Cornell’s work on POOF! (Pre-Order Online Form)
http://poof.library.cornell.edu/content/about
Boaz Nadav-Manes
Director, Acquisitions and Automated Technical Services
What is Poof!?
• POOF! is an online tool built with Drupal,
• Uses queries that acquire bibliographic metadata from WorldCat or
entered manually into the system.
• Presents the data in a user friendly fashion.
• Subject specialists at both Columbia and Cornell can review the
bibliographical information and discover if an item is already held by the
other 2CUL partner,
• The specialist will be also able to reject or defer an item for additional
review.
• A preset matrix determines where the purchase will be made from (based
on variables within the metadata associated with the material to be
purchased.)
• Various scripts enact the decisions in the appropriate system that will
create the acquisitions record and purchase order in Voyager.
• The tool provides avenues for subject specialists to interact across
institutions with each other (and with contributing vendors) regarding the
value of the items reviewed, ranking them in terms of their usefulness,
and adding comments.
Originally, it was meant to replace this…
Keep in Mind
POOF! CAN BE USED FOR OTHER PURPOSES
POOF! broad outline
POOF backend detailed
Workflow:
POOF Titles are
selected
Records loaded into WCS stream
Records are matched in a matrix with vendors
Scores, Documents, Visual
material are kicked out and
assigned vendor by
specialists
YES
Is it a non-book
format?
NO
Is there a matching
vendor?
NO
Order specialists assign
vendor and add fund, price
and location taken from WCS
records
YES
Is there an
existing record
in Voyager?
YES
Is it an
exact
duplicate?
NO
Pending POs are created
MS Access reports identify notes which are
added to line items
POs approved and sent to
vendors via EDIs or mailed to
vendors
NO
YES
Records are
rejected and
emails are
sent to
selectors
Who are the users of POOF!?
•
•
•
•
Subject specialists
Library patrons (faculty, students, staff)
Acquisitions processing staff
Materials vendors
So how does it work (the full view):
On average the whole
process takes no more than
a few seconds per request!
Step 1: enter (or copy-and-paste ) an ISBN, UPC (for DVDs or
CDs), or OCLC number to search WorldCat for matching records
and hit enter to receive a table of results.
The multiple results reflect the different records which matched the OCLC ISBN
search.
Alternatively use Manual Data Entry –POOF! allows vendors to submit title offers
directly to selectors using a manual entry option (and to override the OCLC search) by
keying-in elements like: ISBN, title, author, place of publication, LC class, etc. The
vendor can also add complementary notes to the offers.
The vendor uses the “Forward” button to send the metadata to any POOF! users –
the new titles will await the selector in their POOF! Inbox for ordering decisions.
Step 2: Examine results and choose an adequate record
– for example an electronic or print version of the title .
Quite often selectors discover an electronic option that they were not aware of before.
Cornell encourages selectors to pick the records with a call number…
Continue to examine results - make sure that your library or a consortia don’t hold the
item already by looking at the traffic lights (symbols reflect OCLC conventions). Green
= no party has the item, Yellow = one party owns the item, Red = all parties own the
item. Traffic light symbols can accommodate any preference an individual selector has.
For example: choose to show Princeton and Yale instead of 2CUL.
Hit the OCLC linked numbers if you
would like to receive more title information:
Step 3: choose the record that suits your order request and
examine the automatically populated bibliographic long view to
make sure all the details are correct
It is not too late to make format adjustments – you can override
the format designation by clicking on a different format.
Step 4: Fill ordering information (location, fund, price) and add a
requester as needed
The note field facilitates communication between all POOF! participants:
selectors, staff, and vendors. The records with the notes can be forwarded to
any member across institutions at any time.
Step 5: hit order – a confirmation message will appear
Note that the Order button will be grayed out unless fund, location,
and a price is added!
The ordered item moves to an “Ordered” folder for further processing. You can also
choose to defer or forward an item to another member. All the ordered items move to
the “Exported folder” overnight.
Items in the Inbox folder can be voted about by selectors or vendors for quick
prioritization (for example: if a faculty participates in the selection process
he/she can deem some titles as “awesome” or “poor” and forward them to
the selector for fund allocation)
Items in the Exported folder can be searched and
traced back for reference
All items have a transection history
that records also the notes added
at what date:
Behind the scenes the POOF exported marc file is matched daily
against built-in logic tables (MATRIX) that allow the automatic
creation of pending purchase orders.
