I. Collections, Services, and Systems

A. Collections

Recon
ORBIS, Yale's online catalog, currently contains over 4.2 million records. Conversion of the roman alphabet materials in the card catalog is on target to end by 2002 when a new library management system will be chosen, and other scripts will follow.
http://www.library.yale.edu/orbis/

Archives 300
The Archives 300 program was created to coincide with Yale's tricentennial. Its mission is to establish ongoing mechanisms for the selection and preservation of primary source materials about Yale's history, provide comprehensive and effective description and access to the Yale documentary record and implement and participate in programs to promote the study and appreciation of the history, accomplishments, and contributions of the University and the Yale community. Among the digital aspects of the Archives 300 program are databases created to clarify Yale's historical organizational structure and an online component of an exhibit on Yale architecture.
http://www.library.yale.edu/archives300/300home.html

Avalon Project
The Avalon Project, a collaboration between the Yale Law School and Yale Law Library, makes historical and present day legal documents available online. This international collection focuses primarily on modern documents but contains some documents from before the 18th century. There are currently 3,500 documents available. Documents are available in full text with supporting documentation linked where appropriate.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm

Imaging America Project
The Yale University Library is creating over three years a database of c. 25,000 digital images to support teaching, learning, and research in American Studies. Since the initial organizational meeting in April 1999, a number of institutions have expressed a keen interest in participating. Exploration of candidate collections has proceeded in tandem with an active search for foundation support; ongoing discussions with the American Studies Association regarding sponsorship and collaboration; local implementation of the Luna Imaging software; and integration of materials from Yale's own library and museum collections. The Luna software is being tested in the classroom during the 2000/2001 academic year by several American Studies faculty.
http://www.library.yale.edu/art/Imaging_America.html

Beinecke Collection Databases
As part of the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS) project, the Beinecke Papyrology Database describes papyri held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and includes many images. Over the last year, 5800 papyri have been scanned for this database.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/WWWpapyrus.htm

Beinecke Photonegatives Database
The Beinecke Photonegatives Database contains approximately 19,000 images of photographs, manuscripts, correspondence, artwork, objects, and illustrations and selected pages from printed works in the Beinecke's collections. The images were scanned from the Photonegative File, a file containing negatives and color transparencies of images selected for reproduction or study by patrons over the last twenty years. Data describing these images in most cases is very brief but generally includes call number and subject or author.
http://highway49.library.yale.edu/Scripts/db2www.exe/PHOTONEG.d2w/INPUT

Western Americana Prints Database
The Western Americana Prints Database contains information for over 1000 prints in the Yale Collection of Western Americana at the Beinecke Library, most of which are not presently represented by catalog records in ORBIS.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/wwwprint.htm

American Drawings Database
The Beinecke's American Drawings Database contains information about more than 2200 original sketches, drawings and watercolors by or about America. The information in the records was compiled by the staff of the Yale University Art Gallery's "American Drawings and Watercolors Project" in the mid-1980s. The database has not been added to since that time, but it represents the most complete survey such material at the Beinecke ever undertaken and includes much information not found in ORBIS.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/wwwdraw.htm

Western Americana Stereocards Database
The Beinecke's Western Americana Stereocards Database contains information about over 2,000 stereographic photographs in the Yale Collection of Western Americana that are not presently represented by catalog records in ORBIS.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/wwwster.htm

Western Americana Filmscript Collection Database
The Western Americana Filmscript Collection Database contains information about more than 430 Western movie scripts in the Yale Collection of Western Americana at the Beinecke Library. The records include information about script titles, authors, the directors, producers, production companies, actors and distributors associated with the films, with dates and settings as well as shelf locations. The script collection is described in ORBIS under the title "Western filmscript collection" (WA MSS S-1610), and a preliminary finding aid is available at the Beinecke Library, but the database provides the ability to employ boolean search operators across fields of data to isolate relevant scripts.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/movieqbe.htm

EAD Finding Aids Database
The Yale University Library Finding Aids Project provides access to archival finding aids in a platform-independent electronic format. Many of the finding aids are encoded in SGML using EAD. The Beinecke Library, Manuscripts and Archives, the Divinity School Library, and the Music Library all contribute to this project.
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/finddocs/fadsear.htm.

