[Yulpub] MetaLib | Open discussion sessions

[Audrey Novak]

Colleagues,

Apologies for cross-postings.

I am writing to invite you to a discussion about MetaLib.  The MetaLib 
Transition Group would like to present to you recent changes to the MetaLib 
interface, the results of usability studies, and some recommendations for 
additional modifications to our presentation of materials within MetaLib. 
We would like to hear your comments about MetaLib and get feedback about 
the proposed additional changes.  See below for meeting times and places. I 
hope you can attend.

This email also includes background information about MetaLib, usage 
statistics and a summary of recent changes.

I look forward to seeing you in February.

-Audrey Novak
For the MetaLib Transition Group:
Alan Solomon, Audrey Novak, Jan Glover, Jennifer Weintraub, Julie Linden, 
Katie Bauer, Karen Reardon, Kalee Sprague, Melissa Wisner

Meeting Times and Place:
Monday, 13 Feb, 3-4:430pm, SML Lecture Hall
Wednesday, 15 Feb, 3-4:30pm, SML Lecture Hall

Background and Status:
MetaLib was made available to the public in a soft rollout (i.e., no 
publicity, no promotion by staff) in June 2005. Readers access it from the 
Frontdoor Database and Articles page 
-(<http://www.library.yale.edu/databases/>http://www.library.yale.edu/databases/). 


All active DBOW databases are included within Metalib with full descriptive 
records. Additions and changes to DBOW are manually transferred to MetaLib 
monthly by staff in IS&P. Updates from ExLibris to the MetaLib Central 
Knowledge Base of resources (the CKB) are also applied monthly to Metalib. 
Typically these updates make a handful of additional resources offered at 
Yale searchable within MetaLib

Yale’s resources consist of 117 Search and Display databases (meaning they 
can be both searched in MetaLib and the results displayed in the Metalib 
interface as well), 38 Search and Link (searched in MetaLib, but the 
results link sends the user to the “native” interface of the database) and 
491 Link only databases (the user must search in the native interface).  If 
a user wishes to use the “Multi-Database Search”, they can only use this 
with “Search and Display” and “Search and Link” databases, not with the 
“Link only databases.

During the first 6 months of MetaLib use in this soft implementation state 
approximately 22,000 searches were conducted across resources available 
through Quicksearch, 3500 searches were conducted across resources 
presented in Multi-Database search, and 350 users logged into MetaLib. 
(Note that Yale readers can search in MetaLib without logging in).  MetaLib 
was used approximately 15,000 times since June. During the Fall semester, 
average usage was 28.1/day in Sept, 142.6/day in Oct and 200.6 /day in Nov.

Also during this half year the MetaLib Transition Group implemented several 
changes to the interface. These changes were made as a result of the 
installation of ML 3.13 and usability studies.  They include:
    * Implementing the Summary Page in Quicksearch and Multi-database 
search. This interactive page displays during the search process. From it 
users can go directly to results before they search is completed. More 
importantly, it presents result set size from each database before records 
are displayed. This change eliminates the problem of not being able to 
easily tell the size of the result set.
    * Creating the ALL subcategory within each category. ALL is an 
alphabetical list of all the resources mapped to all the subcategories 
within a single category. With ML3.13 we were able to present an ordered 
list of resources within the ALL  subcategory. In ML3.12 the list could not 
be ordered so we did not create this subcategory.
    * Renamed the Orbis+Morris+NHFPL Quicksearch subcategory from“Local 
Catalogs” to “Local Books.” Patrons did not understand the term “Catalog.”
    * Removed the Subject searching option. Usability studies suggest that 
patrons are selecting it instead of Keyword and resources frequently do not 
support it so it fails.
    * To make it easier for patrons to find holdings (Call#) information, 
particularly for Orbis, within the full record display we removed 
bibliographic level LC and Dewey numbers, moved the link to local holdings 
data to the top of the record and re-labeled it Holdings/Call#, and moved 
the link to the native interface to the bottom of the full record and 
re-labeled it Database.
    * Changed the default display in Find Database to Brief View (database 
name and brief description) from Table View (just database name) in 
response to usability study results.
    * Changed the Added to My Research icon to Added – Check “My Research” 
in an effort to make clear that this function works something like a Bookbag.


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