Return to the plan
Appendix A: Detailed Objectives
The plan is exemplified here by using a selection of five information resources: SciFinder, Beilstein, Integrity, Investigational Drugs Database (IDdb), and Faculty of 1000. For each of these resources a set of objectives has been made and a specific implementation strategy has been determined. Expansion of this plan would target additional database services and online journal subscriptions. Please note that the dates in the timeline are relative to the original writing of this plan in November 2005.
SciFinder
SciFinder is a tool for searching chemical and biological literature, chemical and sequence registry information, and chemical reaction data. Celera licenses it on a per-use basis. This requires that the end-users, mostly PhD chemists, be trained to use the database efficiently and effectively.
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Objective 1: |
Reduce spending by chemists by 25%. |
By |
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Objective 2: |
Evaluate ability of SciFinder to satisfy the company’s bioinformatics needs in regard to sequence searching. |
By |
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Action Items: |
Statistics are already collected on an on-going basis. |
Monthly |
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Prepare training session and materials. |
1/06 |
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Offer quarterly training led by the library staff. |
Begin 2/06 |
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Invite vendor representative to train/introduce changes to product. |
Annually |
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Make users aware that staff is available for one-on-one training, via website and email advertisement. |
Monthly |
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Present usage/cost figures to departmental directors on an on-going basis. |
Quarterly: begin 1/06 |
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Contact individuals to discuss high usage. If high usage is unwarranted and repeated, contact individual’s supervisor. |
On-going: begin 12/05 |
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Educate sequence searchers on the uses and ability of SciFinder in comparison to GENESEQ in hopes that it will allow us to cancel the company’s six-figure subscription to GENESEQ. This can be done as a small group. |
2/06-3/06 |
Beilstein
Beilstein is a licensed organic chemistry database for which Celera pays an annual fee. Users may search as much as they want without incurring additional fees. Beilstein does not replace SciFinder, but often chemists will find information in Beilstein that will obviate the need for an additional search in SciFinder. Historically, Beilstein had a difficult user interface that was a barrier to some end-users. There has been reasonable improvement in the interface in the last two years and new training is in order.
Another factor is the location where Beilstein is used. The license allows us to install the software on 7 computer workstations. End-users would much prefer to have access on their desktops, but such a license is at an unreasonable cost for our budget. The software for Beilstein is currently only installed on 5 workstations in common areas of the chemistry building and in the Library.
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Objective 3: |
Increase usage by 20% in order to reduce SciFinder burden. |
By |
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Action Items: |
Make more Beilstein workstations available to the chemists. |
12/05 |
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Collect statistics on usage (available from the licensor). |
Monthly or quarterly |
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Prepare training session and materials. |
2/06 |
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Offer quarterly training led by the library staff. |
Begin 3/06 |
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Make users aware that staff is available for one-on-one training, via website and email advertisement. |
Monthly |
Integrity & IDdb
Integrity is a database that contains information on chemical compounds. It is used for competitive intelligence as a “pipeline database” as well as for scientific information including chemical synthesis, pharmacology, and pharmacokinetics. It is a relative new service for Celera and is a competitor to the Investigational Drugs Database (IDdb) that we have licensed for 5 years. The two databases contain similar pipeline information and it behooves the company to license both, but the terms of the licenses dictate different use in the company.
IDdb requires individual named users. We have purchased 100 seats and are currently at the maximum, with a waiting list of scientists who want to use IDdb. Integrity allows everyone at the company to have a username and we have contracted for an allowance of 5 users to be in the database at a given time.
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Objective 4: |
Integrity: Increase number of users that log in more than once per month by 30. |
By |
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Objective 5: |
Integrity: Increase total usage per month by 40%. |
By |
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Action Items: |
For 2 months, provide staff 2 hours per week of uninterrupted time to practice and become familiar with Integrity. |
12/05-1/06 |
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Prepare training session and materials. |
3/06 |
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Initially, offer monthly training led by the library staff. |
4/06-6/06 |
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Offer quarterly training led by the library staff. |
Begin 7/06 |
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Invite vendor representative to train/introduce changes to product. |
Annually |
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Make users aware that staff is available for one-on-one training, via website and email advertisement. |
Monthly |
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Offer Webex training to staff in |
Every other session. |
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Objective 6: |
IDdb: Reduce number of seats to 25. |
By |
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Action Items: |
Target occasional users of IDdb for training on and transition to Integrity. |
1/06-2/06 |
Faculty of 1000
Most of the literature-alerting services that are available allow a user to prepare a search on a specific topic. The service then sends an email when new articles are published that meet the criteria of the search. Faculty of 1000 is a relatively new service that takes a different approach. They contract with 1000 scientists to read the current literature and rate papers on the quality of research and importance of results. This curated information can save scientists a large amount of time and energy in the effort to keep abreast of the current literature. Our scientists that use the service rave about it, but it is still under-utilized. Usage statistics supplied by the publisher reveal that Celera's usage is quite random and does not represent any trend.
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Objective 7: |
Increase usage by 20% |
By |
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Action Items: |
Statistics are already collected on an on-going basis. |
Quarterly |
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Send more frequent email advertisements. |
Monthly |
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Prepare mini-seminar. |
4/06 |
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Offer quarterly mini-seminars showcasing the service. |
Begin 5/06 |
Branding
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Objective 8: |
Create new brand and logo for the Library |
By |
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Action Items: |
Brainstorm ideas and share among library staff |
12/05 |
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Choose best candidates and test on select users |
1/06 |
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Unveil new brand on website and other communications. |
2/06 |