Identify Database Update

Identify now contains 270,695 records with over 12,000 records added in January and February 2012. Growth in the Academic sector has increased by nearly 5,000 already this year. North America and Europe have had the largest number of records added.

Users of Identify will now see a new Excel icon when looking at the subscriptions that a consortium holds (clients with hosted data). By clicking on this icon you are able to download a detailed spreadsheet of a consortium’s holdings, including Ringgold metadata and your own subscriber data, making consortium deals much easier to explore and price.

You will also see links from Identify to the CDO record for consortia which appear in both databases.

Consortium Directory Online (CDO) Updates

You may have noticed some new functionality in the CDO. We recently implemented some changes, which include:

• The ability to export consortium membership lists to Excel, with Ringgold numbers, from both the Search Summary results screen and the Analysis Tools Results.
• The ability to export Consortium Contacts to Excel from the Analysis Tools Results.
• Links from the Analysis Tools results to Identify and to each Consortium’s record.
• Links to the PDF from the Consortium record and from the Analysis Results.

The following consortia have been added recently:

Australia
– TAFE SA Library Network
– Western Australia Group of University Librarians (WAGUL)

Chile
– Consorcio para el Acceso a la Informacion Cientifica Electronica (CINCEL)

Ecuador
– Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitaria de Ecuador (COBUEC)

El Salvador
– Asociacion de Universidades Privadas de El Salvador (AUPRIDES)

Peru
– Grupo de Bibliotecas Academicas Peruanas (ALTAMIRA)

United States
– Florida – Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative (HCPLC)
– Illinois – Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
– Maryland – Maryland Association of Health Sciences Librarians (MAHSL)
– North Carolina – Carolina Consortium
– Puerto Rico – Consorcio de Bibliotecas Metropolitanas (COBIMET)
– Texas – Harrington Library Consortium (HLC)
– Virginia – American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)
– Wisconsin – Wisconsin Project for Automated Libraries (WISPALS)

Uruguay
– Agencia Nacional de Investigacion e Innovacion (ANII)

If you have any suggestions for future developments to CDO, or wish to provide us with any feedback, please contact us at info@ringgold.com

ALA Midwinter Update

Despite low footfall and variable weather, Ringgold had a very busy ALA Midwinter. Thank you to all of you who met with us. We had a number of interesting meetings which will feed into the Types Project (see below) and a number of discussions with organisations which will enable us to develop new services. We will keep you informed as we progress.

Types Project

We are progressing with the Types Project. If you are unaware, this is the extensive project which will involve reclassifying all of Ringgold’s Identify records with multiple types and a much higher level of granularity. We are currently developing the technology to enable the multiple facetted classification system and drafting a schema which we will shortly be sending to you, or a nominated contact, for consultation.

We expect to be adding a number of features and functionality based on this new schema, once agreed upon, which will enable a considerable improvement on providing market penetration and gap analysis. This is intended to include a concept of “Level” whereby we can identify where an institution sits within an organisation so that each client can select the appropriate buying point, we are aware that this will differ both from publisher to publisher and by market sector.

The consultation process will be extensive, if you wish to see the plan, please email Laura Cox at info@ringgold.com. We hope to get the first draft of the schema to you shortly.

Ringgold projects

If you are interested in participating in any of the above projects or in providing us with any feedback please contact Laura Cox, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at info@ringgold.com.

Events

Ringgold will be attending the following events in the next few weeks:

Association of Subscription Agents Annual Conference
27-28 February 2012, London

UKSG Annual Conference
26-28 March 2012, Glasgow

If you would like to arrange an appointment, please contact us at info@ringgold.com

Due to the probable cancellation of Online Information in December, we may change the date of next year’s UK User Group Meeting. If you have any suggestions about dates or locations please let us know. Options include tying it to the UKSG or ALPSP conference, but we could easily hold it on a date that is not attached to a conference. The US User Group Meeting will be attached to the SSP Annual Conference as usual for 2012.

Spotlight on … Texas

The United State of America is about half the size of Russia and more than twice the size of the European Union. We’re focussing on the state of Texas, the Lone Star State. Texas has an impressive reputation in the business world. Accolades such as “Top State for  infrastructure and Transportation” (CNBC), “Texas Tops 2011 Business Climate Rankings” (Site Selection Magazine) and “Best State for Business” (Chief Executive Magazine) have been awarded.

Texas leads the nation in recession job growth, as the state gained 157,400 jobs between September 2007 and September 2011, while 45 other states lost jobs (The Business Journals, October 2011).

• The population in Texas was recorded as 25,674,681 (2010 census)
• The UN lists the total area as 695,621sq km
• In 2010, Texas had a gross state product (GSP) of $1.207 trillion, the second highest in the U.S.
• 2007 figures from the US economic census lists Texas as generating $16,987,227 from publishing activities.
• In 2010, Texas printing, publishing and similar products exports were valued at $463.6 million up from $400.1 million in 2009. (WISERTrade, 2010)

Meet Our Researcher

Stephanie Jones, based in New York, says:

“In many ways, United States records tend to be more accessible than some of the other countries we research. The reason for this is that US institutions usually have extensive websites; if not, online public directories are numerous. Some of the websites we use to find definitive information are Hoover’s online corporate directory, the NCES database, and the American Hospital Directory. However, I think the amount of available information may, in part, be reflective of a high rate of change. I would say that institutions need updating more often in the US than in many other countries: names, statistics, subsidiaries, owning institutions. Seemingly constant fluctuation requires researchers to make alterations to existing institution records as we audit customers’ files. It also means that sometimes the files we audit are out-of-date.

Texas, in particular, is its own microcosm of all the challenges of dealing with American records. As the second most populous state in the country, and the second largest, we deal with a large amount of records in Texas. It has also been undergoing many changes in the past few years. Despite good vital signs – like adding the lion’s share of new jobs in the country – the state is feeling the economic downturn just like everyone else in the US right now. Some of the worst affected are public libraries and schools: in the FY 2012-13 budget, the Texas State Government cut state library programs by 88 %. It also slashed funding to public schools by around $4 billion. It has been a time of many closures and consolidations.

We also keep our eye on hospital and corporate records in Texas. Texas is home to over 600 hospitals and 51 of the most profitable corporations in the US; we look for changing hospital systems, and corporate mergers and structural reorganizations.”

We find that data from these web sites provides a good starting point for our research on institutions in Texas:

• texas.gov
• www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com
• education information tea.texas.gov for schools
• State healthcare information www.dshs.state.tx.us

General US web sites include:
– education information nces.ed.gov
– hospitals ahd.com

Ringgold’s data in Texas

Nearly 6,000 Ringgold records are in the Identify Database for Texas. Institutions in the A1 Ringgold Tier for schools/special schools make up 25% of these with an additional 10% being hospitals.

The CDO holds seven records for consortia in Texas, including the Amigos Library Services which currently has over 700 members. Amigos recently announced that it is exploring a merger with another consortium, the Missouri Library Network Corporation. If this is confirmed, AMIGOS membership will rise to 1,000 libraries in 22 states. Amigos claims that this would make it “the largest library consortium west of the Mississippi River”.