LOUIS Newsletter THE LOUISIANA LIBRARY NETWORK

M A R C H 2 0 0 8 V O L U M E 1 6 , N U M B E R 1

In this Issue:

LOUIS Update by Ralph Boé, LOUIS The LOUIS staff and UNIX system administrators from LSU Information Technology Support installed the Unicorn hotsite server at Louisiana Tech on January 22, 2008 and connected it to the LONI network in February. LOUIS has also received delivery of a new Unicorn production server. We plan to implement the new production machine in March. The most recent release of Unicorn, which has been renamed to Symphony 3.2, should be installed on the training machine by the beginning of March and implemented on the new production server by the middle of April. After the implementation of the new production server, we will start testing the transfer of production data to the hotsite server. Hurricane Ralph will be used to test our new hotsite environment. Hurricane Ralph will cause a scheduled outage of the production server. Sites will then use the hotsite environment for a short period of time and then all data will be copied from the hotsite server to the production server. Each site will then verify that the updates, which were made on the hotsite server, were actually transferred to the production server. Hurricane Ralph will happen at least once a year to test our backup and recovery procedures.

LOUISiana Digital Library Update by John Guillory, LOUIS The LOUISiana Digital Library (LDL) is undergoing big changes. The home page of the LDL has been completely revised to expand access points to collections by topic, institution, media format, geographic focus, time period, and col lect ion name. Browsing collections by “Time Period” now includes a graphical time line display. The graphical display makes browsing collections by decade and well-known era convenient. The LDL Committee met in February to discuss the plan to move the LDL system server from the LSU ITS offices to the OCLC hosting service in Dublin, Ohio. Two years ago, LOUIS investigated the OCLC hosting service and found it immature. In light of the production server hardware failure that lasted from late November 2007 until early January 2008, LOUIS inquired again into this service and found it mature, affordable, and reliable. LOUIS staff interviewed five institutions who use the hosting service and all reported favorable reviews of the service. All services currently available to LDL members will be available once the hosting service is in place. LOUIS staff and UNIX support at LSU will no longer be required to upgrade the CONTENTdm server to new releases, no longer purchase new server hardware, and no longer maintain operating system upgrades. The time frame for the migration to the hosting service is expected to take about three weeks starting in April-May.

LOUIS Update 1

LOUISiana Digital Library Update

1

Calendar of Events 2

Learning Express Trial

2

SirsiDynix and Brainware Form OEM Partnership

2

LALINC Research & Development Committee

3

WebFeat Sites Moved to New Platform

3

Update from the LOUISiana Digital Library Advisory Committee

6

SuperConference Pre-Conferences

6

ACRL-LA Panel Discussion

7

Sites Implementing New ILLiad Patron Web Pages

7

2008 System Administrators Meeting

8

LUC 2007 4-5

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008 LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

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SirsiDynix and Brainware Form OEM Partnership for Next-Generation Faceted Search Solutions by Tom Gates, SirsiDynix *Retrieved from SirsiDynix Press Release SirsiDynix, the global leader in strategic technology solutions for libraries, announced an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Brainware Inc., whose advanced context-based enterprise search technology will be incorporated into SirsiDynix’s next-generation search solutions. Brainware technology will provide innovative fuzzy search, fuzzy logic, dynamic categorization and other capabilities that will empower information seekers to discover more content from more sources — including libraries’ own catalogs, Z39.50 sources, subscription resources, digital collections, crawled Web content, subscription content and social networking data — than ever before. Also central features of the new SirsiDynix search products will be seamless integration with SirsiDynix integrated library system (ILS) and online public access catalog (OPAC) products, customizable interface look-and-feel templates, single- and multi-byte character support and support on local servers or via SirsiDynix’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted operations. From these development efforts, SirsiDynix will build the foundation for a range of “user experience” solutions, including next-generation OPAC functionality and support for community/social networking such as user reviews, rankings and tagging. The first release of SirsiDynix’s next-generation search solutions is slated for summer 2008. This announcement was made today during the opening session of the 18th annual conference of CODI, the international Horizon and Dynix users’ group. “In a world of information that is so deep and so broad, nothing is more challenging to information seekers than searching for the information they need,” said Gary Rautenstrauch, SirsiDynix CEO. “At the same time, one of libraries’ greatest challenges is making their resources discoverable to those information seekers. That’s why powerful search capabilities are at the heart of what libraries need today for serving their users. “That’s also why our OEM partnership with Brainware is so exciting,” said Rautenstrauch. “As a leading search technology provider to public and private organizations worldwide, Brainware will support SirsiDynix in bringing a range of new search capabilities to the worldwide library community.” Features of SirsiDynix’s powerful new search solutions will include: • Fuzzy, phrase, sentence, paragraph, keyword and

