Libraries: Research, Instruction, and Outreach Committee |
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04/10/2007 Five College Libraries Present: Bonnie Vigeland (chair), Bryan Goodwin, Margaret Groesbeck (recorder), Barbara Polowy. Margaret will be recorder for this meeting. Beth will take minutes at the next meeting. Bonnie has already put the minutes from the last meeting on the RIO page on the Five Colleges website. Beth has let us know that all testing of the next service pack for ALEPH is on “hold”. She will let RIO members know when the ALEPH Management Committee has decided to go ahead with more service packs and testing. Usability Testing of ALEPH Public Catalog Survey : The Survey Monkey survey is up on the public catalog and will be on individual library websites. The survey will run through Sunday, April 8. RIO may look at some results at its next meeting. Certainly the results will help inform Susan Kohler-Gray’s approach to the catalog in the focus groups. Amherst is planning to solicit faculty participation through its academic department liaisons and with advertisements on the local Daily Jolt. Others are not sure about more advertising. Margaret will ask Susan Edwards about how results are displayed and how they can be manipulated. (On-going results are at http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=340723718729) Focus Groups: FCLC has approved focus groups about the ALEPH public catalog for one college and the University of Massachusetts. Smith was chosen as the sample college. Each institution will have one group of students and another of faculty. (UMass will consider including graduate students, especially TAs, perhaps with faculty. Barbara will consult Beth about this.) Focus groups will take a day – or _ day – on each campus. Susan Kohler-Gray will have some preparation time and some time allotted to compile information gathered at the sessions. No more than 2 RIO members will be allowed to observe each focus group. They should be silent observers unless they are specifically called on to answer a question. No librarians from the institution where the focus group is being held should be an observer. All RIO members are interested in attending. The groups will be scheduled the week of April 23. Smith has chosen Tuesday, April 24. Beth will choose another day. Usability Testing with Subjects. Smith has drawn up a list of questions for in-person usability testing. RIO revised the questions, taking out a question about language because of ambiguities about language in the indexing in ALEPH. RIO members should consult with colleagues and get back to Bonnie with suggestions in a few days. Each campus will find 5 subjects. Look at the responses to Survey Monkey and perhaps key choices of subjects by what kinds of patrons responded (and may have the most to say about the public catalog). We will try to do the usability testing Wednesday, April 11-Thursday, April 19. Summaries should be available April 20, in time for Susan Kohler-Gray to see them before the focus groups. Next meeting: Monday, April 9, at 9 am at Hampshire | |