Georgia Institute of Technology (14,000 students)

Electronic Reserves

Visit on 11 May 2000 by Pauline Bayne and Anthony Smith

Grace Agnew, Asst. Director for Systems & Technical Services

Mohsen Mahdavi-Hezaveh, Systems Analyst

Felecia Henderson, Electronic Reserves

Head of Circulation and two reserve staff members

System: Sirsi, migrating to Endeavor (statewide in GA)

Reserve system: Developed in-house; started 1995, 1997 version 2 programmed in Visual Basic, and planning 3d version for fall 2000; scans, automatically uploads files; data entry for Access database; automatic web page updating.

Scanning equipment: Fujitsu M3099 EH (new, scans 85pp. / minute, $18,000) plus Dunord Technologies Interface Board (RS 232-serial) provides API, access to libraries for programming. Use this to create pdf without Acrobat; supports Acrobat 4.0. Note: they started with much slower equipment and have upgraded over time.

Background: Always have paper copy along with electronic copy. Both are available for use.

PR: Faculty have accepted electronic reserves. Faculty have option of hard copy or electronic reserve, but when electronic reserve is chosen, students get both.

Website contains policies, forms, instructions; copyright instructions. (We have password and instructions for access for a limited time.) Most information on website requires password access. Authentication will change soon to digital certificates.

Security/copyright:

· Between item link and item itself, copyright notice appears on screen. Therefore, don’t add notice to item file and don’t require original copyright statement.

· Do not require permission for articles older than 2 years. Faculty must get permission for articles/ book chapters less than 2 years old [library director’s rule].

· Documents are accessible through reserve listings (electronic and physical) in Reserve Database from website via course name or course instructor. Access requires GA Tech user passwords.

· Limits: Usually 1 chapter of a book (or no more than 10%), 1 article from a journal issue.

· Why library reserve and not directly to faculty website for course?

1. Safer with library copyright rules

2. Library will scan

3. Have WebCt, but there is not a high percent of web-supported courses. Future: need clean hook from WebCT to electronic reserve (where copyright is protected).

· Treating electronic and physical materials exactly the same way.

· May keep item on reserve for subsequent semesters, if professor responds to keep the file. Rationale: limited access. Generally keep electronic file only for 1 year (copyrighted materials, I believe). Repeated use of copyrighted material requires copyright permission letter from faculty. Provide copyright assistance on website (sample letter, link to publishers’ addresses, instructions).

· Future authentication: with digital certificates and smart portal (2000-2001) could limit to students in the course and allow students quick access to only reserves for their courses.

· Goal: ereserves and document delivery with one common face, one-stop shopping.

Staff and workload:

· 3 reserve staff members; 1 does scanning/ record creation full-time.

· About 5500 reserve items per quarter. Scan 150-200 items per day. Output: More than 2000 pp./day.

· ERes staff does not photocopy or download; they scan and create records.

Instructions to faculty / files accepted from faculty:

· Must submit one form for each item to be placed on reserve (electronic and paper forms available).

· Require photocopy from faculty. Will not accept “degraded photocopies, homework solutions in pencil, miniaturized print.”

· Student papers cannot be placed on reserve without written permission of the student.

· Generally don’t create stable links to full text articles, or download pdf doc from online source. Would require too much staff time to determine where to search and do it. Their scanning operation is very fast.

· Accept Word or PowerPoint files attached to email; they convert easily to pdf.

· Limits: Generally 1 chapter per book, 1 article per issue; must have copyright permission if less than 2 years old (for repeated use?).

File size:

· No limit. Do not break into parts.

Process is highly automated:

· First step is to search database to see if item already scanned and on reserve.

· If scanning is needed:

Scanning and data creation are done item by item; not batch scanning.

1. Stamp photocopy with “Reserve date” – know when processed. [Probably this copy goes on for physical processing in Sirsi’s reserve module]

2. Scan item (sheetfeeder to flatbed scanner); automatically creates pdf record, loads to pc

3. Define database record (Access db):

· School/Dept.

· Course

· Professor (plus email address and website URL)

· Word type (Exams, Reading Assignment, Course syllabus, Homework solutions, Class notes, Other)

· Semester

· Year

· Description (Title)

· Activation date

· Expires: __ Never, __date

· # pages

· Check boxes:

· Copyrighted material (will show copyright warning statement before showing pdf file)

· Publisher’s permission (yes / no)

· Cross reference (for multiple courses or instructors) --brings up screens for listing their info.

4. Move db record and pdf file to network server (Unix). Visual Basic copies to server and deletes from local pc. [Windows 98 can map a network drive to show Unix drives] –Anthony will experiment. Path becomes: school/course #/prof last name and 2 initials/automatic sequence number for image numbered for each professor: “ece/6520/glyttis/1

5. Export to Internet (updates web pages). This step is done once or twice a day. One complete text file of all electronic reserves is replaced and from that the web pages are updated (created). Not sure, but the physical reserve information is likely gathered in a batch mode.

User access:

· Library website has links for catalog and electronic reserves.

· Enter user name and password

· Browse by dept; search by instructor or dept/course number

· Web page for instructor/course:

· E-reserve Categories: reading assignments, exams, problem solutions, etc.

· Choose item from category list:

· See copyright warning

· See complete citation

· Opens Acrobat; see item. Left frame gives page-by-page access (automatically generated); right frame contains text

· Also shows reserve books from Sirsi (author-title)

· PROBLEMS: Still have printer problems with older printers and their 3.1 pdf files (slow).

· SUGGESTION: Install the most RAM possible at the printer level; Use Pentium 3 pcs with dual portal RAM.

What documents will be kept in paper form?

· All ereserves are retained in paper, processed, and available in Reserve area.

What happens when items are removed from reserve?

· Copyrighted items are retained only if:

· Professor responds to query – retain next semester

· For repeated use, professor must supply copyright permission letter

· Generally scanned files are deleted at end of semester or after 1 year unless permission recorded.

· Probably (not sure), non-copyrighted items may be retained. They said, though, that most items were removed on annual basis. “Not legal to retain for more than one year.”

Phase 3 development for 2000-2001:

· Digital certificates (for authentication) and smart portals

· URL links to full text (faculty must provide)

· Full information on reserve books (Sirsi or Endeavor)

· May experiment with Capture (OCR) but using routines for best quality. Rationale: allows searchable text.