Reports

"…to share human and information resources so that the collective strengths of the group advance the research and learning of the members' constituents."
- About the Boston Library Consortium

• Introductory Meeting: Boston University - January 8, 2002
• 1st Meeting - Boston College - January 30, 2002 - 10:00am-11:00am
• 2nd Meeting - BPL - February 14, 2002 - 10:30am-12:30pm
• 3rd Meeting - BPL - March 8, 2002 - 10:30am-12:30pm
• 4th Meeting - BPL - April 5, 2002 - 10:30am-12:30pm
• zPortal Demonstration - BPL - March 27, 2002 - 1:00pm-3:00pm
• 5th Meeting - BPL - May 3, 2002 - 10:30am-12:30pm
• Final Meeting - BPL - June 7, 2002 - 10:30am-12:00pm

The Portal Investigation Task Force has meet over the past six months to explore the feasibility and options for creating a BLC portal. The original charge states that a BLC Portal may serve as the gateway of choice to both the resources and services of the member institutions and to the wider electronic environment based on the values and principles of the research community. Our investigation resulted in two reports. The first report was an examination of portals and included a literature review and survey discussion of the survey we wanted to present to BLC member libraries. The second report detailed the development of our survey and reported the preliminary results and analysis.

The idea of a web portal is not particularly new. A few years ago, portals were often in the headlines. Many Internet companies such as Yahoo! (myYahoo) and Excite (myExcite) began providing customers with the ability to customize a site with personalized information (local weather, selected news headlines, stock information, etc.). Some libraries tried to replicate this approach by developing myLibrary, a program that allows patrons to construct unique lists of electronic resources available from their local library. The conception of a portal has evolved even more since the introduction of these sites, it now includes the integration of powerful super search tools and linking technologies the aim of which is to provide a sleek, integrated searching environment to the patron.

• What's the difference between a web site and a portal? This is the first question people asked when surveyed about the possibility of a BLC portal. We attempted to address this question in our first report to the BLC. A portal as conceived by the BLC and ARL is basically a web site enhanced with searching and linking tools.
• Would libraries be willing to direct their patrons away from their home institutions to an enhanced BLC portal? The members of the task force were inclined to believe that member institutions would not be inclined to steer their community away from their library website toward a centralized BLC portal. The survey results confirmed this suspicion.

The task force developed two possible projects that we think address the charge. The first is the development of a BLC portal for Library staff at member institutions. This site would integrate resources and tools to enhance to productivity of librarians at member institutions. One of the advantages to this non-traditional approach would be in constructing a site that would not replicate many of the efforts already being put forth by individual member libraries. The second proposal discusses the development of a BLC portal for student research. This site would include advanced searching and linking tools and hopefully integrate seamlessly into the homepages of BLC member libraries.

As stated in our charge, the Portal Investigation Task Force has been monitoring the development of ARL's Scholars Portal Project. Because so many of the issues facing the ARL mirror those faced by the BLC, we have used ARL's portal development process as a model upon which to base our work. Consequently, the decisions and activities of the ARL Scholars Portal Working Group have had a significant impact upon the Portal Task Force's work thus far. The following is meant to provide a general overview of the history and the current status of the ARL Scholars Portal Project.

The Scholars Portal Project was conceived in the fall of 1999 at a meeting hosted by ARL and OCLC, which was designated, "Strategic Issues Forum for Academic Library Directors." The impetus for the creation of a "scholars portal" was a shared concerned among the meeting attendees that "in the World Wide Web environment the library world is in danger of abandoning its constituency to commercial information services...[which are] established on different values and principles than those espoused by the library community.(1) During the course of the meeting, the attendees established both a preliminary set of principles that would underlie a "scholars portal" as well as a business plan to initiate the portal. This preliminary set of principles is referred to as the "Keystone Principles," and consists of the following(2):

1. Principle One: Scholarly and government information is a "public good" and must be available free of marketing bias, commercial motives, and cost to the individual user.
2. Principle Two: Libraries are responsible for creating innovative information systems for the dissemination and preservation of information and new knowledge regardless of format.
3. Principle Three: The academic library is the intellectual commons for the community where people and ideas interact in both the real and virtual environments to expand learning and facilitate the creation of new knowledge.

The idea of an ARL initiated "scholars portal" was further articulated in Jerry Campbell's, The Case for Creating a Scholars Portal to the Web: A White Paper, published in October 2000.

(1)Campbell, Jerry D. "The Case for Creating a Scholars Portal to the Web: A White Paper." ARL Bimonthly Report #211, August 2000. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/211/portal.html (13 May, 2002).
(2)Members of the Keystone Working Group. "The Keystone Principles." ARL Bimonthly Report #207, December 1999. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/207/keystone.html (13 May, 2002).

