Appendix A: Charge

8/21/15 Melvyl Configuration and Electronic Resources Project Team

Melvyl Configuration and Electronic Resources Project Team

BROADER CONTEXT

The University of California migrated to WorldCat Local (WCL) as the provider of Melvyl, UC’s union catalog and systemwide discovery solution about 5 years ago. There have been many changes in the discovery environment during this time and SAG 2 is interested in what is going on in the larger community. As part of a longer term investigation into discovery services we have decided to break the investigation down into smaller, more manageable milestones and are starting off with a focusedre-evaluation of how WCL is implemented.

Problem

One of the continuing challenges for end users is to find articles and content that their campus library licenses on their behalf. End users are confused by the distinctions between article and database searching. They do not understand the relationship between licensed resources and the discovery interfaces they work with. They have no concept of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 licenses, nor should they!

Current Policy & Impact

When Melvyl was established, it was a CDL policy, based on design discussions with the Melvyl Implementation Team to configure all campus instances with the same functionality, and look and feel. It was also decided that only Tier 1 resources would be made available to end users, via configuration in the Central Index. The effect of that policy is that end users do not have access to Tier 2 and Tier 3 resources in WorldCat Local. Unless they know of other ways to get to that content (use the A-Z list, go to the native interface, etc.) they cannot get what they want.

Charge

SAG 2 would like you to investigate the pros and cons of changing this policy and make a set of recommendations on next steps.

Background and related documents: (

Areas to Consider:

  1. Collect and assess licensed resource data to determine Tier 2/3 differentiation across the system. What is the magnitude of the problem? How many Tier 2 and Tier 3 resources are there? How does this vary across UC campuses?
  2. What are the technical implications of configuring additional Tier 2 and Tier 3 resources in the WCL Central Index to provide a customized instance for each campus? There are remote access issues, time outs, OCLC limitations on the # of resources that can be activated, among others.
  3. What are the support workload implications? Currently, CDL manages the activation of Tier 1 resources. CDL is also responsible for end user support and troubleshooting; If Melvyl changes, what support model is needed?CDL maintains Test instances for each campus to check out OCLC updates; would this change if the instances were no longer configured by CDL? If no, how would it need to change?
  4. If all Tiers were in a single interface, available to all campuses, what are pros and cons? What are the license restrictions for ILL? Metadata sharing restrictions? Consider the user experience for campuses without immediate access.
  5. Are there legal or contractual issues to follow up on? Does the OCLC WCL license allow for the proposed model?
  6. How will the new model impact the end user experience? Is it helped or harmed? (Note: there can be several end users to consider….)

Deliverables:

  1. Timeline and plan for addressing areas under consideration
  2. Monthly reports to SAG 2 on progress
  3. Final briefing document, including a short (no more than 2 page Executive Summary), and a set of recommendations. Please include the evidence used to make the recommendations.

Project Team

Holly Eggleston (CDL)

Lynne Grigsby (SAG 2 liaison, UCB)

Cynthia Johnson (UCI)

Adriana Moran (nominated by CLS, UCSD)

Patrick Shannon (UCB)

Lena Zentall (Melvyl Product Manager, CDL)