exact search capabilities: Powerful new search

Calendar of Events

LALINC Spring Membership Meeting March 14, 2008 LSU-A, Live Oaks Room of the Student Center 10:00 - 1:00 ACRL-LA March 26, 2008 LSU-A, Dupré Library 11:00 - 3:00 LALINC Research and Development Meeting March 28, 2008 LSU-A 8:30 - 4:30 SirsiDynix SuperConference 2008 April 5 - 8, 2008 Detroit, Michigan College of DuPage Press Soaring to Excellence "Trends, Fads or Folly: Spotting the Library Trends That Really Matter" April 11, 2008 11:00 - 12:30 College of DuPage Press Library Challenges and Opportunities "Tools of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users" May 9, 2008 11:00 - 12:30

Learning Express Trial by Lisa Stigall, LOUIS The LALINC Electronic Resources Committee has arranged a statewide trial for Learning Express. This product contains interactive practice tests and tutorial courses. Some examples are GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCCAT and NCLEX. Test subject areas include Business Writing Skills Success, Computer Skills, Health Careers, Nursing and many more. You can access the trial access information on the LOUIS web page at http://www.louislibraries.org. The Free Trials link will be listed on the left.

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

capabilities that deliver correct results for information seekers without requiring exact matches of search terms; also offers confidence ratings for returned results of a query, with exact matches given highest ratings

• Fuzzy logic: Search logic that helps information seekers avoid limitations of search results due to simple misspellings of queries, plus helps searchers discover additional “did you mean?” results

• Categorization engine: Going beyond faceted search, new search solutions will query sources external to the library (Wikipedia, for example) to build relationships between MARC data and common terms not in MARC data but used by information seekers

• Ability to search range of data sources and formats: Search myriad data sources in 250+ formats, including MARC records, Z39.50 sources, subscription content, community/social networking data (for example, user tags and reviews), tables of contents, book reviews, digital collections, crawled Web content, and more

• Stateful, URL-based searching: Enables information seekers to build “saved searches” and supports creation of external links

• Full-text document searching: Ability to search full texts of documents, serving as search engines for libraries’ growing digital collections

• Seamless integration with SirsiDynix integrated library systems and OPACs: Direct interface to SirsiDynix Symphony, Horizon and Unicorn to push MARC record updates from the ILS to ensure highest-performance indexing of relevant MARC and non-MARC data types

• Look and feel flexibility: CSS templates offer the look and feel of SirsiDynix public interface products (HIP 3.x, iBistro/iLink and Enterprise Portal Solution), making it easy for current customers to add new search solutions to existing public interfaces with minimal disruption to library users; an administrative interface will make it possible for sites to design their own customized templates

• Single- and multi-byte character support: For libraries with records in a range of languages and whose users search in a range of languages

• Support on local servers or via SaaS/ASP hosted solution: New search solutions available on sites’ local servers or via SirsiDynix’s world-class SaaS/ASP hosted operations, through which SirsiDynix manages all hardware and software support, maintenance, and upgrades — leaving libraries to focus on providing outstanding user experiences for information seekers

“Think about an individual seeking information from a library catalog on a popular topic like, say, 401(k) retirement plans, “ explains Talin Bingham, SirsiDynix chief technology officer. “Today, that search is limited by

the reality that the library’s MARC data probably does not include the term ‘401(k).’ So how does the person get to 401(k) information available in the library catalog?” asks Bingham. “With Brainware’s powerful categorization engine, the information seeker could enter the term “401(k)” in SirsiDynix’s next-generation search solution and retrieve library holdings related to retirement planning, which is likely to contain information on 401(k)s.” “We are proud to partner with SirsiDynix to provide libraries and their users with state-of-the-art search technology that delivers a truly unique ‘user experience,’” said Carl Mergele, Brainware CEO. “By expanding on keyword searching with Brainware’s fuzzy logic and faceted search capabilities, SirsiDynix will continue to facilitate advanced knowledge sharing and discovery — empowering people to discover the quality information and resources they are looking for, without the limitations of traditional search capabilities.”

