Presentation delivered by Carol Yuen and Laurence McDonnell at the NSW.net eResources Seminar held at the State Library of New South Wales October 25th 2011.

1. Web Services
Carol Yuen & Laurence McDonnell

2. Web Services
• Introduction
• Funding for the project
www.wls.nsw.gov.au

3. Web Services

4. Databases

5. Databases
• Online Database usage is increasing across NSW. After
decreasing across the state between 2007-2010, it went up in
2010-2011. This was driven by about a quarter of NSW Public
Libraries. To quote Ross, 25 NSW Libraries drive 68% of
NSW.net database traffic.
• A major part of this is in Website Design.
• 4 years ago, Warringah had set up it’s first website, and our
aims were to increase online database use and increase
membership.
• 3 years ago we purchased the Webfeat federated search

7. 2010/2011 Database Stats
ANZRC (searches) Master File P Consumer Health Science Reference C Literary Reference Novelist +
1 WARRINGAH @ 41100 WARRINGAH @ 40070 WARRINGAH @ 9066 BANKSTOWN SUTHERLAND PARRAMATTA
2 HORNSBY HORNSBY BANKSTOWN SUTHERLAND HORNSBY BANKSTOWN
3 BAULKHAM HILLS BANKSTOWN HORNSBY HORNSBY BANKSTOWN MOSMAN
4 SUTHERLAND SUTHERLAND WOOLAHRA RANDWICK RANDWICK SUTHERLAND
5 BLACKTOWN WOOLLAHRA BLACKTOWN CITY OF SYDNEY WOOLHARA WOOLAHRA
2009/2010 Database Stats
ANZRC (searches) Master File P Consumer Health Science Reference C Literary Reference Novelist
1 HORNSBY HORNSBY WOLLONGONG WOLLONGONG HORNSBY WOLLONGONG
2 WOLLONGONG WARRINGAH @ 1574 HORNSBY HORNSBY WOLLONGONG HORNSBY
3 LAKE MACQUARIE LAKE MACQUARIE BLACKTOWN MOSMAN WARRINGAH @ 879 WARRINGAH @ 1103
4 CITY OF SYDNEY SUTHERLAND WARRINGAH @ 594 BAULKHAM HILLS SUTHERLAND FAIRFIELD
5 BLACKTOWN COFFS HARBOUR GOSFORD WARRINGAH @1093 LAKE MACQUARIE SUTHERLAND
WARRINGAH 6TH @2279
2008/2009 Database Stats
ANZRC Master File P Consumer Health Science Reference C Literary Reference Novelist
1 WARRINGAH 3,294 WARRINGAH @ 2473 WOLLONGONG HORNSBY HORNSBY WOLLONGONG
2 HORNSBY HORNSBY WARRINGAH @ 686 WARRINGAH @ 2473 WARRINGAH @ 1777 NEWCASTLE
3 CITY SYDNEY LIVERPOOL GOSFORD WOLLONGONG BAULKHAM HILLS WYONG
4 BAULKHAM HILLS SUTHERLAND BLACKTOWN SUTHERLAND SUTHERLAND HORNSBY
5 WOLLONGONG WYONG WYONG BAULKHAM HILLS WOLLONGONG WARRINGAH @ 939

8. 2009/2010
09/10 Why decreasing usage?
• Laptops in schools?
• Less training by me – more conducted 08/09?
• Speed? – Databases / Federated Searching – was slow
• Too Hard? (Teachers Federation Library)
• Was there decreasing interest in Schools?
• Where has information/Database Literacy come up in NSW High Schools –
Not specifically part of NSW curriculum
• Action Research (NSW) – Very Vague
• All my own work (NSW) – Fitted in with anti-plagiarism – gave Citation
‘Training as opposed’ to ‘Database Training’.
New Australian Curriculum, years K-12 contain requirements to study
Research Skills, including Library and Online Database Use.

9. Web Services
To simply access Library resources, we felt we
needed to push all our resources through one
search box. Warringah attempted this with Web
Feat, a federated search engine prior to Ebsco’s
EHIS, but upgraded in May to a web service
based catalogue.

10. What are Web Services?
• Web services are typically application
programming interfaces (API) or Web APIs that
are accessed via HTTP and executed on a remote
system hosting the requested services.
• Basically – Web Services are publicly available
metadata for remote databases.
• All database/LMS providers use different terms –
Web Services, Discovery Services, Search and
Discovery Layer, Open URL Authentication, Open
API.
• With LMS upgrade, will allow integration of
databases into the catalogue.

11. WSDL - Web Services Description Language

12. SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol

13. Encore – The pitch
• Encore creates an entirely new user
experience of your library. It makes finding as
easy as searching, leverages Web 2.0
technologies and practices, and delivers a
complete discovery-to-delivery solution that is
appealing, sophisticated, and just plain fun!

14. Implementing Encore
• Testing
• Frustrations – rankings, tags
• And then…
• Encore 4.1
• Cobolt skin

15. See the difference – from this

16. To this

18. The Future
All LMS providers are upgrading
(Civica/Spydus – Bliss, Libero – LiberoUno, Millenium –
Encore, Amlib–World Cat Local, Sersi Dynix - Enterprise)

19. WorldCat Local

20. Summons

21. Primo

22. Enterprise

23. In Conclusion
• To get it all together, you need:
1. The web/discovery service.
2. Facets that effectively plug in to your catalogue
(vital!).
3. Proxy Server.
• Big questions for LMS providers are:
1. Can I check what databases you provide web services
for?
2. Where do facets draw information from?
3. Can I integrate my own databases (images, LINCS,
etc)

24. Thank you