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Odyssey Helper

WiLS ILL Services is happy to announce that we have begun to use Odyssey Helper to expedite the delivery of articles. Odyssey Helper is stand-alone software that batch sends all the Odyssey documents that you have scanned and are ready to send to your borrowers or document delivery patrons. If you are a library that updates and then sends the scanned article at a later time, this free piece of software will update, invoice, and send these documents in two clicks.

You can easily scan without using Odyssey and deposit your tif files in the elecdel folder, and Odyssey Helper will be able to detect the files. With more and more libraries moving away from the use of Ariel, Odyssey Helper has stepped in to give librarians more functionality then Ariel ever provided.

The installation process involves an easy download of the Odyssey Helper client. Once you open the Illiad client, Odyssey Helper will look to the directory of your saved tif files and check to see if they are "In Stacks Searching''. If the software finds electronic files that have this status, it will display a list of these transactions for you to simply autobill (if your institution charges) and batch send the files.

The only shortcoming of the software is that you can''t customize the software. It is an unsupported product of Atlas so if you have any special needs, you won''t be able to modify the software. The software is also a bit slow if you have not moved files out of your Odyssey backup folder in some time. Once the backup folder is cleared out though, it is very fast. Odyssey Helper saves us approximately two to three hours of our scanners'' time per day since we send over 60% of our articles via Odyssey. As the number of Odyssey libraries continues to rise, either through the purchase of Illiad or from Odyssey standalone users, we will see more time savings and quicker delivery of articles to your patrons.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Eric Robinson
erobinson@wils.wisc.edu
608-262-6068

Floods, Famine, Pestilence!

Well, maybe it wasn't quite that bad. Sometime during the weekend of January 31 - February 1, a water pipe in the area next to the WiLS ILL area started leaking. When it was finally discovered early Sunday morning, about 1/2" of water covered quite a bit of the WiLS ILL area as well as adjacent rooms, hallways, and nearly filling up the elevator pit. WiLS ILL is located in the basement of Memorial Library at UW-Madison.

I was standing in line at PetSmart when my boss, Mary Williamson, called and left a message on my cell phone. I was envisioning the worst.

When I got there late Sunday morning, I was somewhat pleasantly sursprised. The Memorial Library Building Manager, Jeff Gayton, had already been through the area, and with the help of other Memorial Library staff, had already cleaned up as much as possible, unplugging equipment and moving everything off the floor and out of the water. A company called ServPro (a company specializing in recovering after such events) was called. There were thirteen industrial size fans and three large dehumidifiers going, drying the place out. It was noisy and windy. And it smelled funny (they had sprayed an fungicide to prevent mold growth).

But we were quite lucky. A couple of years ago we started moving all of our computer equipment off the floor, so no computers, printers, or ethernet switches were in standing water. We did have some damage. We lost about four power strips which were on the floor and our main Ariel computer, which is normally left "ON" all of the time, didn't boot properly. It was plugged into one of the flooded power strips. All of the other equipment was working properly. On Monday morning, after a short time spent reconnecting computers, WiLS ILL Staff were able to go back to work. Monday was still noisy and windy. And we kept blowing the circuit breakers as we turned computers and printers back on. After about four days, were were able to get the repaired Ariel computer back into service.

We learned a couple of things from this experience. We need to do a bit more in terms of getting things like power strips directly off the floor. We'll be making greater efforts to mount power strips under workstations and to employ more cable management. Secondly, we need to have in place more workstation redundancy and centralized back-up. Having our main Ariel computer out of service for four days caused some headaches for Eric Robinson and our ILL Staff. We are also examining ways in which the specialty software and configuration we have on some computers is more redundantly available. I have to say that having ILLiad as our request management system has made this a bit easier. If this had happened seven years ago in the age of OCLC Passport, QuILL, WiLSWorks, and non-networked printers, things may have been much more difficult.

We'll do better next time.

