Summary of Public Display Group’s Progress

Updated 8/2/2006

Three elements control public display:  webpubdef, wwwoptions, and style sheets.

• The webpub.def file is a text file containing a series of entries that control the bibliographic and holdings record display. (Manual p. 106019).  Webpub.def is a Unix file that can be edited with a text editor.
• The Web options (also called Web OPAC options) are a variety of settings that control the look and functionality of your OPAC. Web options reside in the WWWOPTIONS file. (Manual p. 106058). 
• Style sheets allow the webmaster to change the presentation (fonts, colors, spacing, etc.) of documents without changing their HTML code.

At the present time, we’re controlling the display of the following fields from the resource records with webpubdef:

· Author (field a)

· Resource Name (t)—Relabeled Database Title “Resource Name” is probably confusing.  Patrons are familiar with the word “title”.

· Alternate Resource Name (x) —Relabeled Other Title  “Resource Name” is probably confusing.  Patrons are familiar with the word “title”.

· Description (e)

· Local Subject (q)—Relabeled General Subject  “Local Subject” is probably meaningless to the patron.

· Coverage (h)

· Mode of Access (b)—Relabeled Notes  The committee proposes to use this field to display information previously designated for display in the Public Note (f) field such as specialized system requirements, version issues, any information that would go in a general note in the bib record.

· Resource Advisory (k)   Because webpubdef is a Unix file, this field does not display to the public when the field is empty. 

Note:  It’s possible to relabel fields in the public display using webpubdef.  This does not affect the field labels used in ERM. At some point we may wish to harmonize labels for the sake of clarity.  

Configuration of the ERM portion of webpubdef as of 8/2/2006:

e|a|||Author||e|

e|t|||Database Title||e|

e|x|||Other Title||e|

e|e|||Description||e|

e|q|||General Subject||e|

e|h|||Coverage||e|

e|k|||Resource Advisory||e|

e|b|||Notes||e|

At the present time, we’re controlling display of the following fields from the license record with wwwoptions:

• Authorized users  (u)

• Number of simultaneous users (Fixed field 232)

• Terms of use patron (t)   

Screen shots:

A-Z and Subject Page (preliminary work)

http://libraries.colorado.edu:2082/screens/databases2.html

Results screen of title search by “A” in Find Articles and More. 

Display of resource record for Bioone.

Area of resource record controlled by wwwoptions:

General Guidelines page http://libraries.colorado.edu:2082/screens/guidelines.html

Subcommittee recommendations:

• Present the patron with one record for each resource. 
  
  After examining Bowling Green’s implementation of ERM in which both records are displayed and linked, the committee concluded that display of both records is confusing for users.
  
  To accomplish the single display, the Libraries would need to suppress either the bib record or the resource record.   The resource record cannot be suppressed from public view if it is used to populate the Subject and A-Z lists.  As a result, in most cases, the committee recommends that the bib record be suppressed for resources at the collection or database level.   There may be a few exceptions to this proposed policy.  Science, a stand alone title with license, contact, and consortial purchasing details, is one example.  Although we need a resource record to manage license and contact details, it would be unnecessarily confusing to the patron to display a record for a single title in the Subject and A-Z lists.  It seems logical to suppress the resource record for one-off titles such as Science to maintain consistency with the presentation of bib records for individual serial titles.

• Add selected resource record fields to Chinook’s indexing:
  
  Author (Resource):  index in author and keyword indexes.
  Resource name and alternate resource name:  index in title and keyword indexes.
  Description:  index in keyword index.
  
  Because the committee recommends suppression of bib records for most resources, indexing these fields would enable discovery of resource records from Subject and A-Z pages and the title, keyword, and author searches—functionality that is available in the current implementation of Chinook.

• Create resource records for free resources recommended by bibliographers in order to make them available from the Subject and A-Z lists as appropriate.  Examples:  DOAJ, Gallica, Making of America.
  
  Although this is a workflow issue, the committee believes that it is a manageable one.  Resource records for freely available websites would not need to be linked to license and contact records.  Necessary information can often be gleaned from existing bib records and the website itself.  Furthermore, many of the fixed fields could be disregarded.  Because some free resources are included in the Serials Solutions database, it is possible to create coverage loads for journal collections  such as DOAJ or Gallica.  It would also be consistent with our recommendation to suppress bib records in favor of resource records at the database or collection level. 

• Create a link to a General Guidelines page by inserting html code within the Terms of Use Patron field in the license record. Include any unusual terms of use in this field.  Separate these from the General Guidelines visually by including <br> html code between phrases in Terms of Use Patron field in the license record.

• Create links to tutorials and other supplementary information in using the Notes field of the resource record. 
  
  At the present time, Find Articles and More includes two links when appropriate: one for the resource and one for streaming video tutorials.  A link to the tutorial could be included in the Notes field with fairly simple html coding. 

Unresolved issues:

• MARC display button on resource records.  We thought we had this fixed, but looking it still appears on the staging server.  Meredith will look into.

• Harmonizing field names used for  public display (controlled with webpubdef), in ERM itself and in documentation.  John can rename fields in ERM.

• Renaming selective fields in the resource and license records.  For example, renaming “Note” (variable field n in resource records) to “Internal Note” to better reflect how it’s used in the system.

• Renaming of the “Resource Name” index that is available from the search results screens of the Subject and A-Z page. 

Some training issues if our recommendations are adopted:

• At the present time, Meredith can control the order in which resources are linked in the subject pull-down menus of Find Articles and More.  Since all pages are generated dynamically, she will not be able control the order in which they appear in the results list when ERM goes live.

• At the present time, the entries in the subject lists in Find Articles and More include brief descriptions.   When ERM goes live, the subject lists will provide a brief display.  We will need to train users to look at the complete record to enable them to make informed database selections and to find tutorials and other supplementary information.  (Note:  they’re already doing this for all searches of the catalog proper.)