LALINC Research & Development Committee by Michael DiCarlo, LaTech On February 15, 2008, the Research and Development Committee participated in a webinar with ExLibris on the PRIMO search product. The Committee attempted to schedule an open demonstration in March for interested Consortia members. They also invited Aquabrowser to make a presentation. The Committee gave a presentation of the ENCORE search product by III on February 28, at the Noel Library of LSU-S. The presentation was open to all interested sites. The Committee invites all to a presentation on March 28 by the vendors at LSU-A. The meeting will feature Aquabrowser, ENCORE, PRIMO, and WorldCat Local presentations. The first session will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end by 4:30 p.m. A detailed posting on LALINC-L will arrive soon and is posted on the LOUIS webpage under Calendar of Events.

WebFeat Sites Moved to New Platform by Lisa Stigall, LOUIS All LOUIS WebFeat sites are moving to WebFeat Enterprise Edition by early March 2008. The change will allow sites to make interface changes using an administrative console. This flexibility will allow new databases to be immediately added, descriptions changed and subject categories modified.Each site has been sent an email that lists the new search screen URL and the URL to access the WebFeat Administrator Console. Please contact the LOUIS office if you have not received this information.

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

LOUIS Holds Annual LUC Conference by Marcy Stevens, LOUIS On October 11 - 12, 2007 LOUIS held its annual LOUIS User’s Conference at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine for the second year. The two-day conference brought in over 200 attendees from around the state. The registration fee was kept at $25 again this year because of the eight vendors who sponsored the conference. The participants were offered breakfast, snacks and lunch catered by Jason’s Deli. Fifty-nine participants presented on a wide range of topics related to libraries. Ralph Boé, Executive Director of LOUIS, was the keynote speaker. His presentation focused on giving today’s Web 2.0 librarians recommendations and warnings on utilizing technologies. Seven sessions were spread out over the two days of the conference, most of which had six presentations. Session two was the only one to have five presentations. There were 47 presentations total. LOUIS users enjoy the conference because it gives them an opportunity to network with other librarians and colleagues around the state. In addition, the participants leave with an increased knowledge of products and procedures.

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LUC 2007 was sponsored by the following organizations:

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

SuperConference Pre-Conferences by Carla Clark, LSU-S The Unicorn User’s Group International (UUGI) is sponsoring two pre-conference workshops in conjunction with this year’s SuperConference in Detroit. On Saturday, April 5, one full-day and one half-day pre-conference workshop will be available. The full-day pre-conference, moderated by Stephen Lucchetti of Ford Motor Co., will focus on add-on and replacement products for your OPAC. Four presenters will describe their implementations of AquaBrowser; Primo from Ex Libris; LibX; and VUFind. AquaBrowser is a search engine that can replace the traditional OPAC, which incorporates guided navigation features such as faceted and visual search, and some library 2.0 concepts such as user reviews and tags. Primo is described as a discovery to delivery application that helps provide more seamless access to disparate library resources. VUFind is an open-source application that also enables users to search across different library resources such as the catalog, digital library items, and other library resources. LibX is a customizable library toolbar that can be implemented with Firefox or Internet Exlorer. The half-day pre-conference, offered by Slavko Manojlovich and Steve MacNeil, will cover the concepts associated with indexing, search, and retrieval in Unicorn. Participants will learn about the structure and relationships of the indexing policies, indexing variations, gateway elements, etc., and how these relationships affect search and retrieval in iLink, Workflows, EPS, and Smartport. Cost for the full-day pre-conference is $100; for the half-day is $50.

