The Future is Flexible, Extensible, and Community Based: Stories of Successful Electronic Resources Management

Steve ObergCORAL as Source for Databases A-Z

Slides:  http://librarylink.wheaton.edu/nasig15

WHO ARE WE

• Total FTE: 2,969 (Students 2,729; Faculty 240)

• 40 undergraduate majors• Doctoral programs in Bible and Theology,

Psychology

AT WHEATON?

• Total journal subscriptions: 6,607 (~400 print)

• 14 Master’s degrees

• Total databases: 240

Databases A-Z is a heavily used element of our site.

This was an opportunity to figure out how we could streamline maintenance of Databases A-Z.

At same time, we redefined (expanded) what goes in Databases A-Z.

Website redesign project

Databases, abstracting and indexing resources, online reference works, journal and e-book packages, and freely available websites that are selected by subject librarians as having value for one or more subject areas.

Databases A-Z: Wheaton’s (new) definition

Metadata for and about databases was managed in multiple places, and was inconsistent across all of them. Particularly onerous was the need to manually key in information into our website CMS (Drupal) for each database, especially as we added more and more new entries over time.

Problem we faced

These places included

• Voyager (local ILS)• WorldCat Local (discovery layer)• In some cases, SFX (link resolver)• Our website CMS, Drupal

• CORAL• LibGuides

So….Why CORAL?

CORAL is where…

• All e-resources are already inventoried, including anything to be displayed in Databases A-Z.

• Flexibility and functionality exist to easily extract metadata in an automated way.

• All the relevant metadata was or could be stored.

Some specifics of CORAL functionality

• CORAL offers an optional add-on to allow public access to CORAL resource data.

• We do not use or expose the public interface locally but instead make use of the XML output.

• This add-on offers not only a public interface if you choose to use it, but an XML output as well.

• We assign a specific resource type to each resource record for Databases A-Z entries.

Some specifics of how this fits into Drupal

• We use Feed Importer module, pointing to specific XML feed URL output from CORAL.

• XML data is parsed using XPATH and a node is created in Drupal for each entry.

• cron job initiates fresh import on set schedule of every 2-3 hours.

• A view is created to pull nodes together into a list with alphabetized header.

Additional aspects to the workflow

• Any new entries from CORAL appear after the next cron job is ready (2-3 hours).

• Any changes to existing entries are also handled smoothly within the same timeframe.

• A view is created to pull nodes together into a list with alphabetized header.

• Workflow also supports cross references for alternate spellings, alternate names, etc.

I am not a Drupal expert. The Drupal side of things was figured out and set up by my colleague, Jeff Mudge, who is our Digital Initiatives Coordinator. Together, we worked out how to handle each part of the workflow.

Full disclosure

None of this would have been feasible without CORAL’s flexible design and community-created functionality.

2. Technology2.5 Markup languages (e.g. HTML, XML, wiki)2.7 Software such as…Electronic resources

management software (ERMS)3. Research and Assessment

3.7 Is able to identify the principles andtechniques necessary to identify andanalyze emerging technologies andinnovations in order to recognize andimplement relevant technologicalimprovements.

Tie-ins to NASIG Core Competencies for ERLs

steve.oberg@ wheaton.eduTwitter: @TechSvcsLib