- Allen Wenzel

Google Digitization Project and Hathi Trust

UW-Madison recently completed the second year of the Google digitization project and has digitized over 150,000 works from UW-Madison’s libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society.  UW-Madison's digitization effort has concentrated on public domain materials from the late 19th century and early 20th century, including Wisconsin state government documents and the Wisconsin Historical Society's genealogy collection.

Books published before 1923 and government publications are in the public domain.
However because of copyright laws, most of the material published after 1923 has not been accessible in the full text version.  For books in the Google Book Search service that are protected by copyright, users get basic background like the book's title and the author's name, a few lines of text related to their search, and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. If publishers or authors don't want to have their books digitized, they will be excluded.

There has been a proposed settlement with Google that will protect the rights and financial interests of the authors and publishers and make the full text available to the public and institutions for purchase.  The hearing on this settlement will take place on June 11.  For a detailed look at the important issues regarding the settlement, see Jonathan Band’s article entitled “A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement”

Another player in the digitization effort is Hathi Trust, a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the CIC (mainly Big 10 universities and the University of California system).  Hathi Trust was created to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections.  HathiTrust has over 2 ½ million volumes in its digital repository (the majority digitized by Google) with 15% in the public domain.  Again because of copyright the full text is usually not available.

Nancy Mulhern, Government Publications Librarian at the Wisconsin Historical Society, recently gave a presentation to library staff at the UW-Madison campus entitled “Google Books, Hathi Trust, and what the heck is a snippet?”.  She gave examples of what patrons see when searching Madcat, UW-Madison’s online catalog.

When searching Madcat for items that have been digitized, you will see a line that says: "Digitized Versions: View available text online"

If it is out of copyright and the full text is available online you will see

• Digitized items available through Google.
  (Full View Available)
• Digitized items available through the Hathi Trust.
  (Full View Available - Public Domain)

If the item has been digitized and the full text is not available, you will see

• Digitized items available through Google.
  (Snippet View Available)
• Digitized items available through the Hathi Trust.
  (Search Only - In Copyright)

In the Google Book Search, there is a link to “Find this book in a library” that gives a list of libraries holding the book in order of distance from the patron’s city.  You can also do a keyword search for specific words in the book.

Nancy said that Google Books is more conservative than Hahti Trust about making full text available; i.e., Hahti Trust is more likely to have a full view.  She also said that Hahti Trust has a form that individual rights holders can sign allowing the item to be available full text online; Google does not have a similar form for individuals.

She indicated that what is available online in full text format vs. snippet format is constantly in flux.  However if the Google settlement goes through later this year, there will be greater access to full text material to library patrons and the public at large.

- Bob Shaw

The SCLS Delivery Website Redesign

The SCLS Delivery website has been redesigned, revised, and updated as of February 2009. A few highlights of the new site:

• Delivery Network List is now one alphabetical master list of all Wisconsin delivery network libraries including schools, public libraries, academic libraries, etc. A printable version of the list (PDF format) is available from the network home page. Delivery times are included in the last column of the delivery network list.
• Lost and Found in Delivery list has been moved to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet to allow for easier sorting. There is a new lost item submission form to add items to the list.
• Special Requests and Wisconsin Libraries Distribution pages have been updated and the information on them has been clarified.
• Get In The Van, the SCLS Delivery Service blog, has been redesigned and includes options for subscribing to the RSS feed.
• Separate sections with specific information for SCLS member public libraries and Wisconsin statewide delivery network libraries have been created. Each section includes volume statistics, SCLS Delivery contacts, shipping guidelines with links to routing label templates, and links to other information specific to each user type.
• Site navigation is color coded for the sections of the site for SCLS member libraries (green), statewide delivery network members (blue), and sections of interest to both (burgundy).

Several sections have been added, deleted from, or moved from the old site. Please update your browser bookmarks.

Feedback on the new design is appreciated and encouraged. Comments, suggestions, and questions can be e-mailed to Tim Drexler (tdrexler@scls.lib.wi.us) or use the "contact the webmaster" link at the bottom of each page.