Campbell's paper outlined the justifications for a "scholars portal" as well as the elements of such a portal (i.e., content, enhanced services, and search engines/tools, etc.).(3) Other developments in the Scholars Portal Project have included identifying potential partners for the development of a "super discovery" or meta-search tool, initiating discussions regarding the role of the integrated-library system in the development of a "scholars portal," and exploring the definition of "portal."

On April 11, 2002, ARL announced the preliminary results of it member survey. This survey sought to identify among its member libraries "the state of current or planned research library applications of portals that have certain characteristics or functions."(4) Taking into consideration the various definitions and views of what constitutes a "library portal," ARL survey focused on those libraries that currently offer portals which include the following(5):

1. Search engine tools that offer the user the capability to search across multiple sources and integrate the results of those searches
2. At least one kind of supporting service for the user (such as requesting retrieval or delivery of non-digital material, online reference help, etc.

Of the 77 member libraries that responded to the survey, 19 libraries reported offering portals. Of those 19 libraries that claimed to offer portals, only 6 libraries included the two aforementioned features. Those six libraries are also planning significant upgrades to their existing portals in the near future. ARL reported that over half of those libraries that indicated that they did not offer a portal indicated that they were in the planning process. ARL further reported that of the survey respondents, only 11 of the libraries are "not exploring such portals at this time."(6) A footnote to the preliminary results (dated April 25, 2002), however, reports that "on further analysis of the survey results, we reconsidered the criteria under which we would analyze the data, yielding a different result set." ARL has not announced the new survey data at this time.(7) On May 2, 2002, ARL announced that it was partnering with Fretwell-Downing to develop and launch its Scholars Portal Project.(8) Initially, seven libraries will be participating in the Project with more libraries participating within the next three years. ARL made the decision to collaborate with Fretwell - Downing, Inc. (FDI) over other possible vendors for "two reasons," according to Jerry Campbell, chair of ARL's Scholars Portal Working Group:

1. "The first reason is that we believe FDI's existing ZPORTAL product suite will work together to take us significantly down the road toward achieving our initial project goals.
2. "...secondly, the leadership of the company shares our vision of a portal and has committed to bearing some of the costs of developmental work that will lead to enhancements that both we and FDI see as important."

Spring and summer of 2002 have been given as the target dates for when participating libraries will implement the current version of Fretwell-Downing's ZPORTAL product suite. The first phase of the Project "will focus on incorporating the Scholars Portal tools and services into selected

undergraduate courses." According to ARL's announcement, "participating libraries are financing the project; FDI is contributing some of the costs of the developmental work for enhancements." At this point in time, ARL has not outlined the cost breakdown for the seven participating libraries.

The ARL Scholars Portal Working Group produced its final report in May 2002.(1) They have decided to discharge the original group dividing into two groups. One group would continue to monitor the integration of portal technology in academic settings. The other group, the Project Steering Committee will work on the Fretwell-Downing collaboration.

(3)Campbell, Jerry D. "The Case for Creating a Scholars Portal to the Web: A White Paper." ARL Bimonthly Report #211, August 2000. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/211/portal.html (13 May, 2002).
(4)Association of Research Libraries. "Portal Functionality Provided by ARL Libraries: Preliminary Results of an ARL Survey, April 11, 2002." http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/prelim.html (13 May, 2002).
(5)Ibid.
(6)Association of Research Libraries. "Portal Functionality Provided by ARL Libraries: Preliminary Results of an ARL Survey, April 11, 2002." http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/prelim.html (13 May, 2002).
(7)Ibid.
(8)Matz, Judith, Communications Officer, ARL. "ARL Scholar's Portal Announcement." Forwarded via Barbara Preece , (1 May 2002).

In order to measure the level of interest and commitment among member libraries in developing a BLC portal and to gather feedback regarding the kinds of features member libraries would like to see available on a BLC portal, the Portal Investigation Task Force created a Portal Survey Form: http://zeus.mbl.edu/forms/portal.html.

This form is modeled on a similar survey conducted by ARL called the "Survey on Portal Functionality Provided by ARL Libraries": http://db.arl.org/portal/default.html. The BLC Portal Survey was distributed to Director's of member libraries the first week in March 2002.

1. Measure the level of interest and commitment among member libraries in developing a BLC portal
2. Gather feedback regarding the kinds of features member libraries would like to see available on a BLC portal

Preliminary Survey Results
As of May 17th, nine BLC libraries had responded to the survey. Most of the respondents were unsure about the necessity and feasibility of a BLC portal, although some felt it would be a nice service since their local institutions were unlikely to proceed with a portal project in the near future. There was also some confusion about the definition of a portal.

