Expanding Shared Services

Services are the necessary complement to collections and to the activities of acquiring, managing, and preserving scholarly materials. They allow scholars and students to discover, and use items available in the University of California collections and elsewhere.

Historically, libraries have taken separate responsibility for the services they offer. The exception to this rule has been interlibrary loan. At UC, the development of systemwide library strategic plans (declaring a goal of "One University, One Library" as early as 1974) led to collaborative efforts to further the sharing of services — efforts that continue to this day. UC's pioneering shared Melvyl® Catalog allowed interlibrary loan requests to originate from searches made against a unified view of all UC library materials across the campuses.

Examples of Shared Services

Services for discovering and accessing scholarly materials:

• Melvyl Catalog: The California Digital Library supports and maintains the Melvyl Catalog, including data processing, the user interface, and backup and recovery, while the campuses create and supply bibliographic records. Requests for items are available through Melvyl Catalog software, supported by extensive interlibrary loan processes within UC. Personal profiles and alerting services are included.
• UC-eLinks: This service allows users to move seamlessly from a citation (discovered in an online reference database or online journal) to the underlying full content of the article, or make a request for the print version of the item. The CDL maintains the software while the campus libraries configure the service for local implementation by including locally held online materials.
• SearchLight: Supported by the CDL, SearchLight allows simultaneous searches across multiple journal databases, book catalogs, and other information sources available through the CDL and the UC campuses. It assists newcomers to a disciplinary field with locating and using the richest databases and information resources. SearchLight also provides views of the data that are based on the materials available to a particular campus.

Services for providing access to content:

• Acquiring shared content: The CDL helps the UC libraries select, negotiate, and license shared content. Drawing on their shared expertise and negotiating strength, the libraries actively work to improve or tailor user interfaces and services. Campuses work individually and in small groups to purchase electronic resources that are not acquired as part of the shared collection.
• Counting California: Counting California is an initiative committed to enhancing California citizens' access to the growing range of social science and economic data produced by government agencies. Counting California's single interface enables public access to data compiled by federal, state, and local agencies. It also allows users to interactively collate and integrate data by topic, geography, title, and provider.
• Online Archive of California (OAC): UC campuses and California-based museums and libraries have created online inventories of cultural heritage materials and selective digital versions of them for inclusion in the OAC. The CDL supports and maintains the data processing, user interface, and backup and recovery of the publicly accessible OAC server. The California State Library, the NEH, and other funding agencies have supported work that has contributed to OAC.