This has been another extremely busy period for the University of Sussex Library with a number of exciting projects underway. Of particular interest are the following:

Refurbishment

Our major refurbishment project is now approaching its final stages and we are extremely pleased with the overall effect that the changes have made to our building and the services that we can offer our users. The final handover is anticipated in June 2011.

SALDA Project (Sussex Archive Linked Data Application)

Linked Data is the term used to describe a method of exposing, sharing and connecting data on the web. The idea is that there is always more information about your data available on the web and using Linked Data enables computers to make these connections.

The SALDA project is a JISC funded 6 month project to extract metadata records for the Mass Observation Archive from the University of Sussex Special Collection’s Archival Management System (CALM) and convert them into Linked Data that will be made publicly available. The final output from this project will comprise a set of linked data relating to the Mass Observation Archive that will be made publicly available via XML. We aim to make it available on the Talis Platform.

We have converted our data into Encoded Archival Description (EAD) using a template in CALM, created for contributors to the Archives Hub. In order to do this, we had to make changes to our data to make it more structured and this work is ongoing. We need to make sure that our data makes sense, so we are expanding abbreviations, eg communist party instead of CP, as when you have a single search box instead of a printed document or HTML page to look through you need to try and make your data as standard as possible to enable the best search results. This work has wider benefits outside of this project and has enabled us to review how collections are catalogued looking to future uses of the data. The EAD is now being worked on to transform it into Resource Description Frameworks (RDF) which is the data modelling framework of Linked Data.

In 2013, the Special Collections will move to the Keep, a new archive repository bringing together the records of East Sussex Record Office, Brighton and Hove Council and the University under the same roof. This project will provide invaluable experience in exporting and reusing our metadata and explore the potential of using this approach to open up the information on holdings between institutions and greatly enhance resource discovery.

There is a blog detailing our progress here: http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/salda/

Patron Driven e-books

In October 2010 we began a trial of the E-book Patron plan with Coutts.  This new kind of purchasing model allows E-book titles to be loaded on to the library catalogue which, in turn, are only purchased - and therefore become part of our collection -when there are two or more "hits" by our users/patrons. To begin this process an initial deposit is made to Coutts and the cost of each E-book purchased is then deducted from this deposit. We focused our trial on the subject areas of Geography, Sociology, Politics and Education.  Library of Congress Classmarks were used in the selection process to define these areas and further profiling, using price and publishers as key factors, was undertaken.  This enabled us to have control over which E-books would be sent to us.  Consequently at the start of October approx 2500 E-book records were added to our catalogue. New E-book titles, matching our profile, are also being sent to us at regular intervals for us to add.  Since October our patrons have purchased 400+ E-books.  We are now reaching the end of our trial and we have been very pleased with the items that have been added to our collection. As a result of this trial, we hope to extend the plan into further subject areas in the near future.

 
Library e-strategy: search and discovery

Over the last six months we have developed an e-strategy for search and discovery which is designed to provide a framework within which future developments in the technical infrastructure that supports our electronic provision can be discussed. The strategy defines a number of goals which support the principles of simplicity, openness and currency. These goals were defined through an analysis of the results from a brief web survey, direct email consultation with key academic members of the University and our own experience and professional insight. A draft document was then placed on our web pages for further consultation. A major application of this set of strategic goals will be to draw up a set of specification requirements for a new search and discovery tool. We currently use Aquabrowser as our main catalogue, with Metalib for federated search and SFX as our link resolver. We are looking to replace these with one of the new generation of search and discovery tools such as Primo or Summon.