(1)Association of Research Libraries. "ARL Scholars Portal Working Group Final Report."http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/final.html (21 May, 2002).

• Local Opac: 7 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Other Opac: 7 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Virtual Catalog: 8 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Union List of Serials: 7 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Freely Available Resources: 6 yes / 2 no / 1 blank
• BLC licensed databases: 8 yes / 0 no / 1 blankLocally licensed databases: 5 yes / 3 no / 1 blank
• Online Course Materials: 4 yes / 4 no / 1 blank
• E-Reserves: 4 yes / 4 no / 1 blank
• E-Books: 6 yes / 2 no / 1 blank
• E-Journals: 8 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Research Guides: 7 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Special Collections: 8 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Local Digitized Collections: 9 yes / 0 no / 0 blank

• Saved Searches: 5(2), 4(1), 3(3), 2(1),Blank(2)
• Saved Records: 4(4), 3(3), Blank(2)
• Customization Options: 5(4), 4(1), 3(1), 1(1), Blank(1)
• Alerts: 4(2), 3(5), Blank(2)
• News: 5(2), 3(1), 2(3), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Customized List of Resources: 5(2), 4(4), 3(1), 1(1), Blank(1)
• Citation Management: 5(2), 4(3), 2(1), 1(2), Blank(1)
• 24x7 Reference: 5(1), 4(2), 3(3), 2(2), Blank(1)
• Online Discussion Forums: 5(1), 4(2), 3(1), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• E-Mail: 5(1), 4(2), 3(1), 2(1), 1(3), Blank(1)
• Local Material held for User: 5(2), 3(2), 2(3), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Local Material delivered to User: 5(2), 4(1), 2(3), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Photocopy - Held: 5(2), 3(2), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Photocopy - Delivered: 5(2), 4(1), 2(3), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Inter-library Loan: 5(6), 1(1), Blank(2)
• Online Reference: 5(4), 4(2), 3(3), Blank(1)
• Institutional Services: 5(2), 4(2), 2(1), 1(3), Blank(1)

• Limiting Searches: 5(2), 4(3), 3(1), 2(1), Blank(2)
• Sorting Searches: 5(3), 4(2), 3(2), Blank(2)
• De-duping Searches: 5(4), 4(3), Blank(2)

• Staff Commitment: 3(2), 2(2), 1(4), Blank(1)
• Funding Commitment: 2(1), 1(4), Blank(3)

• BLC Portal - 2 libraries preferred this option
• Local - 6 libraries would prefer local portals
• 1 library didn't answer the question

Conclusions:
Many respondents had problems with the survey. Some didn't understand why the BLC was exploring the portal issue. Most libraries did express the desire to have a locally developed portal over a BLC portal. We believe this reflects the reluctance of librarians to direct patrons away from their local library websites. Even though the initial charge was vague, we should have been more specific on our survey and insisted upon a definition of portal. This would have answered some of the questions of the responders. The survey indicates there is some interest in a portal, mostly a local portal, although most responders were unwilling to commit staff or funding to the project. One problem we encountered was that the directors for whom the survey was written were usually not the people filling out the survey. Some of the questions, for example the question of funding commitment, were not appropriate for a person without the power to commit funds. Overall the survey gave us a general idea of the interests of BLC members and the specific services they would like to see included in a hypothetical portal. On the flip side, only nine libraries filled out the survey, leaving us with a high percentage of non-responders.

Despite its shortcomings, the portal survey gave the task force a general idea of the level of interest among BLC libraries. The next step would probably be for the BLC to sponsor a series of vendor demonstrations by various portal companies. Then member libraries could decide for themselves if they were interested in committing to a portal. Because portals are expensive and receive mixed reviews, the BLC will probably want to proceed slowly before committing too much time, effort and money to this endeavor.

Call it a portal or perhaps just a web site with a combined set of applications and services configured to meet library staff needs, a BLC Library Staff Portal could serve as a set of virtual tools and collections designed to help meet many of the objectives outlined in the BLC Goals statements. Expanding on the communities of interest and of use to BLC task forces and executive board alike, the BLC Library Staff Portal could serve as learning and development platform BLC members' activities.

To serve as just a starting point for discussion on what such a portal could be or provide, a brief list of possibilities follows:

Knowledge Base
A collection of resources for finding and retrieving information and knowledge of specific value to librarians and library staff in the practice of their work.

• Library & Information Science related databases, eJournals & eBooks: Subscribed to or purchased by the BLC as an organization with access limited by authentication to BLC library staff members only, these are resources that individual libraries might not individually be able to justify for their collections (especially in the current budgetary climate). Limiting access to a small group such as BLC library staff members might prove valuable and cost effective.
• Reports & Statistics of use for Academic/Research libraries: General reports and statistics could be gathered and organized in a structure helpful to those preparing grants, articles, administrative reports and projects. Reports and documents created for private industry, but relevant for libraries, could be purchased and shared as a collection.

