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E-Resource Link Proxying in OneSearch
Proxying helps library users access commercially licensed e-resources off-campus, whether at home, on the road, or even standing on-campus but using a cell phone via the phone’s data plan.
We began by proxying some vendor links, but wanted a solution that allows easy batch proxying of links while also letting library staff control individual links.
OLS’s answer to this challenge is adding a special subfield to all links that need proxying: $xproxy.
For example:
85640 $uhttp://www.llmcdigital.org/default.aspx?redir=90010
$xproxy
$zAccess for CUNY Law School users
This achieves both goals. The subfield is not being used by Aleph, but it is valid cataloging, and lets OneSearch create proxied links on the fly. At the same time, proxied links are made school-specific. In other words, proxied links only display in OneSearch for the school that OWNs the record.
To support this, OLS has globally updated more than 250,000 licensed links in Aleph and OneSearch. In addition, new batch loads from specified vendors now receive the new $xproxy subfield.
Moving forward, control of OneSearch proxying is in the hands of each library.
In the future, when you identify records that need to be proxied and are not,
- many records: please provide a record number list or other way to uniquely identify the group and open a work order asking OLS to batch update the records
- individual records: simply add the $xproxy subfield to relevant 856 fields and save
For records that are proxied and should not be, do the opposite (remove the subfield individually or ask OLS to remove them).
FYI: It usually takes about 12 hours for changes in Aleph to be reflected in OneSearch.
Example of a OneSearch record with proxying, as seen at 2 schools:
- Graduate Center OneSearch (full text link proxied on-the-fly by $xproxy)
- Baruch College OneSearch (no full text link, so nothing to proxy)
For metadata fans, here is a look behind the scenes:
- vendor URL with CUNY ezproxy:http://law.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.beal/bltp0001&id=1&size=2&collection=beal&index=alpha/B_beal#3
- MARC in Aleph (Graduate Center record).
- OneSearch’s XML version of the record (we call this Primo Normalized XML, aka PNX). Check out those linktorsrc fields in the links section!
Easily move permanent items into temporary Course Reserves
With our updated version of Aleph, adding items to Course Reserves is easier than ever. (Removing them is a breeze now, too.) Items that are cataloged as being in the “Stacks” or any other permanent collection (including permanent “Reserves”) can be quickly added to the Course Reserves module. This process eliminates the need to edit records in the Cataloging module, allowing a trained College Assistant or student worker to place previously-cataloged items into the temporary Course Reserves, automatically changing their location to “Course Reserves.”
Removing the items added through this process is automated and does not require any manual updates. On the 4th of each month, simply look in the Task Manager for a report named ‘course_resv_inactive_XX’ (where ‘XX’ is your 2-letter institution code). Items in this report will no longer be listed for this course in the OPAC or in OneSearch. When no longer needed, simply delete each item from its corresponding course(s), and the data clean-up is completely finished. A deleted item’s bibliographic record is automatically suppressed.
More details on Aleph Course Reserves can be found on the OLS Support Site.
Course reserves now available in OneSearch
We recently published all records in the CUN30 library of Aleph for inclusion in Primo. In layman’s terms: course reserve items are now available in OneSearch!
If you’ve ever tried to use the Course Reserve module in the CUNY Catalog, you’ll notice that this is a huge improvement over the old interface. Not only that but users can search a single institution’s reserve collection! (You could not search just, say, the Baruch reserves in the past.) Students who search for a generic term, such as “calculus,” will only see records at their institution that are held on reserve. Furthermore, the facets on the left-hand side will let them whittle it down even further, giving them the option to limit their results to a particular course, instructor, department, or semester.
The reserves tab differs only slightly from the regular “OneSearch” tab:
- We have suppressed the “Request” button so users are not led to believe they can place holds or CLICS requests on items held on reserve.
- The “Off campus?” message is hidden since the records come only from the catalog and not from Primo Central or another restricted source.
Further customization options of the display of the reserves tab will be discussed at the upcoming Public Services Committee meeting on April 16th.
This is an opt-in feature so please open a work order with the CUNY Service Desk ([email protected]) to let OLS know that you want a new tab in your OneSearch view that will contain only your course reserve records.
