New Services for Scholars from the Digital Library

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Digital Library Projects
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PennText		PennText is a service that allows users to find cited materials in electronic or print form. Based on SFX by Ex Libris, PennText uses specially formatted URLs (known as OpenURLs) that encode information in a scholarly citation. Clicking on one of these links pops up a window pointing to copies of the cited work in our electronic holdings, and also allow users to find the work in Franklin or request it by document delivery. Users can also create persistent PennText links that they can use in courseware. We also offer PennText article finder, where users can fill in a form with citation information and be directed to appropriate online and offline resources. For more information, contact Michael Winkler, our Web Manager (winkler4@pobox.upenn.edu).
Open Knowledge Initiative		We have been a development partner in the Open Knowledge Initiative, a coalition of universities and specifications bodies cooperating to produce sustainable, scalable, open software frameworks in support of learning and teaching in higher education. The frameworks in production by OKI will enable disparate learning software components (such as a content publishing module, an assessment module, etc.). Since the specifications are Open Source, such software components can be developed and implemented by anyone. MIT and Stanford University are leading the project and intend to rely on its products to serve as their own campus courseware systems. Other contributing universities include Wisconsin, Dartmouth, Harvard, Michigan, NC State in the US, as well as Cambridge in the UK. Specifications bodies involved in OKI are IMS and SCORM. Vendors such as Blackboard and WebCT have announced that they will make their courseware products "OKI compliant." The focus of OKI development at Penn is support for digital content in online teaching and learning, and links between courseware services and digital library services. For more information, contact John Mark Ockerbloom, our Digital Library Architect and Planner (ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu).
Digital Images		The digital images project is a system to manage and deliver digital images for use in teaching and research. It uses enhanced MARC records, XML tools for managing collection metadata, software to browse and search image collections, and a flexible delivery system that allows viewing all, or selected parts, of images at various resolutions and detail. (Parts of this project are supported by third party software such as MrSID from LizardTech. The system is being implemented initially for the Fine Arts slide collection, and we hope to use it for other types of collections as well. For more information, contact Delphine Khanna, our Digital Projects Librarian (delphine@pobox.upenn.edu).
Cross-collection Searching		A cross-collection search service allows users to find digital resources in any of dozens of databases, without having to seek out each individual database, and go through each one's unique user interface. Our first version of this service is now available as QuickSearch, based on a product by Ovid Technologies. We are hoping to make a more powerful service available as well, with more databases, more flexible interfaces, and the ability to refine searches to specific user needs. For more information, see the QuickSearch Web site.
Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI)		We are planning and proposing services for selective dissemination of information. These include views of Library resources that are customized for particular users and groups, and services that users can subscribe to be notified of new materials they may be interested in. For more information, contact Michael Winkler, our Web Manager (winkler4@pobox.upenn.edu).
Electronic Reserves		Electronic reserves were introduced as a pilot service in the 1999-2000 academic year, for the delivery of course reserve materials over the local network in digital form. We are supporting electronic reserves on a regular basis as of the 2000-2001 academic year. The service includes in-house rapid scanning facilities, integration with the Franklin catalog and with on-line courseware, and access control to ensure that we stay within fair-use limits. For more information, contact Sandra Kerbel, our Head of Public Services (rogers@pobox.upenn.edu).
New Books Plus		Our "New Books Plus" service allows users to find recently acquired materials according to user preferences (including topic and format of material). We are considering making a subscription-based version of this service as our first service using selective dissemination of information. For more information, contact Michael Winkler, our Web Manager (winkler4@pobox.upenn.edu).