Ad Hoc Digital Library
The Ad Hoc Digital Library is a faculty-library initiative to support and coordinate resources relating to the history of Christianity at Yale University. Ad Hoc contains almost 2600 items and includes both texts and images. While some of the elements of this site are only locally accessible, most are available through the Internet and are intended to serve a larger audience. The purposes and expected uses of materials accessed through the site are educational and scholarly.
http://adhoc.divinity.yale.edu/

EIKON Image Database for Biblical Studies
The EIKON Image Database for Biblical Studies is a faculty-library initiative that provides digital resources for teaching and research in the field of Biblical studies. Images in the EIKON database are a subset of about 1200 of the materials in the AdHoc Digital Library, and concentrates on those that are in the public domain.
http://eikon.divinity.yale.edu/

New Haven Health
Originally funded through a grant from the National Library of Medicine, New Haven Health is a publicly accessible Web site that provides growing information about the past and present health of the greater New Haven community. This project is a repository of numerical and statistical health data, electronic publications, and photographs, a guide to local public health resources, and a forum for local public health researchers. The site includes dozens of historical documents, health surveys, consumer health publications, and six years of New Haven Health Department annual reports and vital statistics. The site, through its unique collection of materials, provides the best picture of the health of greater New Haven.
http://info.med.yale.edu/newhavenhealth/

Involvement with ICOLC
Yale is an active participant in and one of the early advocates of the need for the International Consortium of Library Consortia (ICOLC). This group of nearly 150 library consortia facilitates discussion among consortia on issues of common interest including keeping participating consortia informed about new electronic information resources, pricing practices of electronic providers and vendors, and other issues of importance to directors and governing boards of consortia including the development of license agreements that are advantageous, fair and affordable to the library and user communities. The Yale Library keeps the record of the ICOLC meetings and maintains the public web site.
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/

B. Services

Borrow Direct Pilot Project
Yale is working with Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania on the Borrow Direct project, a trial book borrowing system between the three universities' libraries. The Borrow Direct system allows Yale readers to request loans from our two partners for books not owned, checked out, or otherwise unavailable at Yale. Book pickup can be designated to be at one of several Yale libraries. Most books can be picked up four working days after a request is made. Participation in this project will help to develop long-term document delivery strategies at the Yale libraries.
http://borrowdirect.library.yale.edu/.

Online Instruction Tutorials
Many Yale libraries and collections have created self-guided tutorials and online subject and help guides to assist readers in research. This effort allows librarians to explore new methods of digital outreach and instruction and to serve our readers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition to the many subject-tailored or resource-specific tutorials available, a small but growing number of tutorials and guides have been developed cooperatively by Yale librarians to provide basic information about core research resources.
http://www.library.yale.edu/instruction/tutorials.html.

Science Expert Help System
The Yale University Science Libraries have implemented a Navigator system, designed by David Stern (Director of Science Libraries and Information Services), which helps users determine - and in many cases transparently link to - the most appropriate source for their information need(s) in the sciences. This approach begins with the type of information desired ... a definition, short description, annual review, the latest information, etc ... and then moves to subject and source determination. It assumes that users have no idea of the plethora of resources available upon entering an information maze. It attempts to identify the best and other relevant sources for a particular need.
http://www.library.yale.edu/scilib/help/navhelp.html

C. Systems

Locally Loaded Databases
Several bibliographic databases and full-text resources are locally loaded at Yale. At the Medical Library, the loading of Ovid databases and journals provides consistent access to important information. Chadwyck-Healey full text databases are available from a server supported by the Library Systems Office. These projects provide important data on usage patterns and allow Yale to tailor services for our users.

