SFX will hosted two GALILEO machines GSU UGA server future change in location

1. Narrative

A.  Background

GALILEO began looking at new products for accessing electronic resources with the work of the Electronic Resource Access Study Group in 2001-2002. They reviewed many current and developing products, identifying issues and recommending guiding principles for development of an open URL resolving linking solution in a comprehensive report to the GALILEO Steering Committee.  During the 2002-2003 year, GALILEO staff and constituent librarians have conducted product trials of linking solutions as well as metasearch solutions. GALILEO staff have also met with vendors to discuss the GALILEO consortial environment and to learn if these products were addressing consortial needs.  Based on documented technical and functional requirements, they found that many products currently lack essential features required to manage an open URL resolver linking service in GALILEO’s consortial environment.  However, a potential linking solution was identified.  The Ex Libris product SFX has been the leader in the open URL resolver / linking field since the inception, having developed the open URL standard on which it relies.  While all of these products are evolving rapidly, only SFX was found to provide the consortial features required by GALILEO and to demonstrably be in use in similar consortial environments.

While no immediate funding for a GALILEO-wide implementation is available, an opportunity has emerged from the GETS libraries to conduct a SFX pilot with GALILEO.  GETS is a resource-sharing group that includes the University of Georgia, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Georgia State University.  Each institution was prepared to purchase SFX individually, and has agreed instead to participate in a consortial pilot implementation.  Through this cooperative purchase and GALILEO-hosted deployment, they will realize economies of scale and GALILEO will be able to facilitate a scaleable implementation that will form the foundation for additional libraries to join if either local or central funding permits.  An additional benefit is that these large academic libraries will be instrumental in resolving questions in preparation for later sites.

B.  Project Summary

SFX / open URL resolution is a tool to manage complex relationships among electronic resources for ease of access by end users.  However, those involved in setting up and configuring the environment will have to make many decisions, small and large, local and central, in order to complete the implementation for optimal end user access.  Consortial deployment requires that the system be configured according to common understandings between the pilot sites and GALILEO. The pilot site contacts and GALILEO staff met with an SFX consultant in early April to begin initial planning and discussion of technical issues.  A list of preliminary understandings was developed at that meeting and forms the basis for this document, along with subsequent discussions with Ex Libris and GALILEO technical staff.   
 

Training and initial implementation are expected to occur in June and July of 2003. SFX reports that individual libraries typically require two to three months to complete setting-up their individual instances.  Much of the initial configuration can occur during