• A secure site for sharing sample library policy documents, forms, contract wording, training manuals, research guides & pathfinders, etc.
• BLC task forces and Communities of Interest could be charged or volunteer to take on specific topics for the group such as.
  
  -Identification of and reporting on best practices
  -Library subject oriented vortals/portals (i.e. based on copyright, ILL, virtual reference)
  
  
• Informal reports by member attendees of local, regional and national conferences, meetings and workshops (including if possible information, links and materials such as handouts and PowerPoint presentations gathered).
• Serve as a clearinghouse for grant and funding opportunities.
• Information and reports from the BLC Executive Board & Management council.

• BLC Library Staff specialist list and email - Librarians and staff members with expertise, a willingness to share and a commitment to answer questions. This list would be voluntary and for use by Library staff only.
  
  --BLC "internal" guide to Archives & Special Collections - including links to digital collections, collection guides and finding aids with notes helpful to reference librarians.
  
  
• FAQs - A set of questions, answers, and links about each library created for the use of library staff at member libraries.

• Serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas, issues, or solutions to common problems.
  - -Online chat space software suitable for online meetings and discussions.
  - -Message Board for threaded discussions: COI, Task Forces and other library staff could start discussions, follow others in progress and access related attachments and links to outside resources.
• Serve as a development and staging area for BLC projects, subject portal pages and other group work.
• BLC Reserves - serve as a temporary space for leaving documents that task forces, COI and other workgroups could link-to protected by username and password
• Space and software to enable BLC member online survey functions, polling capacity and voting.
• Groupware for working online on shared documents and other objects.

• BLC Staff Development Task Force: Location for notices and links to activities including forms for sending suggestions and evaluations to task force.
  - -Continuing education links and power point presentations: by BLC members and others gathered for their usefulness or informative nature.
• Purchase and provide online access to online tutorials, eBooks/Manuals and other such eLearning materials
• Starting point for live online presentations, meetings and teleconferences funded by the BLC.

With the daily work of keeping track of the increasing number of electronic resources in libraries and new developments with vendors such as various linking services, the librarians' role in managing electronic resources is becoming more complicated. Therefore, the Electronic Resources Librarian from Library X, which is a BLC member library, has been charged with investigating available electronic management systems at similar libraries and writing up a report/proposal for her supervisor.

The librarian signs-in to the BLC Library Staff Portal and begins her research and data gathering. She uses the search interface and site index to find appropriate material. She finds a link to search library science journals in a database that has been jointly purchased through the BLC. Here she finds many articles on her topic. Also by searching the portal, she is presented with a list of librarians and contact information at various BLC libraries, so she can contact these individuals to learn more about the processes at their institutions. Her search in the portal also brought up a list of past reports and RFPs on this topic from BLC institutions. She finds minutes from related Communities of Interest who have discussed this subject. She even finds a few written policies from libraries on how they are dealing with electronic resources. She searches the message archives from the BLC listservs to find discussion on this topic and discussion on various products that libraries are using. The BLC Professional Development Task Force has provided some related training material that she finds helpful.

Having gathered background information, she then reviews the list of jointly purchased electronic resources to find libraries that have similar collections and therefore may be facing similar challenges. She also examines database statistics for BLC libraries to see which resources are being used the most at these libraries. Then she uses the Polling Tool on the portal to create a survey on how librarians are dealing with electronic resources and linking possibilities. She then distributes this survey to the list of contacts that she previously found on the site.

The BLC Student Research Portal would utilize a combination of meta-search tools and linking systems to provide an integrated search and retrieval system to the researcher. These tools could either be presented on a centralized BLC website or integrated in individual member libraries' sites. From our survey, it seems most libraries would prefer to integrate these tools into their existing websites.

• Examples: EnCompass (Endeavor), MetaLib (Ex Libris), zPortal (Fretwell Downing).
• Performance Guidelines: The search tools would be able to search a wide variety of databases and collections and produce a list of references. Patrons would then have the ability to link to full text, download to citation management programs, or request via Interlibrary Loan.

• Examples: SFX (Ex Libris), LinkFinder Plus (Endeavor)
• Performance Guidelines: Context sensitive reference linking which enables users to link from a citation in a bibliographic database to the full-text resource, if available. Some advanced options would include extended services, such as pre-populated ILL forms and connection to live reference assistance.

• Access to the Virtual Catalog, 24/7 reference assistance, specialized information resources compiled by subject specialists (Environmental Sciences websites, Government Documents information, etc).
• Citation Management: The ability to download references into various citation management programs (such as EndNote).

