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WebPac Implementation Team : URL Subgroup

Final Report

Membership

Judy Maynes, Ann McHugo, Mina Rakhra, Cecilia Tittemore, Sheila Trask, Jennifer Merrill (Chair)

Charge

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~bibcon/WebPacIT/urlcharge.htm

Brief summary of goals of charge

The URL in the item record is a convention we invented so we could generate location, "call number" displays in the BRS-based OPAC consistent with those we were already generating for non-electronic materials.  In the Innopac OPAC these same URLs behave like other call numbers in item records.  They are hotlinked, but the following the link takes you to a call number browse rather than to the remote electronic resource.  (A separate box in the Innopac OPAC display delivers the URLs from the bib record as hotlinks to the remote resource.) The goal of this group is to determine whether we can find a way to remove the item-level call numbers from the Innopac without breaking the BRS catalog displays.

Proposal

We propose that URLs be removed from item records in the Innopac OPAC.  URLs will continue to be recorded in the 856 field in the Innopac bibliographic record.  We propose that this be implemented immediately.

To support this, some changes are needed to the displays in the current OPAC (BRS-based).  Currently the item URL is displayed as Location/Call Number.  Text notes about coverage for online serials may also be displayed.  A typical Medium display looks like this:

- 2 -

Title: Icarus [computer file]

Imprint: Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press,

Related Titles: Icarus; 0019-1035.

Location: An electronic information resource. Electronic

journal.

<http://www.idealibrary.com/cgi-bin/links/toc/is>

Library has v.101 (Jan. 1993) - to date

The URL from the 856 is available in this record, but is only displayed in the Long display in the field labelled Elec Access:

- 2 -

Title: Icarus [computer file]

Imprint: Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press,

Notes: Description based on online display of: Vol. 119, no.

1 (Jan., 1996) : title from title screen.

Digitized and made available on the World Wide Web by

I.D.E.A.L., International Digitized Electronic Access

Library.

Type of file: Online abstracts are HTML encoded,

articles are in portable document format (pdf)

Online version of the print title: Icarus.

System requirements: Internet connectivity, World Wide

Web browser, and Adobe Acrobat reader.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Subscription and registration required for access.

Material Type: Serial

Language: eng

Frequency: Monthly.

Subjects: Astronomy -- Periodicals.

Other Authors: IDEAL (Project).

Other Titles: Icarus (Online)

Related Titles: Icarus; 0019-1035.

Elec Access: Contents: Electronic journal.

URL:<http://www.idealibrary.com/cgi-bin/links/toc/is>.

Access method: http

ISN: 0019-1035  0019-1035

Location: An electronic information resource. Electronic

journal.

<http://www.idealibrary.com/cgi-bin/links/toc/is>

Library has v.101 (Jan. 1993) - to date

We propose including the Elec Access field in the Medium display to replace the URL data that will no longer be present in the Location field.  Each URL present in this field will be hotlinked. For example:

- 2 -

Title: Icarus [computer file]

Imprint: Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press,

Related Titles: Icarus; 0019-1035.

Elec Access: Contents: Electronic journal.

URL:<http://www.idealibrary.com/cgi-bin/links/toc/is>.

Access method: http

Location: An electronic information resource.

Library has v.101 (Jan. 1993) - to date

- 3 -

Author: National Research Initiative Competitive Grants

Program (United States. Cooperative State

Research, Education, and Extension Service)

Title: Abstracts of funded research [computer file].

Imprint: [Washington, D.C.] : National Research Initiative

Competitive Grants Program, State Research,

Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Dept. of

Agriculture,

Elec Access: Contents: Current issue.

URL:<http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS5934>.

Elec Access: Contents: Archived issues.

URL:<http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS5935>.

Note in the first example that the Location field is retained because there is a holdings note describing the contents located at that URL.  There is no holdings note for the second example, so no Location field is displayed.

  • The CALL index will be modified to include URLs from the 856.
  • Anyone relying on searching the location "An electronic information resource" to pull sets should be made aware that this will no longer achieve consistent results because some Location fields aren't going to be present any longer.

Implementation

  • Modify the BRS catalog filter to generate the Medium display as shown in the two examples above.
  • Initiate a series of clean up projects:
    1. In Innopac records where there are no item-level notes, delete the entire item record which contains the URL call number.
    2. In Innopac records where there are item-level holdings notes, delete just the URL call number, retaining the note field(s).
    3. Verify that all 856 URLs match their respective item URLs prior to deleting the item URL.
    4. If multiple856 fields are found in the record and only 1 URL was present in the item record, verify that we want to present all to the user.
    5. Clean up all non-http URLs as appropriate (gopher, mailto, ftp, etc)
    6. If the record in question has been marked "withdrawn", remove the URL from both the item and the 856 (so we don't process it with any URL verification program).  If there are no holdings notes in the item, remove the entire item record.
    7. |z data in 856's will be reviewed for accuracy
  • Acquisitions' practice had been to record the URL in acquisitions records in a Note field rather than the 856.  They have discontinued this practice, and will now create 856 fields.  Records created before the change will be overlayed when they are cataloged and the 856 will replace the Note field.

Innopac OPAC options

In addition, the group was asked to recommend settings for the following Innopac OPAC options:

DISPLAY_856  This option allows us to specify which subfields of the 856 should display to the public and in which order.

Recommendation

Display subfields z and u in that order.  We feel that it is important to display the URL to users.

The group wishes that it were possible to tell Innopac which subfields should be part of the hotlink and which should display as plain text, but this is not available to us.  The group has submitted an enhancement request to Innovative.

LINK856TEXT  This lets us specify the text that appears as a heading in the box containing the URLs.

Recommendation

Display the text "Available online:"

A final item was not listed in the groups charge, but came up in discussion during the presentation of the interim report of the Implementation Team to LOSC.

FRAMEURL  This option allows us to specify whether following a link out of the Innopac should go directly to that site, replacing the current Innopac session, or whether the new site should open in a framed window with the top frame having a link back to the Innopac OPAC session and the bottom frame being the remote site.

Pros for the Framed approach

  1. Users can see where they came from and can easily get back.
  2. If we implement some of the new MyMillenium functions, logged in users can see that they are still logged in to Innopac even when they go off to another site.  This might encourage them to go back and log off.

Cons against the Framed approach

  1. Some amount of screen real estate is lost to the frame that contains the "go back" link.  However, the user can rearrange the size of the frames once they get to the remote site.
  2. User has to know to use the Back button to get back to Innopac.  There is no place on the Innopac screens to place this warning before they follow the URL and in the non-framed approach, no place to put it after they've followed the link

Recommendation

We feel it is important to retain a sense of where you were and how to get back there when users leave our catalog to follow links to other sites.  We recommend using the framed approach on this screen.  We recommend that the design committee design a short top banner so we can minimize the amount of screen real estate devoted to the top frame.

Enhancement request re DISPLAY_856 sent to Innovative on November 8, 2000.

I would like to suggest an enhancement to the WWWOption DISPLAY_856.  As it is currently implemented one can specify which subfields of the 856 are to display to the public, but all of those subfields are part of the link.

This makes it difficult to easily distinguish between the URL itself and any accompanying notes.  Furthermore, if the 856|z note is long, or if there are multiple URLs with notes, you end up with a box that just contains link text.

We feel that this is not easy to read.

Dartmouth suggests that the capability of this option be expanded so that we can specify all the subfields that should be included in the display, as well as which of those subfields should be hotlinked.  We would love to be able to put the note on a different line from the url as well.  So if it were possible to indicate line breaks that would be great.

Thank you for considering this suggestion