Digital Initiatives

2009 SFX usage data - updated for May

This set of spreadsheets contains data from scheduled SFX queries for the 2009 calendar year. This post will be updated as new data is added to the spreadsheets.
Download Req&ClickTotals2009
Download SourceUse2009
Download TitlesByTarget2009
Download TopJournals2009
Download TopTargets2009

Confused by the "No Title" entry in TopJournals2009.xls? Discover the reason for "No Title" here.

Distinct number of full-text e-journals accessible through SFX: 48710 (as of 6/08/09)

Digital Preservation and CHAOS!!!

Leave it to those wacky Europeople to come up with one of the funnier and informative information videos of late:

2006-2008 SFX usage data, re-organized

I've been posting the SFX usage data to this blog for several years. The last time I tried to extract information that someone wanted to know, I was frustrated by the fiscal year breakdowns that I myself had imposed on the data. This was an old habit left over from a previous job - the fiscal year defined everything we did. Here at K-State, it's a little different. It seems that money and subscriptions operate on the fiscal year, but usage data that people want to look at operates on the calendar year. I've reorganized the SFX usage data accordingly. See below for links to the re-done 2006-2008 Excel spreadsheets. The data is the same; it just looks a little different.

I'll be putting the 2009 data to a new post that will be updated all year long. If you prefer the fiscal year breakdown, the old files are still available for you in previous posts. Just take care not to rely on them for new data.

SFX usage data for 2008/09 - includes Jan. data

This set of spreadsheets contains data from scheduled SFX queries for FY 2008/2009. This post will be updated as new data is added to the spreadsheets.
Download Req&ClickTotals0809
Download SourceUse0809
Download TitlesByTarget0809
Download TopJournals0809
Download TopTargets0809

2007/2008 data
2006/2007 data

Confused by the "No Title" entry in TopJournals0809.xls? Discover the reason for "No Title" here.

Distinct number of full-text e-journals accessible through SFX: 54172 (as of 2/20/09)

Backup catalog a la Google style

Voyager is scheduled for an upgrade on January 5 & 6th during which time the online catalog will be down. To help users search our collection during this upgrade, we created a new backup catalog. Please try it out - backup catalog . There are several notable differences and I will summarize some highlights here.

Search: There is a single search box with no explicit options to indicate the type of search, a la Google style.  The system searches only title and author fields for each search and displays the results according to relevancy as defined by the database engine (Mysql). It uses "and" for multiple words, respects phrase searching when double quotes are used and the order of search terms does not matter. No need to use lastname, firstname syntax for an author search or no need to consciously skip articles in front when doing title search.

Data: We got a data extract from voyager on December 23 and information about new books added to voyager after Dec 23 will not be reflected in this backup version. For each record, we only extracted part of the information (title, author, call number, location, status) to keep the display simple for the end user.

Technical architecture: The beta catalog was built using mysql and php. We are using mysql's fulltext search option to create search index. The database has close to 2.3 million records.

This is an experimental backup catalog which was designed just to fill the gap for voyager upgrade. As such it has limited functionality compared to a full blown voyager catalog or new 2.0 library catalogs out there. The links pointing to voyager catalog will be automatically redirected to this new backup catalog on January 5th and will be in place till the Voyager upgrade finishes. Any questions or comments are welcome. 

New feed2js address

As part of the long-awaited migration of applications from ksulib.org to our local Webservers, I'm happy to announce that feed2js is now available and in production on staff.lib.k-state.edu. For those of you currently using feed2js on ksulib.org, you don't need to regenerate your javascript code. All you need to do is replace ksulib.org/feed (or www.ksulib.org, depending on how you set it up) with staff.lib.k-state.edu/feed2js in your HTML documents that include an embedded feed2js feed. I've already done this on a number of pages, and seen good results as far as loading time, so feel free to convert your pages at any time. Alternatively, just drop me an email and I can assist with this.

If you're planning on setting up a new feed, just visit staff.lib.k-state.edu/feed2js. I'm happy to assist if you have any questions about the process.

Applying new templates to the catalog

Rather than just do this task and then forget about it, I thought I'd record what needed to be changed in order to apply the new templates to the catalog.