• Patron Authentication: This could be one of the major problem areas in the development of a centralized BLC portal. Currently, libraries authenticate users in a variety of ways. This is of vital importance when considering vendor contracts and obligations
• BLC Portal Staffing: Although the digital library products and linking software provide methods of keeping entries current, maintaining a viable portal database would take considerable staff effort.
• Portal Industry Fallout: With the dot-com bust and technological slump there is bound to be a shakeup in the industry. Very few research institutions have working portals. The meta-search tools are still in their infancy.

It's a holiday and the library has closed. A sophomore at a BLC member library, goes to her library's web site and signs in to the Library Portal to begin her research for a paper in her Environmental Studies class. She learned about the Library Portal from her professor and previously in the First Year Writing Seminar she took last year. Once she enters the portal she has several options presented to her. She chooses to examine resources by subject, which include Research Guides and Overviews of the subject to help her get started. The Research Guide she uses was created either by a subject specialist librarian at another BLC library or by a BLC Community of Interest, in this case the Environmental Studies Community of Interest. The Guide presents shared resources among BLC libraries and free web sites.

She chooses a few resources from the guide. Then within the Library Portal, still looking under the subject Environmental Studies, she finds additional resources some specific to her institution including library catalogs, article databases, locally developed databases, web sites and e-journal collections. In reality she doesn't make the distinction between these different types of resources. To her they are all just resources under Environmental Studies. She then searches across eight different resources including free and restricted databases. Since the student has already signed in, she has access to all the resources to which her institution subscribes and free ones.

Her search results are returned for each resource. She finds articles, some of which are citations, others full-text. From the citations she can link to full text if available in an e-journal collection or check her local catalog or request items from ILL. She also finds books in her library and books available in other BLC libraries. She can request books from other libraries through the portal. As she reviews records from these various databases, she can mark and save records by creating folders within the Portal. She can also add notes to individual records or to her folders. She can download records via e-mail or directly into her citation management system, EndNote. For the books in her local library, she prints a list of titles with location information so she can check the stacks when the library is open.

She has now found enough overview books and articles, but she needs to narrow her search and she having trouble with the correct search terms. She can click on to the "thesaurus" for Environmental Studies and review terms or she can ask for help through the virtual reference link. She chooses virtual reference and is connected to a librarian in another state who suggests terms for her search and sends screen shots of search techniques through to her computer. The virtual librarian can access some of the same resources, but not all, so she suggests the student e-mail the subject specialist in her local library to set up an appointment or get advice via e-mail. From the Library Portal, the student can connect to a list of subject specialists at her local institution.

When she is ready to sign-out of the Library Portal, she has some print-outs of full text articles, she has a number of records saved in folders on the portal, she has downloaded records into EndNote to start the bibliography for her paper, she is expecting books from other libraries to be sent to her library for her to check-out, she has her list of books to retrieve from the stacks, she is awaiting a dissertation from ILL and a response from a librarian about setting up a research consultation.

All the task force members agree that libraries should begin to consider the integration of meta-search and linking tools into their sites. These tools begin to address the difficulty patrons have in sifting through the wide variety of electronic databases and collections currently available. Meta-search tools can serve as effective resource discovery tools while the various linking solutions begin the process of effective information retrieval. However, providing these services at the consortium level can be problematic, especially when confronted with the issue of patron authentication. The proposal for a BLC Library Staff portal may serve has a pilot program to begin considering these issues on a larger scale. Hopefully this report will serve as a catalyst for further investigation.

These are the completed surveys, with comments. The original survey may be found at http://zeus.mbl.edu/forms/portal.html.

Current Roster:

One of the main tasks we have undertaken was the development of a survey to be submitted to BLC member libraries. We submitted the survey to BLC members and requested that they complete it by March 30, 2002. The online survey (http://zeus.mbl.edu/forms/portal.html) is designed to:

1. Measure the level of interest and commitment among member libraries in developing a BLC portal
2. Gather feedback regarding the kinds of features member libraries would like to see available on a BLC portal

As of April 12th, eight BLC libraries had responded to the survey. Most of the respondents were unsure about the necessity and feasibility of a BLC portal, although some felt it would be a nice service since their local institutions were unlikely to proceed with a portal project in the near future. There was also some confusion about the definition of a portal.