Thanks for your time, and have a great day!

Tim Drexler
SCLS Delivery

Reference Service News

NEW IN THE REFERENCE STACKS:
BP40 E524 2008 Encyclopedia Islamica.
This is volume 1. This is the first of an expected 16 volumes to be published. PE1519 C43 2008 Chambers rhyming dictionary

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NEW RESOURCES ON THE LIBRARY WEBSITE:
Yiddish Books Online Today, February 11, 2009, 12 hours ago The National Yiddish Book Center is proud to offer online access to the full texts of nearly 11,000 out-of-print Yiddish titles. You can browse, read, download or print any or all of these books, free of charge. These titles were scanned under the auspices of our Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, and have been made available online through the Internet Archive.

Walt Whitman Archive Today, February 11, 2009, 12 hours ago The Walt Whitman Archive is an electronic research and teaching tool that sets out to make Whitman's vast work easily and conveniently accessible. It contains multiple U.S. and foreign editions of his published poems, journalism and prose and also manuscripts, biography, letters and correspondence, criticism, reviews, and teaching resources.

Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection Today, February 11, 2009, 12 hours ago The Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection offers and fully indexed and full text searching to over 2.7 million pages of the Congressional Record, and its predecessor titles, back to 1789. It uses the same search interface as Lexis-Nexis Academic.

Literature Criticism Online Today, February 11, 2009, 12 hours ago Backfiles of literary criticism.

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NEW RESOURCES AT UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN DIGITAL COLLECTIONS: The following new resources were recently added to the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. For more information about digital resources at UW, contact Peter Gorman (pgorman@library.wisc.edu) or Vicki Tobias (vtobias@library.wisc.edu), or visit the UWDC Web site.

NEW COLLECTIONS EASTERN EUROPEAN AND SLAVIC STUDIES COLLECTION
Islam and Eurasia: Bridging the Information Divide 13 Issues, 6,237 pages, added 1/14/2009 This project consists of ten digitized English language travel accounts by persons who journeyed through Muslim regions of the Russian Empire. The earliest of these accounts is that of American George Ditson who traveled through the Caucasus in 1847 and the latest of the selected texts is that of Stephen Graham who traveled through Russian Central Asia on the eve of World War I. Also included is the turn of the century account of British traveler Annette M.B. Meakin about her journey to Turkestan. As primary sources accessible to an English speaking audience and because of their rich content and unique viewpoints, travel accounts such as these benefit all research levels. These accounts present a wealth of cultural, ethnographic and geographic information regarding the Muslim regions of the Russian empire in the period from the middle of the 19th Century through the beginning of the 20th Century.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BOARD OF REGENTS COLLECTION
Minutes of the Meetings of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents from 1921-1991 1,039 issues, 54,634 pages, added 12/2/2008 This collection consists of the digitized minutes of the meetings of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents from 1921-1991. The 70-year scope of this collection captures the expansion of the University of Wisconsin from one four-year campus in Madison with 7,344 students to a statewide system of 26 campuses annually serving more than 173,000 students and over one million Wisconsin residents through statewide Extension. The minutes of the Board's monthly meetings provide a well-rounded sense of life in the University. Through the years, the Regents dealt with a wide variety of campus issues, including budget development, construction of new buildings and infrastructure, approval of new departments and classes, acquisition of new property, oversight of inter-collegiate athletics, and regulation of student conduct and behavior.

