A Service For the Nation

Ari Rouvari 16. - 17.8.2004

Pedase, Vihterpalu

TOPICS

• Information retrieval portals• Services

• Nelli, National Electronic Library Interface • The Finnish consortia model• A little demo• Usability

• Interoperability• Development projects

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL PORTALSWHY?

• a lot of heterogenius resources• For example in Finland (FinELib)

– 14 500 ejournals– Over 175 databases– A lot of library catalogues

• Library systems - we need something more

• How to organize• How to use

DEFINITION by Marc Carden

A common interface that allows users toaccess library-owned resources and library-

accessible resources.

DEFINITION BY ELAG

A LIBRARY portal is an application which allows one-stop-shop access/searching and discovery via a unified single-point interface to organized heterogeneous resources and enabling services to a pre-defined community (users)

DEFINITION BY JISC

• Technically, a portal is a network service that brings together content from diverse distributed resources using technologies such as cross searching, harvesting, and alerting, and collates this into an aggregated form for presentation to the user, usually via a website

Services and characters

• organizing• metasearching• display• authentication• authorization• tailoring• personalization

• OpenURL linking• Standard interfaces

Visions and aims

• one-stop-shop• single-sign-on• One search, all

services• easy to use

•Centralized maintaining & management

•One server for the entire nation

•Local user interfaces

•tailoring

•Local services

•Collaborative development of services

Keep it simple stupid!

FinELib

• acquires resources. • negotiates user-rights agreements

• University Libraries (20)• Libraries of polytechnics (31)• Research Libraries (35)• Municipal Libraries (21)

CUSTOMERS OF NELLI

Entire Finland• 20 university libraries (2004)• 30 polytechnics (2005)• (450) public libraries (2005) 20 regional

libraries• research lib. (later)

The Value Chain of Digital Library Services

Acquiring of digital resources

FinELib

Digitisation of cultural heritage

Mikkeli

Archiving of digital resources User

interface

”THE TRIANGLE” CONSIST OF

1. The portal (Metalib/SFX)• user interface / Authentication

• metasearch

• linking resolver & access restriction

2. Library system (Voyager)• description metadata

3. Document archive(Encompass)• technical metadata

• repository

Standard-base, standard interfaces• openURL, Z39.50, Zing, Marc

Portal

library

system

Document

archive

Z39.50ZING

OpenURL

NELLI

• Metalib portal software, by ExLibris• SFX OpenURL resolver • by Exlibris• One server (SF 4800)• local user interfaces• local services

USABILITY CASE STUDIES

• Amsterdam university• Two test groups

• Loughborough University, (Stubbings and Hamblin,2004).

• promising trend in the use of libraries’ information• the use of databases rose by 609% over the previous year.• Zetoc rose by 1,385% & SportDiscus by 1,207%. • not cross-searchable saw an increase in usage, for example, • ICEA went up by 225% and ANES by 36%.

QUICKSEARCH

FIND RESOURCES

Nelli-portal in consortia environment

Centralized tasks:• co-ordinating the project• implementing / maintaining• updating SFX/Metalib• SFX activiting instructions• configuration files (Metalib)• descriptions of resources• user interfaces (multi-

languages)• Development of services

Local tasks:• Authentication• Activating SFX-targets• Copying of conf. Files• Copying of descriptions• Local tailoring• Local services• training

Authentication & authorization

1. LDAP(Lightweight Directory

Access Protocol) 2. Remote authentication

hook• CGI-program• Shibboleth

– esay-to-use– Secure– Standard base

• IP address ranges• Shibboleth ?

Shibboleth authentication

Nelli-portal

Shibbolethtarget site= proxy

Home campus

3. Auth. OK

1. select home campus

2. Auth. starts

Shibbolethorigin site

login &password

LDAPdirectory

4. Attribute request

5. Response attr: email address

remote authenticationCGI-hook

Shibboleth authorization (vision)

Nelli-portalHome campus

SFX-target:ejournal database

Attribute Authority

Authentication

Handle service

SFX Resolver

Attribute query

Attribute resonse / pass on attributes

cross-searchtarget dbs

”THE TRIANGLE” CONSIST OF

1. The portal (Metalib/SFX)• user interface / Authentication

• metasearch

• linking resolver & access restriction

2. Library system (Voyager)• description metadata

3. Document archive(Encompass)• technical metadata

• repository

Standard-base, standard interfaces• openURL, Z39.50, Zing, Marc

Portal

library

system

Document

archive

Z39.50ZING

OpenURL

one scenario: digital music collection (legal deposit copies)

Search interface

Nelli-portal

Targetdatabase

Linnea-library system

Z39.50

recordsaccess control

SFX-resolverdigital archive

digital objects

special metadata

restrict access by collections

OpenUrl

OpenUrl

THE RESOURCE MAP OF FINNISH ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Australian Libraries Gateway

Scottish Collections Network, SCONE

Describe

DCCD application

Evaluate

Conspectus method

USER INTERFACE FETISHISM

Nelli-portal:• Local interfaces• Regional interfaces• National interfaces

Library system• OPACs

Document archive

Customer oriented way

More is better?

INTEROPERABILITY WITH

• Institutional portals /university portals

Integration with elearning systems

Instructors• Define reading list• Define searches• Define resources

End users• Use reading list• Use pre-defined

searches

Goal:

Anywhere, any time

CONCLUSION

FOCUS ON…

The Needs of the customers

Information literacy

Open Access

Librarians should

support free Information

Creative & innovative staff

Tänan Tähelepanu eest!

…professionals?

Technical environment

• Sun Fire 4800 and Solaris-OS• Software: Apache, MySQL, Oracle• Technical maintenance (patches in OS, all the

backups) by CSC, the Finnish IT center for science

• Connecting to the Funet Backbone Network

Strenghts & Weaknesses

+ Applications/softwares

+ ExLibris help desk

+ Management tools

+ SFX, it’s magic

+ SFX KDB

+ Exlibris attidute

- multi-language

- Consortia model

- Usability/ Quick search

- Ejournal tool

- Metalib statistics

Nelli organization

• Nelli staff • Ari, co-ordinating• Tiina, technical issues• mr/mrs X, services

• The Portal team (9)• local project managers (20)• local trainers (10)

document archive LS-

team

Portal team

The Triangle team