The fund and vendor tables can be customized and loaded into production
at any time by POOF! cross institutional administrators via Cornell’s LSTools:
LSTools is used to initiate many of Cornell’s scripted jobs and allows non-specialists
to fold complicated automation routines into their daily workflows. LSTools is also
used to monitor POOF! activity and validity of tables and rules.
At 8:30AM a script picks up a new POOF! file and runs it against the matrix. It is aimed
to recognize specific elements in the marc records mostly taken from 260, the 008 and
the Leader fields and matches them against a vendor
Monographs
Year of publication
Chosen vendor
Approval publishers
It also recognizes different formats and channels the records to specific paths
for additional processing.
Ingesting the records into the LMS occurs differently across institutions. Cornell used Voyager’s
bulk-load rules to automatically create pending orders while Columbia and Harvard use pearl
scripts to do the same.
Printed music
Projected medium
More than 90% of the records are automatically assigned to a
vendor and do not need extra handling by Acquisitions staff!
We can also guarantee a 24 hour turnaround time instead of 48 hours on
average for a manually created purchase order!
POOF! stats: June 2011 through June 2013
9576 Cornell items (2601 Columbia items – since November 2012) in the system
7834 Total POOF Bibs in Voyager
7188 POOF-related Line Items that have been invoiced and paid for.
PIECE COUNT purchased on those Invoices: 7474 (because sometimes we order more
than one copy)
Number of pieces Acquired by FY:
FY11: 192
FY12: 3566 FY13: 3716 (to 6/10/2013)
Total Amount Spent: At least $524,564.69 (not counting items for which we ordered
more than 3 copies)
Number of E-BOOK Bib records with POOF 035s: 664
Exceptions of any kind (no country information, no vendor etc.) are moved to
a specific folder and are called “kick-outs”. These records are funneled to
specific folders according to vendors or formats
These “Kick-out” records are kept in their MARC format and need to be imported
manually into our system and verified against our existing records. Each of them still
retains the WCS selection information provided like funds, notes etc.
Location
Vendor
Price
Manually entered records –the free text fields automatically converts into
discoverable MARC and include fixed fields (like country of publication, date,
and language) which together with purchasing information allows the
creation of automatic purchase orders via a matrix
Automation routines (enacted via LSTools) are used to do some quality control
of the records (definite article, leader, country and year of publication)
Future POOF! enhancements
Already on our list:
•Redirecting ILL unfulfilled order requests to selector’s Inbox for consideration and
decision making.
•Missing or lost items will be forwarded automatically to selectors’ new items queue.
•Notifications of availability of alternate formats (electronic/print) of patron-driven
order requests.
•Refresh of deferred or pending requests against the WorldCat and Voyager data.
•Using other library and vendor databases to retrieve additional (non OCLC) metadata
•Control to configure preferences for showing/hiding fields will be managed at the
individual institution.
•Amazon.com routing in vendor matrix.
•Create a sustainable governance team and a scalable business model.
What do selectors say?
“POOF has been a great time saver. It is so much more efficient to be able to track orders I have placed in POOF rather than sifting
through email or copies of print orders to see this activity. The user interface is clean, quick and easy to use – it is very handy to be able
to just put in an OCLC or ISBN to have the form populated. Using the OCLC number has also been great to pinpoint the exact edition
wanted and is particularly helpful when placing orders for DVDs or other visual material. It has also been an efficient way for ordering
new titles that haven’t made it to WorldCat Selection yet or are generally outside our profile. The ability to see Columbia holdings and
the possibility of adding other libraries is another useful feature”.
Maureen Morris (Anthropology and Native American History Selector)
Fred Muratori (Bibliographer for English-language Literature, Theater & Film)
Kaila Bussert (Visual Resources Outreach Librarian, General Social Sciences Selector)
“As a CUL selector, I was very happy to see the library launch POOF! It is the easiest tool I have used for ordering known items for the
collection. CUL has used WorldCat Selection for several years and it remains an essential tool for identifying and ordering books in the
fields I cover; POOF! handles types of orders and facilitates varieties of collection development practice that WCS does not
accommodate well. POOF! is fast and light-weight. It enables me to respond to patron purchase requests nearly effortlessly, and it
allows me to work easily from online and paper publishers’ catalogs (something that I had almost stopped doing as our workflow shifted
to WCS).