NEW RESOURCES WITHIN EXISTING COLLECTIONS ECOLOGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COLLECTION
The 6th International Conference Proceedings: Transport, Fate and Effects of Silver in the Environment 1 issue, 248 pages, added 1/14/2009 The Argentum series of international silver conferences was first conceived in 1992 in order to facilitate multidisciplinary research on the unique characteristics of silver. With the agreement of sponsors, it was decided that the Argentum project would be headquartered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the concept of cooperative research between various scientific disciplines has been an established, long-standing principle, particularly in the area of environmental studies. The 1999 conference posed the following questions:
1) What chemical, biological and biochemical information is available (and needed) to establish the risk and to determine logical regulations for silver?
2) What level of toxicity or environmental risk is associated with environmentally realistic levels and forms of silver in natural waters?
And 3) What is (free) ionic silver, and how can (free) ionic silver test data be used in the development of regulations and regulatory policy for silver in natural waters?

Passenger Pigeon 4 issues, 484 pages, added 1/28/2009 The Passenger Pigeon is the official scholarly publication of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, an organization of both professional and non-professional ornithologists dedicated to the study of Wisconsin birds. First published in 1939, the quarterly journal features a wide range of original information about Wisconsin birds and their habitats, including seasonal field reports, results from annual Christmas bird counts, descriptions of May and Big Day counts, and scientific research articles. Contributions include reports from birders throughout the state on unusual and interesting sightings and historical accounts from and about prominent Wisconsin naturalists. Editorial comments from officers in the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology are provided regularly.

GERMAN COLLECTION
Brecht Yearbook Friends, colleagues, collaborators. The Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch 28. 1 issue, 356 pages, added 1/28/2009 The Brecht Yearbook is the annual publication of the International Brecht Society (IBS), devoted to scholarly research on Bertolt Brecht's writings and to broader issues about the relationship between politics and culture. The first three volumes (1971-1973) were published in Germany under the title Brecht heute - Brecht Today (AthenŠum Verlag) and volumes 4-10 (1974-1980) under the title Das Brecht-Jahrbuch (Suhrkamp Verlag); all contributions were in German. Thereafter the yearbook moved to the United States and has included since then contributions in German and English. Volumes 11-13 (1982-1986) were published by Wayne State University Press and since then all volumes have appeared under the imprint of the IBS, distributed by the University of Wisconsin Press.

UW-LA CROSSE HISTORIC STEAMBOAT PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION
1,129 images, added 1/14/2009 The UW-La Crosse Historic Steamboat Photograph collection consists of over 40,000 black and white photographic images of steamboats on the inland waterways of the United States, primarily the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers and their tributaries. The photos depict steamboats in every phase of their life span, in every aspect of their daily operations from the 1850s to the present, and in all sorts of settings as they went about their everyday business of hauling freight and passengers and towing barges and rafts. Besides steamboats, other types of images in the collection include steamboat captains, engineers, pilots, passengers and crews; city and town waterfronts; levees; locks and dams; and river-related activities such as fishing, swimming and clamming. The digitized collection now has nearly 6,700 images online.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN COLLECTION
University of Wisconsin - Madison Athletic Department Collection 42 issues, 6,378 pages, added 1/14/2009 The University of Wisconsin - Madison Athletic Department Collection contains photos and archival materials that document a variety of sports, coaches and student athletes, and their experiences competing for the UW-Madison teams. The Wisconsin Athletic Communications Office has for years produced media guides for all of the sports at the UW-Madison. These publications have evolved over time. They once were intended solely for use by the media as factual reference guides. They have since become "yearbooks," publications designed to assist in the recruitment of student-athletes to the UW. Regardless, they are filled with biographical and historical information that Badger fans will enjoy.

Please let us know if we can be of service.
Thank you,

--Fran Metcalf, fmetcalf at wils.wisc.edu
Phone: 608.263.4981
Fax: 608.263.3684
Submit a reference request

An irregular publication with writing contributions by Fran Metcalf, Joy Pohlman, Eric Robinson, Bob Shaw, Allen Wenzel, Mary Williamson, and Sheila Zillner.

Edited by Bob Shaw and Joy Pohlman.
Layout, graphics by S. C. Zillner.

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WiLS ILL phone—608.263.4981; email—wilsill@wils.wisc.edu
WiLS ILL—728 State Street, Room B106B, Madison, WI 53706