Luna Imaging
Yale has worked closely and successfully with Luna Imaging, Inc. in the development of classroom applications and in the creation of an image database currently containing material from the Imaging America Project, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Yale Visual Resources Collection (6000 records in all). Through the Luna Users Group, Yale is now working closely with other research institutions on challenges that must be met if the Luna database architecture is to succeed in a networked research environment. Release 3.0 of the Insight software, scheduled for November, 2000, will deliver a new database structure and several important enhancements requested and refined by the Users Group.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~fmartz/luna_for_dlf_text.pdf - Classroom Use of Digital Images
http://www.library.yale.edu/~fmartz/luna_for_dlf_images.pdf - Classroom Presentation Module -- Sample Screens

Orbis on the Web with CrossPlex
Orbis on the Web is a project to web-enable our legacy system online catalog while we wait to pursue a new library management system.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~fmartz/crossplexopen.html.

Non-Roman Workstation Support
The project to enable display of non-Roman characters using Internet Explorer or Netscape on library public workstations resulted in the successful configuration and installation of workstations in most University Libraries. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew and Thai are among the languages that now can be displayed correctly on Library public access machines. Input of Chinese, Japanese and Korean is also now possible.

Library Management System Migration Project
Yale Library's current Library Management System, Orbis, was installed in 1989. The Library Management System Migration (LMS) project is a thirty month endeavor to replace Orbis with the next generation library catalog. Orbis2, the new LMS, has a projected implementation date of June 2002.
http://www.library.yale.edu/orbis2/public/orbis2.htm.

II. Projects and Programs

LIBLICENSE Project
The LIBLICENSE Project was established to inform and educate members of the information supply chain, particularly (but not exclusively) librarians, about how effectively to contract for electronic information resources. The project supports: (1) the LIBLICENSE web site, (2) the active and ongoing liblicense-l discussion list, and (3) the LIBLICENSE software (available on the Project web site), which publishers, librarians, vendors, and other interested parties can download and use to create and customize their own electronic resources licenses. Creation of, and ongoing enhancements to, the project were made possible by CLIR (the Council on Library and Information Resources) and the Digital Library Federation.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml

Personal Digital Assistants at the Medical Library
The Medical library conducted a project on the use of Personal Digital Assistants in the library. The goal was to see if high-use library and Medical center resources could be efficiently accessed through Palm Pilots and similar small, inexpensive computers. The result of this study lead to a class now taught to fourth-year medical students on "Personal Information Management" where library staff instruct students on how to use medical information tools on their handheld computers.
http://www.med.yale.edu/library/reference/training/pda.html

Digitized Images from the Visual Resource Collection
Images from the Visual Resource Collection are being digitized for classroom use. Slides are selected according to the needs of professors and placed on a course web server. The Visual Resource Collection is also working with Luna Insight software and professors to create presentations for classes.
http://www.library.yale.edu/art/aapage.html.

Academic Image Cooperative
The Arts Library at Yale is an active participant in the Academic Image Cooperative, sponsored by the DLF and the College Art Association. The last year has seen many advances in this project, including a collection strategy and development framework document and development of a business strategy.

jake
jake (Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment) is a reference source that makes finding, managing, and linking online journals and journal articles easier for students, researchers, and librarians. jake manages online resource metadata with a database union list, title authority control, and linking tools, as well as making it easy to add a local holdings layer. jake is free for anyone to use, modify, copy, or redistribute under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
http://jake.med.yale.edu/

BYTES
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has granted $42,000 to the Yale University Library to fund a one-year pilot project that is being conducted by nine of the eighteen members of NERL (the NorthEast Research Libraries consortium). The project is called BYTES, Books You Teach Every Semester, and grows out of the NERL libraries' desire to exploit and influence effectively the rapidly developing electronic book marketplace, which began clearly to emerge in 1999. The participating institutions include: Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University, Syracuse University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, and Yale University. The investigators will attempt to answer a series of fundamental, policy-shaping questions related to the potential digitization of books and other reading materials that support study and teaching in these areas.

III. Specific Digital Library Challenges

• Developing infrastructure and cooperative agreements for sustainable archival treatment of digital resources.

• Gathering and presenting useable and comparable use measures for remotely accessed and locally created digital resources.

• Building service quality for virtual patrons.

• Developing mappings between the various metadata standards now in use in Yale digital projects in order to support cross-system discovery and retrieval.

Please send comments or suggestions.
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© 2000 Council on Library and Information Resources

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