. It allows librarians to create databases sets that can refer to subject areas (Business, Science) or resources types (Books, Book Reviews). Examples of these can be seen in the Humboldt State MetaLib. The search results are built from a merged set of the first 30 records from each database in the set, however the results show the total count of records found in each database. Records may be ranked, or listed by date. The full record display includes the SFX linking but also pulls out the full text services from SFX results.

Find Database allows the user to select databases of interest either by title, category (subject or paralleling academic programs, such as Northridge has done), vendor, or type. The display list includes a brief description of the resource (the first few lines of the description on the resource record). Clicking on the search icon takes the user to a page with search boxes (simple and Boolean) as well as the full description. This description can include search hints.

Find Journal allows users to search for items by their title, ISSN, or CONSER data. The example shown was from CSU Fullerton, who has loaded their print/microform holdings in to the systems in addition to their electronic holdings. This data is loaded from the SFX system and needs to be updated every time the SFX system is updated.

Find/MetaSearch allows patrons to create their own list of databases for federated searching. The results are presented in a merged set, but one can also view the results database by database.

My Space allows users to manage personal lists of databases, save searches, set up alerts, set preferences, and store results. Guest users can do these functions as well, but their "baskets" will disappear at the end of their session. Users logged into the session can use their baskets to email and save and can organize items out of the basket and into different folders. The "My database" function allows users to create and mange multiple lists of databases. The history function will store all searches from the current session plus all saved searches. One of the changes from earlier versions of MetaLib, is that users can logged into their "Space' at any time during their session.

Marvin then spent some time describing some of the "low level" customization that can be done. These include appearance and branding, hide/show modules (it is not necessary to use all five), changing terms/labels (customizing the 'alt' tags) as well as altering some components of the result ranking algorithm.

He closed by discussing some aspects of the M (or management) interface. Databases are now associated with categories and these categories can now be created and maintained with the M interface. Reliability scores (1-5) can be assigned to databases. Librarians can order the resources within a category. He also clarified some terms: "Search and Link" means users view records in their native view; 'Search and View" means the records are displayed in the MetaLib interface.

Reported by Anne Turhollow, San Diego State University

Technical Issues Presentation:

David Walker, Web Development Librarian, at CSU San Marcos gave the attendees of the Demystifying Metalib program held April 29 at CSU Fullterton, an overview of San Marcos' Metalib. To date the implementation is still under development but you can view Xerxes MetaSearch at the following URL: http://library2.csusm.edu/xerxes/xerxes06/

San Marcos' Metalib uses the X-server technology. Mr. Walker explained what the x-server is, what it can do, and he addressed the all important question his audience would want to know, namely, "is it for my library?"

The x-server allows a custom presentation using XML. A typical application offers a data layer, an application layer and the presentation layer. With an XML based application, there is a new, additional layer possible. The XML server sends the MARC record in XML representation.

The suggested advantages of using an XML server flexible platform are:

• Allows showing information important to your users
• Interface is easier to change and maintain
• Complete integration with campus systems such campus portal and course management system
• Compliant with standards such as CSS and ADA
• Can build additional components such as a citation builder
• Additional functionality such as a spell checker

Mr. Walker also pointed out when members of the audience consider whether an XML server might be appropriate for their library's future implementation of Metalib, that the basic Metalib management is still necessary. He did point out that the University of California's CDL system has chosen the X-server infrastructure, and the CSU could tap on San Marcos' Xeres which is open source. What do XML and XSLT involve?

• Requires staff with knowledge of programming XML, XSLT
• Requires a server that can host the application

Reported by Marcia Henry, CSU Northridge

Demystifying Metalib: Panel

Supplementing the information from the speakers, the two panelists discussed some specific practical issues involved in the implementation of Metalib on their campuses. Norm Hutcherson, CSU Bakersfield, presented a broad view of the process leading to implementation ≠ access to periodical information (Serials solution and SFX), subscriptions (print or electronic) and cleaning up in-house records. Timelines are an interesting reminder of how far we have come in such a short time. Bakersfield started with Serials Solution in 2002, went live with Metalib 2 in 2004 and will upgrade to version 3 this summer 2005. One consistent project goal has been to make all transitions transparent to users so no retraining is required.

Susan Tschabrun, CSU Fullerton, discussed some of the rational behind being a later adopter including not wanting to lose features already developed in-house and waiting for upgrades due to dissatisfaction with the search tool and login requirements. Components rather than the complete system have been phased in, as they became more functional and relevant for CSUF e.g. moving from Serials Solutions to the SFX journals January 2005 and this fall, the full MetaSearch and QuickSearch options will be activated. There have been difficulties: implementing the recommended customization; coding (x-server looks really good); balancing speed and accuracy in searching; slowdowns in the system unique to CSUF. One anticipated use is for integration into Blackboard, using the SFX OpenURL generator and using the Metalib categories for specific populations. Panelists and speakers joined for a final Q & A. Of particular interest also, so far there have been no usability studies.

Reported by Rosemary McGill, CSU Fullerton