Issue #7 - Summer 2012

Quarterly Update
OCUL’s quarterly catch-up... read about what’s new at Scholars Portal, announcements from our member libraries and future OCUL plans and initiatives

Ask a Librarian - Year 1

Find out about the first year of OCUL's virtual reference service.

TDR Update

The next step for OCUL's Trusted Digital Preservation Project.

Scholars Portal Books Update

What are the latest additions to the Books platform?

Scholars GeoPortal Launch

The new way to access OCUL's geospatial data holdings.

Accessible Texts

OCUL and Scholars Portal exciting new project.

Comings & Goings

An update on staffing changes at OCUL and Scholars Portal.

 

 

As the rest of Ontario winds down for summer, the OCUL world is still busy on many fronts. Our focus has shifted to those important summer projects, plans for the year ahead and of course some well-deserved time off. This is true not only at the OCUL and Scholars Portal offices, but no doubt for those at all the 21 OCUL schools. With this in mind we invite you to take a short break from planning your impending vacation, or preparing for the Fall Term to allow us to update you on what has been happening at OCUL and Scholars Portal over the last few months. In this issue you’ll find out about the Spring Directors meeting, recent staff changes, the latest progress for OCUL’s digital preservation project and exciting new developments in the provision of accessible texts and compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We acknowledge key milestones for a number of our projects including the launch of Scholars GeoPortal and 1 year of service for Ask a Librarian, and let you know about ongoing updates to the Books platform. You’ll soon see much has been happening and is set to continue this summer at OCUL.

 


Spring OCUL Directors Meeting

On May 10th and 11th the OCUL Directors met at the University of Waterloo for their semi-annual meeting. Here they discussed recent projects, developments and future opportunities for OCUL and Scholars Portal. Items on the agenda included the Accessible Texts Project, the CRKN Perpetual Access Task Group report, the February Research Support in the 21st Century Summit, the OCUL Outstanding Contribution Award, updates on the OCUL Strategic Plan, and changes to the OCUL Executive Committee.

New OCUL Executive

OCUL is pleased to announce the new Executive Committee appointed at the May Directors Meeting.

  • Chair: Margaret Haines (Carlton University)
  • Vice Chair: Martha Whitehead (Queen’s University)
  • Secretary: Ken Hernden (Algoma University)
  • Treasurer: Robert Clarke (Trent University)
  • Director at Large: Larry Alford (University of Toronto)

OCUL would like to thank outgoing Chair, Leslie Weir (University of Ottawa) for her many years of service on the OCUL Executive and, previously, as Chair of the Scholars Portal Operations and Development Committee.

OCUL would also like to thank outgoing Wilfrid Laurier University Librarian & Archivist, Sharon Brown, for her years of service to OCUL, including the past two years as Secretary.

The next Directors Meeting is scheduled for November 22nd and 23rd at Queen’s University.

 

For more information...

OCUL Reports & Digests

Reports, updates and recommendations from the Spring 2012 OCUL Directors’ Meeting are up on the SPOTDocs wiki Reports & Digests space: http://spotdocs.scholarsportal.info/display/Rep/Latest+Directors%27+Meet... (SPOTDocs login required)


New Directors

OCUL would like to welcome two new directors as of May 2012. As the new CIO and Chief Librarian at the University of Guelph, Rebecca Graham has replaced Catherine Steeves, the University of Guelph’s associate chief librarian, in the OCUL Directors Group. Rebecca began her new role on May 23 and brings many years of experience, most recently from her previous position as the associate librarian for preservation, digitization and administrative services at Harvard College Library (HCL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Vivian Lewis has also joined the OCUL Directors having taken the role of Acting University Librarian at McMaster University as of May 21. OCUL looks forward to their guidance and valuable contributions in the coming months.

Upcoming Appointments

Gohar Ashoughian will be Wilfrid Laurier's next University Librarian, starting August 1, 2012. Previously University Librarian at the University of Northern British Columbia, she will follow Sharon Brown in the role at Wilfrid Laurier. Sharon stepped down as University Librarian as of June 29 and will continue to work as a librarian in the Wilfrid Laurier library.

Nancy Black will be the New Executive Director, Library Services at Nipissing University as of September 1, 2012. Nancy comes to Nipissing from the University of Northern British Columbia.