• Local Opac: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Other Opac: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Virtual Catalog: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Union List of Serials: 6 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Freely Available Resources: 6 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Locally licensed databases: 5 yes / 2 no / 1 blank
• BLC licensed databases: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Online Course Materials: 4 yes / 3 no / 1 blank
• E-Reserves: 4 yes / 3 no / 1 blank
• E-Books: 5 yes / 2 no / 1 blank
• E-Journals: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Research Guides: 6 yes / 1 no / 1 blank
• Special Collections: 7 yes / 0 no / 1 blank
• Local Digitized Collections: 8 yes / 0 no / 0 blank

• Saved Searches: 5(1), 4(1), 3(3), 2(1),Blank(2)
• Saved Records: 4(3), 3(3), Blank(2)
• Customization Options: 5(3), 4(1), 3(1), 1(1), Blank(1)
• Alerts: 4(2), 3(4), Blank(2)
• News: 5(2), 3(1), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Customized List of Resources: 5(2), 4(3), 3(1), 1(1), Blank(1)
• Citation Management: 5(1), 4(3), 2(1), 1(2), Blank(1)
• 24x7 Reference: 5(1), 4(2), 3(3), 2(1), Blank(1)
• Online Discussion Forums: 5(1), 4(1), 3(1), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• E-Mail: 5(1), 4(1), 3(1), 2(1), 1(3), Blank(1)
• Local Material held for User: 5(2), 3(2), 2(1), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Local Material delivered to User: 5(2), 4(1), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Photocopy - Held: 5(2), 3(2), 2(1), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Photocopy - Delivered: 5(2), 4(1), 2(2), 1(2), Blank(1)
• Inter-library Loan: 5(6), 1(1), Blank(1)
• Online Reference: 5(2), 4(2), 3(3), Blank(1)
• Institutional Services: 5(1), 4(2), 2(1), 1(3), Blank(1)

• Limiting Searches: 5(1), 4(3), 3(1), 2(1), Blank(2)
• Sorting Searches: 5(2), 4(2), 3(2), Blank(2)
• Deduping Searches: 5(3), 4(3), Blank(2)

• Staff Commitment: 3(2), 2(2), 1(3), Blank(1)
• Funding Commitment: 2(1), 1(3), Blank(3)

• BLC Portal - 1 library preferred this option
• Local - 6 libraries would prefer local portals
• 1 library didn't answer the question

Many respondents had difficulties with the survey. Some didn't understand why the BLC was exploring the portal issue. Others were unsure about the definition of a portal. This is a common problem; there are many working definitions of portals. The committee spent our first few meetings examining and discussing other organizations' portals and addressed some of these questions in our first report. Most libraries did express the desire to have a locally developed portal over a BLC portal. I believe this reflects the reluctance of librarians to direct patrons away from their local library websites.

We will be contacting BLC member libraries that did not complete our online survey. We would like to have a complete set of statistics for the final report due June 1, 2002.

We have attended one product demonstration (zPortal). We hope to invite other vendors (such as Endeavor and Ex Libris) to demonstrate their portal products. We are developing a list of questions to submit to vendors.

Charge of the Portal Investigation Task Force
Establish the BLC as the gateway of choice to both the resources and services of the member institutions and to the wider electronic environment by developing a web site based on the values and principles of the research community. Explore the possibility of integrating the Virtual Catalog into such a project. The portal will serve as an access point for content developed by the Boston Library Consortium. Determine user needs, monitor developments of ARL's Portal Project, and propose a project plan for the consortia. Identify pilot projects that enable BLC participation.

Introduction
The Portal Investigation Task Force has meet on three separate occasions to discuss and take action on the aforementioned charge. In order to determine how the Task Force should best focus its energies, we have attempted to clarify our charge. The following is the clarified charge with which we are working:

Explore the feasibility and options for creating a BLC portal that would serve as a gateway of choice to both the resources and services of the member institutions and to the wider electronic environment based on the values and principles of the research community. The resources considered should also include the Virtual Catalog and content developed by the Boston Library Consortium. The final product is a report that should include a review of other similar projects, including ARL Portal projects, an outline of potential user and library needs and the components necessary for meeting these needs, a brief summary plan for implementation and a recommendation.

Among the first tasks undertaken by the group was to address the question: What is an information portal? The group has addressed this question by both revisiting the ARL's The Case for Creating a Scholars Portal to the Web: A White Paper and by researching the current library and information science literature for pertinent articles on the design, function, standards and maintenance of information portals. Relevant articles have been compiled into a bibliography attached to this report. The group has also identified and defined the various kinds of information portals currently available on the Web. This will be discussed at greater length in the sections Portal Definitions & Explanations and Portal Examples & Vendors.

Consequently, it was decided early on that the Task Force would develop a survey instrument to be distributed to member libraries. A review of the survey instrument the Task Force has developed will be discussed in the section Portal Survey.