Update from the LOUISiana Digital Library Advisory Committee by Gina Costello, LSU Special Collections, and John Guillory, LOUIS The LDL Committee members met in Baton Rouge in late November 2007. This was the first meeting since the launch of the new LDL web interface, so the group discussed how they publicized the new site at their institutions and in relevant newsletters. The transition to the new interface was very smooth thanks to the hard work of LOUIS staff member John Guillory. John spent several months developing the PHP code that enables patrons to access the LDL collections in a variety of ways. You can learn more details about the website redesign by reading the previous LOUIS newsletter v.15 n.2. A notable change to the LDL is a new easier to remember web address: http://louisianadigitallibrary.org, which the committee encourages Louisiana libraries to utilize on their own sites. In February, LOUIS staff updated the LDL Committee on plans to migrate from hosting the digital library server at LOUIS to hosting it with OCLC. The OCLC hosting service will provide greater reliability of service to member institutions. For more information about the decision to migrate to the OCLC hosting service, see the article “LOUISiana Digital Library Update” in this newsletter. Feedback about the new look and the added features has been positive and a few people offered suggestions for improving the new site. The Committee discussed providing patrons with a clickable timeline rather than the list of dates that currently serve as the access points in “Time Period.” We also discussed the possibility of providing a Louisiana map to represent the different parishes or sections of the state for the “Geographic Focus” access point. LOUIS will be implementing the timeline, but we have tabled the map until we can address some of the inconsistencies found in the “coverage-spatial” field of many of the LDL items. LDL committee members and their colleagues will be conducting presentations about the new interface at two upcoming Louisiana Library Association meetings this spring. The committee also plans to participate in the first annual CONTENTdm Southeast User’s Conference in August 2008. The committee members are in the process of updating and expanding the document “LDL Manual: Metadata and Scanning Best Practices.” We are creating a document that will be useful to all participating institutions as they develop and add new collections to the LDL. Our recommendations in the manual will reflect current best practice standards in the digital library field, but will be tailored specifically to LDL institutions.

We will be reviewing the manual at our next meeting and finalizing the draft before summer 2008. We would love to hear what you think about the new site, so please contact Committee Chair Gina Costello gcoste1@lsu.edu or LOUIS staff member John Guillory johng@lsu.edu with your comments and suggestions. Gina is the Digital Services Librarian at Louisiana State University’s Special Collections Library.

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

ACRL-LA Panel Discussion Gathers 48 Librarians from around the State by Michael Matthews, NSU On January 24th, 42 librarians and members of the LOUIS staff attended the panel discussion, "The Future of the Academic Library: Strategic Management for the 21st Century" sponsored by the Louisiana chapter of ACRL. The event was held at the Lafayette Economic Development Authority in the UL-Lafayette Research Park. The event was made possible by a grant from ACRL-University Libraries Section's "Campus Advocacy" grants program, which aims to provide perspectives on the function and mission of the library in the enterprise of higher education. As stipulated by the grant, the panel included two people who are not professional librarians, but whose expertise and roles have a critical influence on academic libraries. Each panelist delivered a 20 minute presentation, which was followed by a moderated question and answer period of 45 minutes. The panelists included Dr. Julie Todaro of Austin Community College, and current President of ACRL national; Dr. Thomas Armstrong, the Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs at LSU-Alexandria; and Mr. John T. Landry CFRE, the Director of Development for UL-Lafayette. Michael Matthews, the president-elect of the state chapter, moderated the discussion period by introducing several PowerPoint slides which quoted from the professional literature, including the ACRL Environmental Scan of 2007. Dr. Armstrong began the event with his prepared remarks, followed by Mr. Landry, with Dr. Todaro rounding out the presentations. Dr. Armstrong enjoined librarians to "take advantage of (the) perspective" they have through "involvement with all aspects of University life..." Dr. Armstrong emphasized the powerful role of librarians as campus leaders who provide services of integral importance, and whose unique perspective can unite the differing interests of students, administrators and teaching faculty. Librarians must move beyond a nine-to-five mindset, and embrace their status as faculty, as teachers, and as providers of access to knowledge. Mr. John T. Landry introduced the rather difficult topic of fund-raising by recounting his own early attempts using what he called the "The Big Chief Tablet Method". Holding aloft one of several tablets, he told the story of painstakingly collecting addresses for 5000 alumni, sending each addressee a fundraising letter, and receiving only a handful of replies. Undaunted, Mr. Landry sent each of these correspondents a follow-up letter and continued working. A few years later, a donor replied **on the back** of Mr. Landry's thank-you letter and made an extraordinarily generous pledge to the university.

