VCU's "My Library" Project

[Dan Ream]

This message has been cross-posted on BI-L, NETTRAIN, and Web4Lib
Please excuse duplicate receipt of this posting....

Greetings Web4Libers-

In the first days of October we posted an announcement of our personalized
library web page service, "My Library" and asked you to try it and share
your comments and critiques.

We were overwhelmed to have over 150 people try "My Library" in the first
few days and by now (4 weeks later) have had over 500 librarians and
Internet trainers make a "My Library" page. Of those, about 60 have sent
us e-mail comments.

If you visited "My Library" and created a page, it has been deleted, but
you are welcome to come back again and make a new My Library page and see
what changes we've made this month.

The "My Library" URL is http://www.library.vcu.edu/mylibrary/test.html

Here's a summary of responses from various listservs................

1. General Impressions

General impressions were extremely positive. There was enthusiasm for this
type of service as many people expressed similar difficulties with large
database lists.

2. How do you alert users to new databases? 

We have incorporated a "what's new" button into each user's page.

3. How do you maintain/delete old pages?

Every 6-12 months we will purge old pages that have not been accessed in 6
months. 

4. Will you share the code?

You can download our code at http://saturn.vcu.edu/~jghapher/test/mylib.zip
It is adapted from a number of freeware cgi resources as well as work done
by a number of librarians. 

5. Why did you use cgi?

Because it was the only way we could get this done quickly. A number of
people suggested that we look at a database option like SQL or Cold Fusion.
Ideally, this approach could allow crosswalks between the regular database
menus, patron records, and remote authentication. That is, each resource
would be stored in a central database which could be dynamically called to
appear on any library Web page including subject guides, database lists, and
My Library. One example of this is George Mason's electronic resources page
at http://library.gmu.edu/resources/

We also heard from another library, California Polytechnic State University,
that is getting ready to launch a similar service. So that brings our list
of known "MY" academic sites to four including VCU, University of
Washington's "My Gateway", and UCLA's "My UCLA" (which is broader in scope
and not library-specific).

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Many thanks for all of the feedback about the VCU "My Library" project. 
We rolled this out to our public on October 12 and so far have over 100
users. We plan to make a bigger promotional push in the new semester in
January.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Ream & Jimmy Ghaphery (dream at vcu.edu & jghapher at saturn.vcu.edu)
Instruction and Outreach Services 
Virginia Commonwealth University Library
Richmond, VA  23284-2033
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