Task Force on Electronic Products

Task Force on Electronic ProductsHome > Members > Resource Pages > OPAC > Task Force on Electronic Products

Meeting December 6, 1999 Saint Mary’s University

Present: Bob Cook, Janelle Gilmour, Peter Glenister, Lai-Ying Hsiung,Elaine Maclean, Anita Reagan, Doug Vaisey, Sally Wood.

The issues:

At present, records for electronic journals, particularly those from aggregatedatabases such as ABI/GLOBAL or I.D.E.A.L., are being entered in theNovanet catalogue. Each record will have its URL filed in the 856 field,together with any additional notes about access restrictions. Access notes mayalso appear in the summary holdings field.

The challenge which caused the formation of the Task Force was to find a wayto indicate the several possible forms of access restriction [absolutely restricted;available for use in library only; available for use on campus only; available foruse on and off campus] without creating descriptive essays in each cataloguerecord. One reason for the pursuit of brevity is the desire to minimize theamount of cataloguing work required to amend records once put into thedatabase.

The Task Force began its deliberations by looking at the catalogue of the LosAlamos Laboratory, suggested as a potential source of a solution. Thiscatalogue did not provide the solution hoped for, but did resolve an issue arisingfrom the OPAC comments.

When you search the Journal of Physics in the Los Alamos catalogue, you findone hit. When you click on the link, you are taken directly to the record for thathit without the intervening screen which Novanet interposes.

The Task Force discussed several issues, summarized below.

Display of URL in Result List

When a search is performed on a title [for example, California ManagementReview] and you click on the line associated with this title, you are taken to aResult List where the title is displayed with URLs and restriction notes. Thepresence of the restriction notes has the potential to mislead users. It impliesthat no one except users at DAL, MSVU, STFX and SMU may use the journal,and it masks paper holdings which can be found in library. Feedback fromreference staff about the confusion that this has caused led the Task Force torecommend that 856uz field not be displayed in the Result List.

It was recommended that this field also not show in the telnet OPAC’sTitle Summary” list, for reasons cited above and because only the first URL[if more than one] shows.

Record Display in Web OPAC

When looking at a Web OPAC record in the “Record Display,” there is a greatdeal of data presented, equivalent to the Full Record in the telnet OPAC. TaskForce members wondered whether it is possible to create a Brief Display, whichwould contain data more equivalent to the Brief Record in the telnet OPAC andto have a button which would take users to a Full Record. This option was seenin the Los Alamos Laboratory Web OPAC.

Electronic Resource Button

In the “Record Display” for the California Management Review, note the”Electronic Resource” button at the top of the record. This button is quitefunctional if there is only one URL in the 856 field. However, when there ismore than one URL, the URLs are centred vis-