Digital Document Delivery in West Virginia: Supporting Health Care Education Through Technology Nancy J. Wasson West Virginia University/HSL Morgantown, WV

Health Sciences Library Constituencies  On-campus faculty, staff, and students  Rural Health Education Rotation students  Distance education students  Clinical/field faculty  Health care practitioners  Anyone needing health care information – statewide, nationwide, worldwide

Transformation of Traditional Services Electronic methods are replacing traditional paper formats:  Interlibrary loan  Document delivery  Electronic course reserves  Full-text electronic journals

Electronic Document Delivery - New Format for Information Supply  Serves off-site and remote users more efficiently  Provides rapid delivery of information  Offers a convenience to onsite users unable or unwilling to physically access the library

Electronic Transmission between Libraries Many libraries are scanning (converting print to electronic) articles and, using Ariel software, transmitting those images to other Ariel workstations.

Bitmapped Images  Scanning eliminates the need to photocopy first  Scanned documents transmit over the Internet  Scanned documents require both a sending and receiving Ariel work station  Documents may be printed or sent on as an attachment (TIFF file)

Ariel Document Delivery Requirements/Desktop Delivery End users must have access to  MIME (multipurpose Internet Mail extensions)  Sufficient electronic mailbox capacity  Appropriate image viewers such as DocView or Imaging by Wang in order to view TIFF files

Evolution of Digital Document Delivery at the HSL  Spring 1995 – Ariel software/flatbed scanner received as a result of an EPSCoR grant  Spring 1998 – Electronic document delivery of TIFF files to individual users as an attachment began  Spring 1999 – Testing began using PDF format in a web-based delivery system

Advantages of PDF  Able to be compressed; small enough to download quickly.  Preserves original appearance of document including graphics.  Can be viewed via Acrobat Reader, a free download.  Considered the standard for electronic document delivery.

Minimum Hardware/Software Requirements  Windows 95 or Macintosh 6.5  56Kbps Modem Internet Connection  Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape 4.0  Eudora 3.0, MS Outlook 97, MS Outlook or Outlook Express, or Netscape Messenger 4.0  Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0

Collaborative Efforts Funding  Central Administration  Library Administration Partnerships  Library Systems  Other Units, e.g. WV CONSULT Staff  Training and Development

Preliminary Results  End users have reacted positively.  User base has expanded to include WV CONSULT Gatekeepers/Site Coordinators RHEP students, distance learners, health care practitioners/researchers, and commercial clients.  Opportunities to serve user categories previously not served now possible.

New Technological Advances  Prospero captures/converts Ariel files to PDF; automates steps in providing electronic document delivery; open source; libraries can download and use free of charge  Ariel Version 3 - next release will permit handling image formats other than TIFF  Relais Express - commercial software similar to Ariel

Ariel Enhancements with the Release of Version 3  Designed for end-user document delivery  Able to convert a document from multi- page TIFF to PDF  Able to forward PDF files to a server or directly to the end-user  Able to create/manage address book space

Documents Sent Electronically During the First Half of 2001 During a six month period, January through June 2001, 72% of all documents loaned by the Health Sciences Library were sent as electronic files documents were sent using four different platforms: Ariel, Prospero, fax, or our home grown system.

Requests Originating at WVU – Received for WVU Patrons During the first half of calendar year % of Interlibrary Loans were received electronically via Ariel and fax. Of those 76% (2477 documents) were sent on electronically to the end user’s desktop.

Future Predictions - Digital Document Delivery  Expanded user base - on-campus as well as off-campus users  Electronic delivery of articles to the user’s desktop no matter which branch library holds the document  Increase demand for “document delivery” no matter whether the library holds the journal title or not

Digital Document Delivery Management Essentials  Investigate what is being done elsewhere  Stay abreast of new commercial software developments  Reconsider traditional staffing, procedures, methodologies

Conclusions  Digital document delivery is an essential component of cutting edge library support.  Technological advances demand continued monitoring/upgrading of current procedures.  Change – we must embrace it or falter in our efforts to offer premier library services to our varied constituencies.

Address

Health Sciences Library Web Site