Lastly, contacting portal vendors has been discussed since the beginning of the project. To date, several portal vendors have been identified (e.g., Fretwell-Downing, Ex Libris, Endeavor) and the group is currently in the process of developing a set of questions to be posed to potential vendors. While there have not been any vendor presentations at this point in time, vendors will be contacted within the next few weeks. The sections, Portal Examples & Vendors and Future Plans & Bibliography, will discuss both portal vendors and future vendor presentations in greater detail.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (And what Alice found there)

There are consumer portals, enterprise portals, community portals, and publishing portals and there are horizontal and vertical portals (Vortals) and channels. The are mega-portals that attempt to provide you with all sorts of customizable services and information and there are portals that want to take over your PC's desktop with portal access to your own PC's resources as well as those of your organization's. With all these types of portals there only seems to be agreement on two things. First, that there is no one definition of what a portal is and second, that almost every IT vendor wants the word portal to be associated with their product or services. Portals developers of any sort all hope their portal becomes the chosen gateway for a given user group and/or to particular information and resources.

Although generally we might equate the term portal with a consumer oriented mega-portal site like Yahoo and AOL, or perhaps in the library world, to the MyLibrary concept, it's probably best to think about portals in terms of their focus, content, and the community that they hope to serve. Thus a mega-portal hopes to be all things to all people offering a diverse array of content and customization. An enterprise portal, such as a university might offer, would provide a diverse array of content and services focused most primarily at its narrower communities (students, faculty, staff, alumni and prospective students, faculty and staff), and a library might currently most closely resemble a publishing portal by serving to aggregate many external resources with an emphasis on the community that it serves. [1]

IBM's working portal definition: Accessed Feb. 24, 2002, (http://www-3.ibm.com/software/webservers/portal/whatis.html)

A university view:
"Institutional information portals are applications that provide a single, intuitive, and personalized gateway to access and to integrate campus-specific information and applications with unstructured data from on and off campus. Whereas the campus Web site may be a collection of thousands of pages or department Web sites, a portal is a collection of many applications. One of the strengths of the portal architecture is that fully functional, server-side applications can run within a single, common user interface."

Bernard W. Gleason (Boston College), "uPortal: A Common Reference Framework," Syllabus Magazine, July 2000 (online version: http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=4136

A library view:
The ARL Scholars Portal Working Group describes it as "a suite of web-based services that will connect the higher education community as directly as possible with the quality of information resources that contribute to the teaching and learning process and that advance research."

"User Scenario for the ARL Scholars Portal Single Search Option", ARL Scholars Portal Working Group Report, May, 2001
http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/may01rept.html

If we consider these descriptions in terms of their focus, content and the community that they hope to serve, we realize that in many cases they are all after the same clientele (i.e. students and patrons) at the same time. Thus the crux of the problem of what a portal is and how to create a portal from a library's point of view extends into how will it fit within the library's larger organization or community. A consortium, like the BLC or the ARL Scholar's Portal Group, has even further considerations to take into account. Perhaps that is why at an ARL member discussion group it was stated that it was unresolved 'whether this "portal" should be a central site, an adaptable front end, or a common suite of tools and resources.' [2]

What is a portal? Answering that last unresolved question from the ARL discussion group is also key to determining what a portal is to be in terms of the BLC. A BLC portal could range from a complement of subject vortals (vertical portals) along the lines of the proposed BLC Environmental Studies Portal, to purchased channels and enhanced search tools and services designed to serve as segments of larger portals located at our various institutions or it could be an all encompassing central site.

Portals: Sample Sites and VendorsThere are as many different examples of portal implementations as there are definitions of portals. Portals that are customizable gateways to news and resources are well established. Most of the examples we can experiment with are commercial portals like My Yahoo http://my.yahoo.com/ and My Excite http://my.excite.com/ Sites like these allow users to register and create a personalized profile of news, weather, financial information, etc. A popular library implementation of this scheme is the MyLibrary software. A sample MyLibrary page is available at http://my.lib.ncsu.edu/ Most implementations are inaccessible due to authentication issues.

One may also examine portals in the context of advanced searching capabilities. Under this scheme, a portal may serve as a resource discovery and advanced searching tool. These products (like MetaLib and EnCompass) utilize multiple search protocols to search multiple resources in a unified interface. The ultimate goal of all of these technologies is to make finding resources simpler for the patron. A patron will be able to search various databases for relevant documents, retrieve the document which include context sensitive links to supporting documents (in footnotes and bibliographies). Not many of these new products have been fully implemented; Boston College is the first site in North America to go live with their MetaLib site http://metalib.bc.edu/

The California Digital Library http://www.cdlib.org/ incorporates some meta-searching tools in its website. The CDL was created to bring together the physical and virtual collection of the University of California Libraries. Searchlight http://searchlight.cdlib.org/cgi-bin/searchlight ) is their meta-searching tool. Currently, the CDL searches Z39.50 and web resources. There is a public version of searchlight that accesses free Internet resources and library OPACs.