Ask a Librarian: Year 1

OCUL and Scholars Portal are celebrating the 1st anniversary of the virtual reference service, Ask a Librarian. This service connects students, faculty and researchers from participating Ontario university libraries with real-time research assistance through chat. It is staffed by librarians and library staff from participating OCUL libraries, as well as interns who are current or recently graduated Masters in Information Studies students. Ask a Librarian provides its service to enquiring minds across nine campuses for over sixty hours a week.

All those involved have much to celebrate. In its first year Ask a Librarian averaged 429 chats per week during the fall and winter terms, providing a total of 12,001 chats during its 218 days of service. 91% of surveyed users agreed with the statement: “virtual reference is my preferred way or a good way to get research help.” This high level of user satisfaction reflects not only the expertise of the staff involved but also the ability of this interactive and accessible service to provide meaningful assistance across a diverse and widely dispersed research community.

So what were all these chats about? While the service was used to provide a range of information about library facilities, access and borrowing policies, citation and E-resources, by far the majority of questions were focused on reference and research help. This included anything from requesting help in locating a particular known item, to questions about a specific journal and the ever-popular search for sources on a designated topic.

"What Are They Asking?" pie chart

The Ask a Librarian service allows each of the participating OCUL libraries to extend the traditional face-to-face consultation service beyond the four walls of the university library building. The real time, individualized responses mirror the immediacy of this interaction while providing the flexibility of off-campus support. This obviously resonates with Ask a Librarian users with 76% of chats originating from off-campus.

In 2011-2012 six participating OCUL university libraries across 9 different campuses offered Ask a Librarian service to their communities: University of Guelph, University of Guelph-Humber, Lakehead University, Ryerson University, York University, University of Toronto - St.George, University of Toronto - Mississauga, University of Toronto - Scarborough and University of Windsor. The Ask a Librarian service continues to expand with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) launching in summer of 2012 and both OCAD University and Western University to begin offering the service from September.

The library staff and interns who operate the service have been kept busy this year with a minimum average of 5 chats each hour the service is open, and an average maximum of 10 chats per hour. In its first year the highest number of chats in one hour was 24. The Ask a Librarian internship program is an integral part of this service, providing valuable early career experience to current and recently graduated Masters of Information students. OCUL and Scholars Portal are pleased to announce that there will be 13 interns returning for the fall term and over 20 new interns joining the service this year. In total there have been over 200 staff and interns across the participating universities contributing their time and expertise to the service. Congratulations, and thank you to all for a successful first year.

Ask a Librarian logoDuring the upcoming fall and winter, Ask a Librarian will be open:

Monday to Thursday 10am - 10pm
Friday 10am to 5pm
Saturday to Sunday 11am - 5pm

So next time you’ve got a question… Ask a Librarian!

For more information visit: http://spotdocs.scholarsportal.info/display/sp/Ask


The next step for OCUL's Trusted Digital Preservation Project

By now it is clear that the stability and ongoing integrity of digital content is an ongoing concern for knowledge and information management services, organizations and professionals. The discussion surrounding digital preservation has certainly gained momentum in the last several years. Questions of strategic integration, technology and standardization are key to the digital preservation field. The Scholars Portal Trusted Digital Repository project was established by OCUL in support of its aim to continue to lead in the development of Ontario’s information environment.  As part of this project, OCUL and the Scholars Portal Operations Team have been developing a digital preservation system over the past 18 months. This system is based on requirements outlined in the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model and the Trustworthy Repository Audit and Certification (TRAC) checklist. It is through this project that OCUL is contributing to the digital preservation discussion in Canada by providing an example of how organizations can envisage and implement a sustainable and robust digital preservation strategy.

On January 16th, 2012, OCUL’s Scholars Portal Journals platform began the formal audit process to become certified as a Trustworthy Digital Repository. This process continued with an on-site visit by representatives from the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) on April 17th and 18th. The audit measures Scholars Portal’s administrative oversight; processes for digital object management; and infrastructure, security, & risk management strategies against the newly certified ISO 16363 standard.  CRL has previously conducted audits of the high profile digital repositories Portico, and HathiTrust, and, most recently, Chronopolis.

