Full integration of SFX and Google Books into Primo v3
Tags: advanced
, expert
, mod_perl
, openurl
, primo
, jquery
, sfx
, rsi
, google
Last Updated: Jun 30, 2011 11:12
- Description
This web service application and UI modification integrates SFX and Google Books directly into Primo’s own online availability function making the SFX tab redundant. In the case of Google Books the ability to provide partial or complete online access where no online alternative exists for a physical item in the library.
THIS SERVICE WILL NOT BE RELEASED IN IT'S CURRENT FORM AS WE ARE CODING A NEW AND SUPER FAST MULTI-PURPOSE UI-SERVICE FOR PRIMO WHICH INCLUDE THE SAME FUNCTIONALITY AND MORE.
- Author: Kasper Løvschall and Karsten Kryger Hansen
- Additional author(s):
- Institution: Aalborg Universitetsbibliotek
- Year: 2011
- License: BSD style
- Short description: Use, modification and distribution of the code are permitted provided the copyright notice, list of conditions and disclaimer appear in all related material.
- Link to terms: [Detailed license terms]
- Skill required for using this code:
advanced to expert
Problem Statement
So what’s up with the SFX tab in Primo 3 anyway? It’s always presented to the end user in the UI and when opened often says: No full text available! After the user runs into this answer a couple of times he/she will probably never use the tab again.
Most of the extra functionality of SFX is now implemented directly in Primo, e.g. bX recommendations, reference export, and most other functionality related to SFX is better off implemented in Primo UI via jQuery instead of hiding it away in the SFX menu. So SFX in Primo comes down to one thing: is full text available or not!
So why not make SFX and Primo 3 work together as it should have in the first place? Integrate SFX info Primo’s “Online resource” tab in the one case where Primo is unable to locate full text but SFX can? And while we’re at it why not do the same thing with physical items also available in Google Books and make it online if it’s already there?
When will this modification really make sense? If you harvest institutional repositories or other collections where full text is sparse but the library subscriptions might cover them it is difficult to link the holdings to the articles. Also if you have physical items in Primo that doesn’t merge well with the matching electronic resources this might help as well. Google Books is out there and can be integrated into full record display but it doesn’t take multiple ISBN numbers into account and the online resource tab is really the place to look for it.
State
'In Development' but running in production at our library. So you can call it: beta!
Programming language
The web service is written in Perl (running mod_perl specifically for performance reasons). UI implementation is done using jQuery and EXL Tab API.
Software requirements
Tested using Perl 5.8.x but can probably run in lower versions. mod_perl 2.0 and Apache 2.x web server is a requirement unless the code is rewritten to support common CGI. This can be done (originally this was the case) but to provide reasonable performance to the end user this is not recommended.
CPAN modules CHI and Cache::FastMmap are required for shared memory interprocess caching. CHI depends on LOTS of other modules so installation via CPAN shell is recommended:
Without any caching the performance of the web service is tied to the performance of the SFX RSI index and Google Books API which is not optimal.
Screen captures
The above image show an article from our local IR without attached full text. Fortunately SFX could provide the full text via existing library subscriptions. This information would have been hidden in the SFX tab which we disabled altogether.
The above image show a physical item checked out at the library. In this case Google Books have a preview available and we've placed the information where it was expected. The text translates: Online access (in limited preview via Google Books). The user can now take a look at the book and decide to place a request for it or not.
Author(s) homepage
Download
Attach the code file(s) to this page and link to them here.
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Working example
Visit our Primo catalogue at: http://primo.aub.aau.dk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?&vid=AUBlive1&reset_config=true
At the moment this functionality is only available from the Danish user interface!
For a Google Books example; search for: the craft of sociology
For a failed dedup (physical and electronic) example fixed via SFX; search for: java on smart cards programming
For an article without full text fixed via SFX; search for: comparison of three small chamber test methods
Using the following Ex Libris open interfaces
None!
Changes
Version 1.0 ....
First release to the public
Release notes
Notice: This CodeShare page is a work in progress and is not yet complete!
Installation instructions
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TO DO list
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Known issues
Speed! The SFX RSI index is not that fast. The Google Books api the same (this can be globally disabled if preferred). This modification will slow down your pages a bit depending on how many calls to this service the search result will generate. Caching speeds repeated queries up to only a few ms. A local "RSI" like index would help a lot and could be built from the XML export file to Google Scholar. This is set for a future version.
Comments
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