Like Dr. Armstrong's presentation, Mr. Landry's stressed the power of human beings to initiate and sustain authentic change in organizations. Librarians can be masterful fundraisers if they accept the challenge to invite potential donors to share in a vision of the university's future--a vision which places the library in sharp focus. Dr. Julie Todaro deftly weaved together the preceding presentations with her typical sagacity. She outlined the current trends in higher education--tight budgets, increased online learning, the emphasis on student learning outcomes--and the transformational mission of the library. Dr. Todaro encouraged librarians go beyond publicity and marketing, and think holistically about how they can influence their organizations as agents of change. A library's best strategy for insuring current and future success is to be intimately connected to the university's mission. Librarians should not be discouraged by the familiar refrain of resource scarcity, and should not succumb to the common belief that budgets are a zero-sum game which separate winners from losers. Library leaders must forge relationships, build consensus among stakeholders, and work within coalitions to achieve centrality in the higher education enterprise. According to the evaluations, the event was an extraordinary success, with 32 respondents providing enthusiastic compliments and best wishes for a future event. The next ACRL-LA workshop will be held the day before LUC at the LOUIS offices, and will focus on how to write articles and book reviews for publication in the professional literature of LIS. ACRL-LA Web Site: http://library.mcneese.edu/acrl/

Sites Implementing New ILLiad Patron Web Pages by Bron Laird, LOUIS With the upgrade of ILLiad to 7.2, new patron web pages were available. However, sites were not required to use them. Over the course of the past year since the last upgrade, UNO and Nicholls have edited the new 7.2 web pages and put them into production. Atlas has designed these new pages so that sites can edit and test them in a production environment without updating production data. With this ability, sites are able to see how the changes look and behave. LOUIS is available to make some basic changes for the sites, which include adding the school logo, changing the colors of the header to match the school colors and adding the school name.

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LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network Newsletter Volume 16, Number 1, March 2008

Mailing Address: LOUIS Office Frey Computing Services Center Tower Dr. at S. Stadium Dr. Baton Rouge, LA 70803-1900 Executive Director Ralph Boé Phone: 225.578.3740 E-mail: rjb@lsu.edu

Phone: 225.578.3700 FAX: 225.578.6400 http://www.louislibraries.org Associate Director Sara Zimmerman Phone: 225.578.3705 E-mail: sara@lsu.edu

John Guillory Phone: 225.578.3758 E-mail: johng@lsu.edu Mary “Bron” Laird Phone: 225.578.3753 E-mail: bron@lsu.edu Cathy Sicard Phone: 225.578.3751 E-mail: cathy@lsu.edu

Marcy Stevens Phone: 225.578.3771 E-mail: marcy@lsu.edu Lisa Stigall Phone: 225.578.3735 E-mail: beene@lsu.edu Zehra “Zee Zee” Zamin Phone: 225.578.3747 E-mail: zehra@lsu.edu

For a list of LOUIS related committees:

www.louislibraries.org Click on “Committees”

The LOUIS Newsletter is published

twice a year.

Editor: Amanda Sicard

Help us keep the LOUIS Newsletter e-mail mailing list current.

If we have an outdated or incorrect e-mail address for you, please send

corrections to Marcy Stevens at: marcy@lsu.edu. Please include

your OLD and NEW e-mail address.

LOUIS Mailing Address and Staff List

January 2008 System Administrators Meeting by Sara Zimmerman, LOUIS

LOUIS hosted the 23rd System Administrators Meeting January 17-18, 2008 at the University Recreation Center at LSU. The venue changed in order to accommodate more attendees and easier parking. Forty-three System Administrators attended, representing twenty-eight LOUIS sites. Ralph Boé gave the opening remarks, which included an update on the progress of installing the Unicorn hotsite server at LaTech. The agenda included topics related to all the services LOUIS offers and pertinent information was shared. Highlighting the meeting was a repeat of three highly recommended presentations from LUC 2007: • Merging Library 2.0 and Technology to Engage the Millennial Learner presented by: Angela Dunnington,

Coordinator of Library Science, Southeastern Louisiana University; Mary Lou Strong, Reference/Instruction Librarian, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Labels by Design: Setting up and utilizing the Java Client’s Label Designer presented by: Shelly Burns, Reference & Cataloging Librarian, Northwestern State University

• New Technologies for Improving OPAC Search and Retrieval presented by: Carla Clark, Head of Access Services and Systems, Louisiana State University in Shreveport; Wil Peters, Reference Librarian, Louisiana State University in Shreveport.