• Both header.htm and footer.htm needed to be modified. The template we use for the remainder of the site is essentially split into two halves, with the 'body' area sandwiching the dynamic Voyager content.
• Uploaded all of the new CSS sheets, all four of them. Copied the OPAC specific styles from the legacy stylesheet (the bits that turn the holdings labels orange, hide the stock <hr> lines, handle the size of form fields, etc.) and inserted them into core.css.
• Edited beaucoup colors for boxes and backgrounds in opac.ini using find and replace. Essentially, two colors were replaced, so it was quite quick.
• Uploaded all of the images used on the new template (disability, RSS, header, spacer, etc.) to catalog.lib.ksu.edu so that the catalog can call them via either http or https. This is essential to avoid those annoying "some of this content is insecure" errors in IE.
• Changed the labels on the title display pages (for the search boxes and choices) so that the bar fits into the 950 pixel space in Firefox at normal font size.
• At the request of staff, applied the style 'cleanlinks' to the entire body, since the mass underlining on title pages was visually disturbing and eye-taxing.
• Edited webvoy.htm (entry page) and webconerr.htm (page when session expires) to use modified new template (no header links, etc.).
• Edited the newbooks.ini file to apply the new colors to the New Resources tab.
• Modified the ht_XXXXXsearch.htm files (the stuff under the search boxes on the three search pages, i.e.- where the chat widget lives) to cope with the weirdness of how various browsers render links and linked images. Nearly went insane figuring out that dashes in URLs (e.g.- k-state.edu) actually influence this in Firefox. Who would have thought?
• Last, but not least, I edited nohitsmsg.htm, badformmsg.htm, limitmsg.htm to change the color and text.

To the best of my knowledge, we now have a functional catalog using the new templates. A few visual quirks remain, such as no underlining on links in bib records, but those are cost/benefit situations where the design of the OPAC interface leaves few alternatives. Either underlining is everywhere or nowhere.

The last task that remains is to apply all of this fun to the staff catalog. That should (knock on wood), just be a copy/paste job.

Blog Template refinements

After numerous requests from the Usual Suspects (hint: the "K" in Sara K. Kearns stands for "Keyser Soze"), and a lot of CSS wrangling with help from Dale Askey and Jenny McCraw Dale, I'm pleased to announce that the banner image on our blogs links back to the libraries' homepage. 

Because we're working within Typepad's templates, this seemingly simple link involves about 12 different semi-legitimate hacks balanced carefully atop one another, but it seems to stand fairly well.

If you visit your favorite blog and don't find the banner is linking, that just means that you need to post something so your new templates will get published!  If you have an urgent need for the link to work, but nothing to say, let me know, and I'll publish it manually.

SFX Statistics - Updated for June 2008

This set of spreadsheets contains data from scheduled SFX queries for FY 2007/2008. This post will be updated as new data is added to the spreadsheets.

Download reqclicktotals0708.xls
Download SourceUse0708.xls
Download TitlesByTarget0708.xls
Download TopJournals0708.xls
Download TopTargets0708.xls

2008/2009 data
2006/2007 data

Confused by the "No Title" entry in TopJournals0708.xls? Discover the reason for "No Title" here.

Docs to Blogs

There's a new, simple way to get documents created by a word processing application (like Microsoft Word) posted to one of our blogs on TypePad, without the usual formatting nightmares or cut and paste headaches.  All you need is a Google account and access to Google Docs, and the steps outlined below.

1. Login to Google Docs
2. If your document is saved elsewhere, upload it using the "Upload" button near the top left of the Docs screen, just under the Google logo.   You can upload documents in .txt, .doc, .html, .rtf, .odt and .sxw formats.  It will open for editing after it is uploaded.
3. If your document is already in Docs, just open it for editing.
4. Find the "Publish" tab in the upper right corner and click it.
5. On this screen, you have two publishing options.  You are interested in the 2nd choice - publishing to a blog. You'll need to set up options the first time you do this, so click the setup link ("set your blog site settings")
6. On this page, you'll pick some non-intuitive things, so follow along (click the tiny thumbnail for a screenshot):
   1. Click the radio button for "My own server/Custom"
   2. Select "Blogger API" from the API dropdown
   3. Copy and paste this URL: http://www.typepad.com/t/api/xmlrpc.php  into the URL box
   4. Enter your TypePad userid and password in the boxes, and the name of the blog to which you're posting your document.  Make sure you enter the full name exactly as it appears on the blog, for example, "K-State Libraries: Talking in the Library", not just "Talking".
      
   5. Click OK.
7. The settings box will disappear, click Post to Blog to post your document.
8. Click OK in the confirmation box that appears.
9. Go look at your blog and see how cool it is!

If you're a multiple-blog author, just edit the settings to change to a different blog before you publish.  Another neat thing you can do is edit a document you've already posted to blog from inside Google Docs. Then, when you go to the Publish tab, one of your options will be to re-publish the previous post with the new document - handy for fixing typos or updating information!  The only flaw I've found so far is that it seems reluctant to assign a title to your post based on your document's name - you may need to login to Typepad and assign a title to your post, but that's a small price to pay for the convenience of directly publishing documents you've already created.