The audit process is the culmination of over two years of work, kicked off by OCUL’s Trusted Digital Repository Steering Committee, to ensure the Integrity, Authenticity and Usability of the materials in our collection now and in the future.  This work led to the creation of preservation policies, enhancements to existing infrastructure, and new Journals platform interface features including the ability to view digital preservation metadata, such as checksum values and the object's chain of custody from the time it was loaded into Scholars Portal. To date metadata has been loaded for over 2.5 million articles.

The Scholars Portal TDR project is one manifestation of OCUL’s commitment to provide and preserve academic resources essential for teaching, learning and research. This audit process is a step towards ensuring the preservation of OCUL’s current and future holdings though sustainable and responsible stewardship. OCUL and Scholars Portal are awaiting the audit report, expected in the coming months. Watch this space for updates!

For more information about the Scholars Portal TDR project visit the OCUL website: http://www.ocul.on.ca/node/97
or contact Steve Marks, Digital Preservation Librarian: stephen [at] scholarsportal.info

Comings & Goings

 

OCUL


After nearly two years as OCUL’s Communications and Member Engagement Officer, Kerry Kelly resigned on 13 April, 2012. Kerry was able to establish a number of improved communication practices for Scholars Portal and OCUL; her achievements include the OCUL Quarterly newsletter, regular Scholars Portal updates, a new OCUL website, and a large number of OCUL and Scholars Portal events and meetings.

OCUL is pleased to welcome Anika Ervin-Ward as the new OCUL Administration and Communications Coordinator. Anika began in May 2012 and brings with her a number of years of experience working in the university sector in both Australia and Canada.

Scholars Portal


Scholars Portal said farewell to Software Developer Majid Valipour in June. Majid was with Scholars Portal for two years and in this time contributed significantly to the Scholars Portal Books platform and more recently to the OUR Licensing Database.

Klara Maidenberg began as the new part-time Evaluation and Assessment Librarian at Scholars Portal in January this year. Klara, who also manages the Ask a Librarian service as Virtual Reference Services Librarian, will work closely with the Evaluation and Assessment committee of OCUL-IR to identify and coordinate key assessment activities.

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News of Note

MINES for Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently published the final report of its study on the use of electronic resources in Canadian university libraries. This study was conducted in conjunction with OCUL’s 21 member libraries through Scholars Portal for the first time in 2004-2005 and most recently in 2010-2011. The report outlines the significant increase in the off-campus use of electronic resources, the growing uptake of digital resources in the humanities and the overall increase in value from digital content use. The report entitled MINES for Libraries: Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services and the Ontario Council of University Libraries’ Scholars Portal: Final Report can be downloaded from the ARL website.

 

OCUL Webinars

In early June OCUL and Scholars Portal hosted two webinars on the subject of localized video production. Presenters from across OCUL shared their experiences with video production and highlighted some of the challenges of the format. Topics included the use of drawings and creative commons footage, the script writing process, working with YouTube’s advanced features, and working with students. These webinars can be downloaded from the OCUL Webinar Archive on the OCUL Website (Member login is required).

Stay tuned for news of more upcoming OCUL webinars.

 

OCUL's Major Development Partnership with PKP

On July 24, 2012 OCUL announced a major development partnership with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). The partnership means that OCUL will contribute to software development, testing, support, and hosting of the PKP open source software suite - Open Journal System (OJS), Open Conferencing System (OCS), and Open Harvester System (OHS), with Open Monograph Press (OMP) due for release in 2012. 

Read the partnership announcement

 

Recent and upcoming updates to Scholars GeoPortal

Features recently added to the portal include:

  • Query the data content and export a data file containing only your query result set. Available in several file formats.
  • A “download all” button which makes it much quicker and easier to download large batches of tile-based raster data (imagery), of up to 500 tiles at a time.
  • Keep working in the portal while you export a map. Export function now happens in the background.

 

Check out the latest additions to the Scholars GeoPortal collections under “New Data” on the Scholars GeoPortal website.

The GeoPortal team continues to update and refine the platform. The next release is scheduled for August. Here is a sneak preview.

Scholars GeoPortal map from upcoming release

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Did you know...
you can access over 1 million published diagrams and other images on the Scholars Portal Journals platform? To find these, use the Figures search tab. You never know what you’ll discover.

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Talk to us! Have a comment or an idea for the Quarterly? Send us an email: ocul [at] ocul.on.ca