Brown, Christopher C. “The Front Face of the ERM: How we Left Our Home-Grown Database Management System and Enbraced a More Innovative One.” Presentation given at the Innovative Users Group 2013, 25 April 2013, San Francisco, CA.

1. The Front Face of the ERM: How we Left Our
Home-Grown Database Management System and
Enbraced a More Innovative One
Christopher C. Brown
University of Denver, University Libraries

2. Abstract
• For two years the University of Denver used the Innovative ERM solely to
manage electronic resources. In 2011, however, we were told that the
software that was hosting our home-grown A-Z database list would no
longer be supported. Needing another solution we explored using the III
ERM as the front face for our alphabetic and subject access. This talk will
discuss how we arrived at our subject taxonomy, arrived at consensus
among reference librarians, and implemented the system into a robust
entrez to our database offerings. It's all about managing data in a single
place, rather than double maintenance.
• With over 1,000 online databases, maintaining an online ERM listing as
well as an “offline” ColdFusion database usually resulted in disparity
between the two systems, confusing librarians and users. Our subject
listing had evolved into an inconsistent mess. This presentation focuses
on the front end development and subsequent back end adjustments
that enable us to use the ERM as our primary database locator. URL is:
http://library.du.edu/site/

3. Home-Grown System: Front End

4. Home-Grown System: Front End

5. Home-Grown System: Backend
Add/edit databases
Add/edit taxonomy

6. Home-Grown System: Backend

7. Features we liked in old system
• Reference librarians maintained e-resources
database themselves
• Reference librarians maintained subjects
themselves
• System could tell if use was on or off campus,
and would throw the appropriate URL (proxied if
off campus)
• Reference librarians could add “star” rankings
themselves
• Reference librarians could write their own
annotations

8. Problems with the old system
• We were maintaining a third database of e-
resources (Serials Solutions; ERM; ColdFusion)
• There was never a perfect match between the
ERM and the ColdFusion system
• Seven reference librarians each had different
ideas about the subject taxomony
• URLs were sometimes wrong, or didn’t match
the ERM
• Although we could place alerts on the database
level, these alerts didn’t “bubble down” to
individual titles

9. Management Layers with Home-Grown System

10. Subjects Gone Viral
• We had 507 databases with 121 subjects
• The subjects we created by 7 reference
librarians = 7 sets of standards
• Some created course-related subjects:
Marketing 2800; Marketing 4550
• Some had different ideas of top-level
subjects: Business Academic/Scholarly
Articles; Business Ethics; Business News;
Business Planning; Business Research

11. It’s All About Taxonomy

12. Summer Subject Summit
• In the summer of 2011 the reference
librarians met to agree on a new taxonomy.
• Today there are 51 top-level subjects (down
from 121 previously)
• The subjects are coordinated with our
Libguides’ taxonomy, so that we can easily
link from databases to Libuide help.

13. Old Subjects

14. New Subjects

15. Already Had the Solution: III ERM
• The solution to our problem was close at
hand. We looked to the III ERM to manage
the front end. We had been doing back end
management for several years, but had never
used it for the front end.
• One reason we had not used it was that it did
not allow for our “star” ratings of databases.
• We looked to our friends at University of
Colorado Boulder to do what they had done.

16. CU Boulder
http://libraries.colorado.edu/screens/findarticles.html

17. CU Boulder

18. Application of Taxonomy in Resource Records

19. Resource Advisories
Our homegrown system didn’t have resource advisories. The ERM
module does, thus informing users not just of resources that are down,
but of all the dependent journal titles that are also affected.

20. Resource Advisories Bubble Down
Advisory in resource
record
Bubbles down to each
individual title

21. Databases Tab now Features the ERM

22. ERM taxonomy now syncs with Libguides
taxonomy

23. Coordinates with Libguides

24. Our Current A-Z List
But this is not ideal: Too many clicks; users and librarians get frustrated.

25. Resource title uses the “y” index
http://bianca.penlib.du.edu/search/y?SEARCH=a&searchscope=2

26. This results in a visit to the resource record: an
extra click

27. Subject List Works Better than A-Z Title Browse

28. Subject search uses the “h” index
• http://bianca.penlib.du.edu/search/h?SEARCH=Ant
hropology%20Most%20Useful&searchscope=2

29. The “h” index results display direct links to
resource as well as links to the resource record

30. The “h” index
• This is exactly what we want: users have
fewer clicks, but staff can view license
restrictions.

31. Workaround #1 – Most Useful; Also Useful
This workaround is necessary because the ERM has no ranking system.
This is how we separate the core databases from the fringe databases

32. Workaround #2 (future development) Have A-Z
titles function as subjects

33. If we treat the A-Z title groupings as subjects,
then we get the desired functionality

34. Workaround #3: adjust tokens so that
descriptions show on browse screen

35. Tokens on the subject browse screen

36. Summary
• The Millennium/Sierra ERM module is a most
efficient way to manage the front end of e-
resources
• Since there is no way to rank resources by
subject, only an alpha presentation, we
recommend some subject subcategorization
• The A-Z title list should not use the “y” index,
since it necessitates too many clicks. Instead we
recommend treating titles as subjects in
resource records.

37. URLs
• University of Denver University Libraries Web
site: http://library.du.edu/ [see Databases tab]
• Databases by Subject:
http://library.du.edu/site/about/databases.php

38. Thank You!