The NOVEL Steering Committee held a seminar that focussed on NOVEL Initiative V- develop a NOVEL user interface (or portal) that integrates the services and resources brought together under NOVEL.
Mary Jackson, Association of Research Libraries liaison to the ARL Scholars Portal Working Group, described the range of portal features/approaches applicable to information discovery and delivery and how a portal might function in a diverse user community.
Ann Getman, NYS Education Department (SED) Office of Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education, discussed how the State Education Department is using technology to provide services and information about the standards, curricula, information resources to administrators, teachers, teacher candidates, parents, students, and the public.
Susan Harrison, Associate Director for Technical and Computer Services, The New York Public Library, The Branch Libraries, spoke on 'Developing a Web Database Aggregator,' a portal that The New York Public Library is in the process of implementing.
During the afternoon session, librarians, library system staff and others had the opportunity to discuss applying portal concepts to libraries, with a particular focus on the options for a NOVEL portal.
Notes from Portal Seminar November 7, 2002
Mary Jackson's presentation
- There is no consensus as to what a portal should be
- The challenge is to meet the needs of different communities
- The major themes that come out in the discussions of portals - discover, capture, manipulate, distribute, and consult
- A portal must have a single powerful search capability - fast and of high quality
- Searches should be
- able to be conducted across formats,
- able to be limited by a range of options, ranked, and
- able to be organized by subject as needed
- Vendors now offering 'portals' as part of their OPAC offering
- It will be important to provide training in how and what to search when using a portal
Ann Getman
- Administrators, teachers, teacher candidates, parents, students, and the public still need information about the standards, curricula, information resources, etc.
- NYSED is committed to using technology to provide services to these groups
Sue Harrison
- Described the portal approach the New York Public Library is implementing as they build a web based database aggregator.
- Working to bring together the contents of the many databases to which they subscribe using one search engine which will retrieve results across databases
Afternoon Break Out Sessions
In the wrap up session, Mary Jackson reported some of the common issues heard as she and the other speakers visited the various breakout groups.
These issues include:
- Will there be one portal with a single server location (a centralized approach) or many portals with many servers around the state? This decision will affect the software chosen, customization, funding sources, and maintenance responsibilities.
- Who pays?
- How is it maintained?
- What should be in the portal and who will make that decision?
- Who determines the content?
- What should the content be?
- What are the priorities?
- How will libraries that don't have Z39.50 capabilities and can't connect to the portal be handled?
- The importance of standards (including ADA standards)
- Issues raised in relation to collaboration?
- What range of services will the portal offer, e.g. ILL and virtual reference?
- Seamless link to what is needed
- Personalization
- How will privacy issues be handled?
- PR - getting the information out to the public (branding). Marketing is all-important
- easy to use/training for both users and library staff
- content - scope of searching capability
- authentication versus implementation
- 'How will we do this?'
- Having a thesaurus with a controlled vocabulary
- Relevancy of one's search - educating users as to what information that is retrieved is relevant
- Comment from Mary Jackson "Might be good to start with the NOVEL databases as a beginning to the portal concept. Important to make Library schools aware of this initiative - they are training 'future' librarians."
Webliography -- Readings for NOVEL Portal Seminar - November 7, 2002
Scholars Portal Project - several articles by directors, results of the survey of ARL members, final report of the Scholars Portal Working Group, presentations from the ARL session at ALA, etc.
Library Web Portals by Dick Boss (PLA TechNotes)
Web Portals & Higher Education by Richard N. Katz and Associates. Published by EDUCAUSE. [Useful bibliography and discussion of channels within the university portal. It's possible that libraries will be a channel and not a portal in their own right.]
"Assessment of Commercial Search Engines," Improved Access to Electronic and Traditional Resources, Vantage Point EBSCO Subscription Services, 2002. pp. 7- 8. [also includes presentations by Jerry Campbell and Brian Schottlaender]
"Consortia and the Portal Challenge," with Barbara Preece, Journal of Academic Librarianship, v. 28, no. 3, May 2002, pp. 160-162.
"I, User - Discipline-based portals: the new content mediators" by Rick Lugg and Ruth Fischer. Against the Grain. Dec. 2001 - January 2002. pp. 81-83.
"Academic Libraries Develop Integrated Portal Software Package" Barbara Quint. Information Today.
Of Portals, Publishers, and Privatization. David Majka. American Libraries, October 1999. pp. 46-49.
A Librarian's Perspective on Portals [.pdf file]. John R. Little. Educause Quarterly. #2, 2001. pp. 52-54.
"The Advent of Portals" Mary E. Jackson. Library Journal, September 15, 2002.
"The Concept of a Portal," by Paul Miller, in Ariadne issue 30.
Building a Portal: Practicalities, Processes & Pitfalls [Powerpoint slide show) Mike Crandall, Technology Manager, Libraries and Public Access to Information Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Information Technology and Libraries - Special Issue December 2000: User-Customizable Library Portals.
[NOTE: Information Technology and Libraries back issues online currently date to 2001. The aforementioned article is not currently available online as of April 20, 2006.]
Thank you for participating in this Seminar!
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December 9, 2002; last modified on April 20, 2006 -- cmf/asm
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