Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 2:00 - 2:50

Presenter: Mike Tartaglione, Ex Libris

Questions and Answers from the session - by Mike Tartaglione (6/24/08)

Q1: What are the plans for interoperability between Verde and SFX? If you add information in Verde, will it update in SFX?
A1: Verde, Ex Libris’ Electronic Resources Management product, is designed as a staff-use product. It does not have any public (defined as non-staff) GUI; the Verde web interface is for the use of trained Verde users who have a responsibility for maintaining and updating data on electronic resources. Although there are many levels of security and authority within Verde, none of these accommodates a view by the general public.

Communication of ERM information to the public was not overlooked in Verde. From its inception, Verde was designed to interact with other pieces of application software. Verde’s designers wanted Verde to be as flexible as possible – not to be tied to one piece of software or another to display ERM information. There exist any number of external software packages, from the library’s OPAC, link resolver, and metasearch engine to campus-wide authentication systems, interlibrary loan management systems, the library’s own web presence, and other third party applications that might have a use for ERM data.

Our solution was to use web services as the mechanism for inter-process communication. Web services take advantage of several widely known, industry-accepted protocols to operate, namely http (hypertext transfer protocol), XML (extensible markup language) and SOAP (Simple object access protocol, which is a way of putting a message payload in a standard ‘envelope’ for use by the partner answering the web service request.

We chose web services (as opposed to proprietary Application Programming Interfaces – APIs) because web services use a standard set of industry tools, and tend to promote interoperability and flexibility.

The current interactions between Verde and SFX are now largely complete.

In September 2007, Verde development completed enhancements to the synchronization process, which supports two options for sync of data from Verde to SFX:

1. Nightly batch job to push data placed in “production” mode in Verde to “active” status in SFX.
2. Online sync from Verde KBManager interface to SFX. Status is updated and made available to librarian online.

Full reports for each data item affected and sync history are available immediately from within the Verde Admin module for either type of sync. Comments and testing input from current Verde customers were included in design and rollout to ensure full transparency for the system actions.

The synchronization was further enhanced in December 2007 to include local items created in Verde, which now create corresponding local items in SFX.

This synchronization is not intended to be bi-directional as the ‘movement’ of data needs to be consistent in order to ensure data integrity and dependability.

However, there are system functionalities which allow SFX to query, or be further notified by, Verde. These include:

- feature to query license terms applied to an e-journal from the SFX Menu.
- feature to push “site down” message and auto turn-off SFX target (greyed-out target) from Verde to SFX, when site provider is unavailable for maintenance or server issues.

Verde and SFX will be available using a single knowledgebase in 2009 (H1).

Q2. How long is the standard onsite training for Verde?
A2: Standard onsite training for Verde is generally one day, and is supplemented with any additional web-based sessions as needed.

Q3. Reporting and usage statistics. Do you have general information on Verde use statistics/reports.
A3: Verde usage records store usage statistics that have been generated by other systems, including vendor systems, linking software, IT departments, and so on. Verde itself does not produce usage statistics. Usage records can be linked to any type of e-product. The Verde Usage record is based on the COUNTER schema.

The usage record contains data related to usage parameters – for example:

• Period from, to
• Report/page types
• Institution
• Usage Note
• Usage record type
• COUNTER level
• Vendor

Usage records can store and present data at several levels: e-package, e-interface and e-constituent. In Verde, these components are defined as:

• e-Package—One or more e-constituents that are sold as a single unit.
• e-Interface—The interface in which the product is delivered. Usually this is a web interface, but it can be a client or an application.
• e-Constituent—A single e-journal or e-book. E-constituents are often collected by the publisher and sold as part of an e-package.

Q4: Does Verde calculate a cost-per-search? Do we have plans to add this?
A4: No, Verde does not currently provide this functionality. However, we do plan to develop and incorporate it into an upcoming release. Although we do not have a set timeframe its release, we anticipate this will be available either Q4 of 2008 or early 2009.