09/29/2006
by:Margaret Groesbeck, Amherst
Minutes September 18, 2006
Five College Libraries
Research, Information and Outreach Committee (RIO)
Present: Bonnie Vigeland (chair), Bryan Goodwin, Margaret Groesbeck (recorder), Sherre Harrington, Beth Lang, Barbara Polowy,
Guests: Chris Hannon, Jan Jourdain
Minutes: Minutes from the RIO meeting of 8/17/06 are posted on 5 College libraries website
Aleph Public Catalog Testing/Aleph Public Catalog Issues
Jan and Chris reminded RIO of a memo from last fall which spelled out the 5 College libraries’ commitment to the original logical bases in the Aleph public catalog for at least this academic year. Changes in logical bases can be considered only after that.
Jan pointed out that so far there are over 105,000 lines of code for Aleph and that a feature that seems to have been successfully suppressed in several places may still emerge as a problem because of other lines of associated code.
Some questions from RIO about the catalog answered:
“The” and other initial articles are not suppressed. We should change contextual help to advise patrons not to input beginning articles (in any language).
“Owned/out” cannot be instituted because it conflicts with union view
Aleph can display only one format in union view; that is why online versions only show up there. The only recourse may be to suppress format in union view.
“Alerts” will probably not be available until January.
Jan outlined some known issues for Aleph that are all already scheduled:
30 different sets of records such as EEBO, ebrary, etc., must be loaded
Multiple URLs must be cleaned up
Problem records in union view must be reconciled and cleaned up
Call numbers must be re-indexed
Brief records now suppressed; they must be re-built to display (Music librarians are very interested in them.)
Long headings must be alphabetized
“Bound with”s are not yet in system
Chris will compile a list of known issues and send it to RIO.
Chris noted that she returned the original spreadsheets with problem and enhancement reports from all institutions with comments. She had asked for a unified spreadsheet with all 5 College reports pulled together by Oct. 1, but that deadline was arbitrarily selected to give AIC some time to catch up on known problems before tackling others. Now the deadline has been extended until after RIO’s meeting on Oct. 16.
Immediate plans for RIO:
RIO members should each create 2 lists: errors and desired enhancements. Clearly distinguish between catalog malfunctions and “improvements”.
What seems simple coding mistakes or errors in cataloging could be batched and reported weekly to the institution’s AIC representative
Compile major issues and enhancement requests and ultimately create unified RIO lists for Jan and Chris
Test “functionality” first. Go through all the major screens and functions and make sure they all work. Before AIC can prioritize enhancements, it must make sure that all functionality in the system as currently implemented actually works.
Bonnie will create spreadsheet reporting forms and all reports from all 5 Colleges will be entered on them, submitted to Bonnie before the Oct. 16 meeting. She will reconcile the items on them, and RIO will discuss any conflicts and prioritize the items for the 5 College lists at its next meeting.
RIO members will divide up the search elements in Basic and Advanced Search, test them, and then follow the results all the way through all possible outcomes (availability, saving, adding to folders, emailing, request items, etc.). Issues should be entered on reporting spreadsheets.
All functions will be tested on MACs and PCs with 3 common browsers (IE, Firefox, and Safari).
To test Basic Search:
Keywords anywhere (Amherst)
Title begins with (Amherst)
Title keywords (Hampshire)
Journal title keywords (Hampshire)
Author (last name first) (Mount Holyoke)
Author keywords (Mount Holyoke)
Subject begins with (Smith)
Subject keywords (Smith)
Call number begins with (UMass)
Standard numbers (UMass)
To test Advanced Search:
Title keywords (UMass)
Author keywords (UMass)
Keywords anywhere (UMass)
Journal title keywords (Smith)
Subject keywords (Smith)
Genre (Smith)
Publisher (Mount Holyoke)
Place of publication (Mount Holyoke)
Notes (Mount Holyoke)
Years from __ to __ (Hampshire)
Language (Hampshire)
Format (Amherst)
Location (Amherst)
It was pointed out that, although there was no time to test the system live before introducing it, Aleph is being de facto usability tested every day. RIO members should probably keep track of comments that come into their libraries. Formal usability testing, however, will be deferred until late November. This schedule will allow Jan and others to address known issues before the formal testing takes place and will give an accurate picture of the public’s reaction to the public catalog’s design and function.
Margaret Groesbeck
