The concept of a "library without walls" has evolved over the last 100 years. Are there any walls left for 21st century libraries to consider? One answer to this question is that the remaining walls are virtual, political, and economic rather than physical. These invisible walls segregate library content from other content available on the Internet and create various barriers that restrict access to library resources. The new discovery catalog at the joint academic/public library in San Jose is an attempt to break through some of these walls in a complex political and economic environment. John Wenzler is the Associate Dean of Digital Futures, Technical Services, and Information Technology at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library of San Jose State University. John oversees the development of a growing suite of digital resources and services available from the SJSU Library. Because the King Library is a joint academic/public library, he also works collaboratively with the management of the San Jose Public Library to establish strategic goals and priorities. Before moving to SJSU, John was the Electronic Resources Coordinator at San Francisco State University and has worked as a Systems Librarian at Innovative Interfaces.

1. Breaking through Invisible Walls
Building a Discovery Catalog at the
Joint San Jose Libraries

2. Outline
● “Library without Walls” through the 20th century
● The Invisible walls in Digital Libraries
● Digital Resources at the Joint San Jose Libraries
● Implementing a Next Gen catalog at the Joint San
Jose Libraries

3. The Library Without the Walls
Reprints of Papers and Addresses
Selected and Annotated
by
Laura M. Janzow
Chief of the Registration Department, St. Louis Public Library
New York
The H.W. Wilson Company
1927

4. Janzow’s History of Open Access
1. Books to be consulted only by a favored few
2. By any who paid a required fee.
3. Consulted by anyone, but books could not be
taken from the library building.
4. Books were loaned to a favored few.
5. Loaned to those who paid a fee.
6. The modern conception of “free as air and
water” to all.

5. Library Without Walls: 1950 -

6. Library Without Walls: 1990 -

7. Did the walls go away?Do we have any more Walls?

8. Invisible Walls and Digital Libraries
● Economic/Institutional (Paywalls)
● Technical (Data Silos)
● Cultural (Web 2.0 versus Library Standards)

9. Hitting an Invisible Wall

10. Library Gateway

11. Data Silos

12. 1 Search Box 412 Search Boxes

13. “A sophomore in biology and classics noted her
difficulty choosing which database to use: ‘I
know the database one but sometimes there are
some databases where I’m like, I don’t know if I
should go onto PubMed versus BioOne. I know it
has a description but there are so many of them.
It’s kind of frustrating to go through all of them
and find them out.’”
“Paths of Discovery: Comparing the Search effectiveness of EBSCO Discovery Service,
Summon, Google Scholar, and Conventional Library Resources” CR&L preprint:
http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2012/05/07/crl-374.full.pdf

14. User Reviews AACR2

15. Folksonomy LCSH

16. San Jose’s Academic/Public Library

18. Digital Resources at the SJ Libraries
Too many websites to define us
● sjpl.org
● library.sjsu.edu
● sjlibrary.org
● catalog.sjlibrary.org
SJPL 54 databases, SJSU 399 databases
How can we simplify what we do jointly?
SJSU SJPL
Web Sites 6 4
Databases 412 54
eJournals 133,874 20
eBooks 121,140 38,739

19. Who has access to what?
SJSU Users SJPL Users
SJPL Physical materials Yes Yes
SJSU Physical materials Yes Yes
SJPL Databases Sometimes* Yes
SJSU Databases Yes Sometimes**
SJPL eBooks Sometimes* Yes
SJSU eBooks Yes Sometimes***
*If the student is a resident of CA and has a physical library card
**Not accessible to SJPL patrons at home or at a branch, but can be used in King

20. Options for a New Catalog
Catalog Overlays
● Same catalog Content –
updated interface
● Adds “social” features
● Reviews
● Tagging
● Improved search
● Keyword search and
relevance ranking
● Faceted search limits
Discovery Systems
● Includes most library
content in one index:
● Books
● eBooks
● eJournal articles
● digital image collections
● Improved search
● Keyword search and
relevance ranking
● Faceted search limits

21. Examples of Catalog Overlays
● Endeca: NCSU, 2006:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/
● SOPAC: AADL, 2007: http://www.aadl.org/catalog
● SOPAC 2.0: http://www.darienlibrary.org/catalog
● AquaBrowser: http://aquabrowser.lib.ed.ac.uk/
● BiblioCommons: http://sccl.bibliocommons.com/
● Encore: http://encore.scottsdaleaz.gov/

22. Catalog Overlay -- BiblioCommons

23. Discovery System Options
● WorldCat Local (at Berkeley):
http://berkeley.worldcat.org
● Summon (at Dartmouth) :
http://dartmouth.summon.serialssolutions.com/
● Primo Central (at Santa Clara University) :
http://onesearch.scu.edu
● EBSCO Discovery Systems (at Mississippi State) :
http://library.msstate.edu/
● Xerxes / Summon (at Fresno State) :
http://www.fresnostate.edu/library/

24. Discovery Systems – Xerxes/Summon
Catalog gets
766 hits;
Discovery
System 345,452

25. Differing Priorities for SJSU and SJPL Patrons
2011/2012 Circulation
● SJPL: 10,706,328
● SJSU: 464,475
2011/2012 Database Sessions
● SJSU: 3,661,783 (8 DB sessions for every circ)
● SJPL: 705,331 (15 circs for every DB session)

26. Challenges in Making a Choice
● Staff perceptions differ between the
university and the public library
● Vendor focus differs (some emphasize the
needs of academic libraries; others on the
needs of public libraries)
● How do we get a new catalog that highlights
the city/university collaboration?

27. How Encore/Synergy bridges the gaps
● It combines features of a “catalog overlay”
(Encore) with features of a discovery
system (Synergy)
● Displays both SJSU and SJPL resources in a
way that tries to duplicate the “seamless
service” in the King Library Building

29. Books
Articles

30. Social Stuff

31. Switch
Institutions
SJSU DBs

32. SJPL DBs
Options

34. Do we Need Walls?

35. Thank you
John Wenzler
San Jose State University
john.wenzler@sjsu.ecu