For the past year or so, I have been working with colleagues at Princeton on coordinating our collection development activity in the area
of German literary and cultural studies. A new feature in POOF! allows me to set the holdings display to show holdings for both Cornell
and Princeton for every item that I search. At launch, the display showed holdings information for the 2CUL institutions, and I am very
pleased that the POOF! team has now enabled selectors to customize this display to support various collaborations in which they are
involved.”
Kizer Walker, Director of Collection Development, Managing Editor, Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought
(http://signale.cornell.edu/)
“I see that I have exported 360 titles in POOF! That means that I account for 14% of the POOF! activity. As my use attests, it is working
really well for me right now. “
Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor, Digital Scholarship and Preservation Services
“I really like Poof!”
Eric Acree, Director, John Henrik Clarke Africana Library
“In general, POOF is very easy to use for online ordering and is a big advancement.”
SOME HISTORY…
Some history…
On Friday, February 13th, 2004 the Integrated Tool for Selection and
Ordering at Cornell University Library (ITSO CUL -- pronounced it's
so cool) launched.
An initiative by Collection Development to move away from the
printed 3x5 cards supplied through the LC Alerts Service. At Ross
Atkinson’s (AUL for Collections) request, David Block (Head, World
Area Programs, IRIS) organized a team that also included Peter
Hoyt of Library Systems and Howard Brentlinger of Collection
Development.
Their goal was to create a mechanism that would sort the
appropriate MARC records to selectors based on their existing
subject and area profiles.
Based on ITSO CUL, WorldCat Selection, which debuted in
December 2006 with Cornell staff as the first user, allows selectors
of library materials to view new title data from multiple vendors in
one central, comprehensive system.
More history…
By early 2009 almost half of the ordering activities at Cornell originated from
WorldCat Selection but the rest were still handled as paper requests, emails,
or catalogs handed over to the Ordering Unit for further processing.
In 2009 Boaz Nadav-Manes at Cornell suggested to build a new tool that will
fill that gap, in that it will be designed for manually entered data, whereas
WorldCat Selection was designed around approving/rejecting automatically
received vendor records.
It was clear that the work on such a tool will require additional resources that
were scarce at the time. Fortunately, soon after the 2CUL initiative has been
announced and the benefits of a cross institutional development of an
ordering and selection tool became apparent, the work on conceptualizing
the system has begun in a small team (Adam Chandler, Adam Smith, Steve
Rokitka, Rick Silterra and led by Boaz as project manager). The name POOF!
was coined by Scott Wicks who was inspired by Columbia’s predecessor to
POOF! – the Online Ordering Form (OOF).
POOF! launched at Cornell on May 24, 2011 and at Columbia on September
4, 2012. The work on accommodating POOF! to Harvard needs has begun
on June 17, 2013 and is close to completion.
A “sprint plan” for development
Num
Weeks
Sprint description
0
2
Planning
4
Create model in Drupal,
basic data entry, basic
forms (no AJAX).
Client/tester: Adam
Chandler
4
Queue management,
facilities for switchboard.
Client/tester: Adam
Chandler, Boaz
4
OCLC search, -SearchSearch-Search-SearchSearch-Search-SearchZotero harvest and improve
interface interactivity-------Client/tester: Adam
Chandler, Boaz, other?
parallel
Vendor matrix extensions
to support Columbia by
Pete Hoyt with help from
Boaz . Client/tester: Boaz,
Columbia representative
4a
4
Authentication add-on
either via CUWebAuth or
Shibboleth, account
management. Client/tester:
Adam Chandler, Columbia
representative
4b
parallel
Usability Tests with Boaz
and a group of selectors
5
4
Fix key issues from usability
testing, deploy. Client
tester: Adam Chandler,
Boaz, selectors?
na
na
Future Enhancements
1
2
3a
3b
Some of the challenges…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ISBN Information
Gamification, aka: game layer
Institutional differences…
Vendor Matrix and Fund Code Information
Roles
MARC Templates
Zotero (?) Information
Authentication Options
Book Covers
Use of OCLC’s API
POOF! teams
Cornell Team
•Boaz Nadav-Manes, project manager
Implementation Team
•Gary Branch
•Adam Chandler
•Pete Hoyt
•Chris Manly
•Rick Silterra
•Adam Smith, project support.
Columbia Consulting Team
•Evelyn Ocken
•Matthew Pavlick
•Mark Wilson
Harvard Consulting Team
•Danielle Adams
•Corinna Baksik
•Daryl Boone
•Matthew Sullivan
•Alison Thornton
For more details contact:
Boaz Nadav-Manes; btn3@cornell.edu