Finally, there are the subject portals that bring together various resources (electronic database, websites, etc.) on a specific subject. This is often the type of portal people will describe if you ask them for their definition of a portal. An interesting example of a subject specific portal is the Labor Research Portal http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/IIRL/iirlnet.html from the Institute of Labor and Employment at the University of California. It includes connections to web guides and research databases (including the California Digital Library).

MetaLib (Ex Libris)
MetaLib is a tool that can be used for cross-platform searching. It incorporates two technologies; the Universal Gateway and SFX. SFX provides context sensitive links for various resources in digital collections. The Universal Gateway supports multiple searching protocols (Z39.50, XML, HTTP). Product Website:
http://www.exlibris-usa.com/metalib/

EnCompass (Endeavor Information Systems)
EnCompass is a gateway that supports multiple searching protocols (Z39.50, XML, HTTP). Endeavor describes their product as a complete solution for access to the local library OPAC, remote OPACs, digital collections, electronic databases, electronic journals, and ebooks. EnCompass incorporates the OpenURL technology in its interface with their LinkFinder Plus product. Product Website: http://encompass.endinfosys.com/whatisENC.htm

ZPORTAL (Fretwell-Downing Informatics)
ZPORTAL integrates Z39.50 searches with other protocols (HTTP). It offers one stop access to library and Internet resources as well as personalized services (such as saved searches). Product Website: http://www.fdgroup.com/fdi/zportal/overview.html

MyLibrary
MyLibrary is an open-source software implementation distributed under a GNU Public license. It provides a customizable interface that allows patrons to select Internet resources as well as licensed databases. Product Website: http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/development/mylibrary/

uPortal
uPortal, like MyLibrary, is an open-source software implementation that provides a customizable interface. uPortal markets itself as a framework for providing a campus portal. Current implementations of uPortal are listed on their website. Boston College is listed as a demo site; their interface can be found at http://raichu.bc.edu/render.uP. Product Website: http://mis105.mis.udel.edu/ja-sig/uportal/

Campus Portal Vendors
Many college campuses have started portal projects to better integrate information and tools in support of Distance Learning initiatives. Here is a list of some of the current vendors that specialize in campus portals:

Portal Survey
In order to measure the level of interest and commitment among member libraries in developing a BLC portal and to gather feedback regarding the kinds of features member libraries would like to see available on a BLC portal, the Portal Investigation Task Force created a Portal Survey Form: http://zeus.mbl.edu/forms/portal.html

This form is modeled on a similar survey conducted by ARL called the "Survey on Portal Functionality Provided by ARL Libraries": http://db.arl.org/portal/default.html The BLC Portal Survey will be distributed to Director's of member libraries the first week in March 2002.

Future Plans
The next meeting of the Task Force is scheduled for Friday, March 8, 2002 from 10:30-12:30 at the BPL. The agenda for this meeting will be devoted to the discussion of vendors and demonstrations. A previously scheduled vendor demonstration of EnCompass is scheduled at UMASS Boston at the end of March. The group will talk with the committee that arranged this presentation to see if it can be opened up to a larger group of BLC members.

The Portal Survey results are due March 15th. The results will be compiled and reviewed by the group once data are received from as many institutions as possible.

The next report is due April 18, 2002.

Bibliography
Campbell, Jerry D. "The case for creating a scholars portal to the Web: a white paper." ARL Bimonthly Report, #211, August 2000. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/211/portal.html

Gleason, Bernard W., "Boston College University-Wide Information Portal: Concepts and Recommended Course of Action, " January 26, 2000. Available online: http://www.mis2.udel.edu/ja-sig/whitepaper.html

Information Technology and Libraries*, December 2000, 19(4). Available online: http://www.lita.org/ital/ital1904.html (*entire issue devoted to library portals).

Little, John R. "A librarian's perspective on portals," EDUCASE Quarterly, 2001, 24(2):52-54. Available online: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0124.pdf

Looney, Michael and Lyman, Peter. "Portals in higher education," EDUCAUSE Review, 2000, 35(4): 29-37. Available online: http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm.html

Schottlaender, Brian. "The New Academic Platform: Beyond Resource Discovery." PowerPoint presentation delivered at the ARL forum Collections & Access for the 21st Century, October 2001. Available online: http://www.arl.org/forum/schottlaender/

Thomas, Sarah E. "Abundance, attention, and access: of portals and catalogs," ARL, 2000, (212). Available online: http://www.arl.org/newsltr/212/portal.html

Thomas, Sarah E. "The catalog as portal to the Internet," Conference on Bibliographic Control in the New Millennium (Library of Congress), December 2000. Available online: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/thomas_paper.html

Zemon, Mickey. "The librarian's role in portal development," College & Research Libraries News, 2001. Available online: http://www.ala.org/acrl/zemon.html