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01/31/2007
Minutes January 19, 2007
by:Margaret Groesbeck, Amherst

Five College Libraries
Research, Instruction and Outreach Committee (RIO)
Minutes of the January 19, 2007 Meeting

Present: (RIO) Bonnie Vigeland (chair), Bryan Goodwin, Margaret Groesbeck (recorder), Sherre Harrington, Beth Lang, Barbara Polowy. (AIC/Project Manager): Jan Jourdain. (Cataloging): Mike Allard, Jane Beebe, D. Bonner, Mike Edwards, Gary Hough, Serena Smith

Joint RIO/Cataloging meeting

Help for Common Command Language
Jan Jourdain proposed -- and RIO approved -- the “help” provided by Florida State University for Common Command Language searching (http://fs.aleph.fcla.edu/tips_command.html) as the model for “help” with the Five College catalog’s Common Command Language searching. The icon for this help will be the universal “I” that stands for Information. Should the Five College catalog provide more prominent access to the command language feature? RIO will decide after usability testing the catalog interface.

New Titles in Aleph
The tab for “New Titles” already exists in the basic design; it is just commented out.

RIO and the Catalogers agreed that, if possible, all search features in the regular public catalog will be retained in the “new titles” search. “New Titles” will be a Five College logical base.

RIO has already agreed that the period new items will stay as “new titles” will be 90 days.

The Committees looked at MIT and UC/Santa Barbara Ex Libris catalogs as models for searching for “new” items. Each library seems to create a sub-set of records by a different method, but it is not clear by what methods and whether the programming applied to their databases would be applicable to the Five College database. The catalogers discussed different approaches to coding records for the creation of “New Titles”. The logical base might become confusing if, as some procedures in Five College libraries may dictate, order records rather than records of just received items were included. RIO wants to exclude orders because, if not, items could be excluded when received on the basis that they had already appeared in “New Titles”. There was discussion of automating the process. Unfortunately most ways of generating this logical base would more likely involve manually entering a code in each new record. Mike Edwards pointed out that there might be two basic approaches to creating “New Titles”: either select every new record and then exclude all records of items not wanted; or, select only those items that correspond to desired materials. It would probably be easier to exclude undesirable items. “New Titles” should exclude at least:

Serial issues and volumes
Depository transfers
Reserves from the general collections.

Each ADM could have slightly different procedures for establishing “New Titles”, but they should be as uniform as possible. The system could run a once-a-week job to create a combined database. RIO could accept a once-a-week update of the logical base.

It was agreed that the cataloger -s will work on specific procedures for creating searchable “New Titles” and that Jan Jourdain and Jane Beebe will try them out in the “test” database. A logical base to test should be ready in June. Once the database has been created, RIO and other public services librarians will try out searching in the early summer. “New Titles” will be ready for the public at the beginning of fall semester 2007.

RIO Conclusion of Meeting (after Joint Meeting)

There is going to be a new Aleph Management Committee including: the original Aleph Implementation Committee (AIC) plus other representatives from all Five Colleges. Beth Lang will be a member of the Committee and will be able to report back to both RIO (as a committee) and to UMass (as her institution). Five College Librarians Council plans to try out the new group for managing Aleph through the spring semester and then re-evaluate its structure and effectiveness.

RIO will have to develop more expertise with the structure of the ALEPH oracle tables over the next few months. It is important to understand what is possible within the framework of ALEPH. The meeting with the catalogers had been so informative that RIO may invite discussion from other committees in the future. Bryan Goodwin also pointed out that it would be good to establish a more clear - clearer procedure for proposing changes. RIO agreed that a major meeting (including other Five College librarians) could focus on the most effective ways to propose improvements and changes in the public catalog. FCLC is thinking about strengthening the role of RIO in decisions about the catalog and public interface. RIO should perhaps consider and draft some thoughts on the role of the public catalog now and in the immediate future.

Barbara Polowy urged usability testing before any further changes are discussed. RIO agreed that the next (February) meeting will be devoted to planning usability testing. RIO members may invite usability testing experts from their libraries. To plan, think of the top 10 aspects of the public catalog to test.

Next meeting: Monday, Feb. 12, at 9 am at Hampshire