Poster presented at the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting 2004.

1. POI
Pathways to Online Information:
a Collaborative Project for E-Resources
http://epoi.hawaii.edu
Steven Seifried, PhD,1 Virginia M. Tanji, MSLS, MEd,1 Annis Lee Adams, MA, MLIS;1 Carolyn Ching, MA,
MLIS,2 Sarah Jansen, MLIS;2 Paul Wermager, MLIS, MPH,3 Jessica Hashimoto, MLIS, MBA3
1
John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa; 2Hawaii Medical Library;
3
Science & Technology Reference Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI
OBJECTIVE
To create a single point of access for electronic biomedical resources for researchers,
educators, practitioners, and students in Hawaii. Many of Hawaii’s healthcare professionals and
students have access to both Hawaii Medical Library (HML) and the University of Hawaii at
Manoa (UHM) Library. Finding what resources were available from which library had become
burdensome for patrons and librarians.
CHALLENGES METHODS
OBJECTIVE
• Collaborating • Created a collaboration among HML (a
• Working with non-librarians private, nonprofit subsidiary of a large
• Learning the unique circumstances of healthcare system), the UHM Library, and
each other's organizations the John A. Burns School of Medicine
• Finding common ground on content, • Garnered support from 13 healthcare-
design, and scope related organizations, who agreed to post
• Creating an attractive, efficient, user- links to ePOI on their websites and allowed
friendly interface announcements to their employees and
• Assuring good computing performance students
• Defining the scope of holdings to include • Examined existing similar projects
• Agreeing on vocabulary and fields for • Maintained a project book and meeting
searching minutes, which facilitated efficient
• Developing a data model to meet technical functioning of the multi-institutional project
and librarian needs group
• Establishing and maintaining an accurate • Downloaded records from LocatorPlus
list of titles and holdings populated title-specific data, including
• Including subject headings for thousands journal title abbreviations, and defined the
of journals scope of the ePOI database
• Communicating different types of access • Utilized reports from SerialsSolutions to
restrictions maintain holdings data for HML and UHM
Library; supplemented this with manual
entry for data not contained in the
SerialsSolutions reports
• User authentication (EZProxy) is maintained
at each library
• Designed a minimalist layout that was
modified based on patron feedback and
pilot tests

2. TECHNICAL SOLUTION RESULTS
• Title-specific data were extracted from ePOI is the only multi-institutional portal of
LocatorPlus biomedical holdings in Hawaii. Users can
• Titles selected for inclusion, but not search for e-books, e-journals, databases, and
contained in LocatorPlus, were hand- websites available from the two libraries using
entered a single portal rather than checking multiple
• Holdings-specific data are regularly resource gateways. Initial user response has
updated by merging SerialsSolutions been enthusiastic.
reports and manually entered lists
• Standard and custom reports are available
to librarians ePOI FEATURES
ePOI Website:
Written in ASP
Microsoft IIS Webserver • Search by journal title, phrase, or
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 abbreviation
User-platform agnostic • Search by keywords in title and subject
Section 508 (ADA) compliant headings
ePOI Database Structure and Content: • Search using Boolean operators in
8 database object tables Advanced Search
16,000 titles in Title Table (not all held by • Browse alphabetical title list
UHM or HML) • Limit search to particular library or free
12,468 Listings in Holdings Tables resources
Data available for Administrative Uses • Link directly to the resource via proxy server
e.g. holdings and use analysis authentication
Maintains use metrics • Comprehensive User Guide
e.g. user search types, search results,
link-outs

3. UHM User
Access UHM Proxy Server
Manual Librarian Manual Librarian Challenge
Entry via Webpage Entry via Webpage
University of
Hawaii Patrons
(UHM)
User Input Search Search Retrieve Search Results User Select Journal Provider
Free Website
ePOI for Journal Title-Specific Holding- listed by Title from ePOI
Resource
Holdings Data Specific Data and LIbrary Search Results
Hawaii Medical
Library Patrons
(HML)
HML &
LocatorPlus UHM HML User
data seed Serials Access HML Proxy Server
Solutions Challenge
Report
DATA FLOW
PRELIMINARY PATRON USAGE FUTURE WORK
January - February 2004 was limited to word- • Further development of administrative
of-mouth publicity and beta testing. Formal, reporting
widespread announcement and advertising • Analysis of holdings and patron use
occurred in March. patterns
• Addition of health-related web sites
• Consideration of broadening ePOI user
Page Hits: Total = 20,265
3000
Searches: Total = 6,124 consortium to include other libraries with
Link-Outs: Total = 2,907
health-related collections
Average:
2500 3.4 Page Hits/Search
0.5 Link-outs/Search
2000
CONCLUSIONS
Count
1500
Beta Test
1000 The ePOI project represents a successful
example of public-private collaboration among
500
three entities and lays the groundwork for
0 future collaborative projects. Researchers,
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 students, healthcare professionals, and
Week
librarians are embracing the “one-stop
Initial ePOI Usage Statistics shopping” of ePOI. Librarians from the local
January 1, 2004-April 30, 2004 hospital libraries especially like the title
abbreviation search feature because they can
easily search using MEDLINE citations
The project group is encouraged by these provided by their patrons. HML and UHM
numbers, especially since the first two and a librarians will analyze usage statistics to help
half months were limited to informal publicity with collection development. Data collection
before the formal, widespread advertising took will also be used for research and evaluation
place. of patron search behaviors.
____________________________________________________________________________
ePOI was made possible by a National Library of Medicine grant under its Internet Access to Digital Libraries
program. Grant number LM007788-01.