Libraries: Research, Instruction, and Outreach Committee : Minutes March 10,2008

03/10/2008
Minutes March 10,2008

RIO Meeting HampshireCollege March 10, 2008
Present at the meeting:
Barbara Polowy, Susan Kimball, Beth Lang, Sherre Harrington, Bonnie Vigeland and Bryan Goodwin, chair.

Sherre explained that the report from Susan Stearns on the issue with Ex Libris at the Five Colleges is still confidential. The Five College Library Directors have discussed revisions to the report, and Susan Stearns will issue a final report that incorporates those revisions. In the meantime, Sherre gave the committee some idea of general themes emerging from the report that are relevant to RIO’s work.

General issues:
1.RIO members need to do a better job educating themselves on how Ex Libris works by becoming more involved with Ex Libris user groups. One specific recommendation is for RIO members to attend ELUNA meetings for public services people. Ex Libris feels that RIO should take a stronger role in researching whatother Aleph institutions have done in order to find solutions for our own OPAC problems.

2.Several bugs were acknowledged by Ex Libris, e.g. the EDI system.

3.Ex Libris felt that communication among the 5 colleges needs to improve for dealing with Ex Libris issues.

4.Ex Libris recommended that the new administrator have SQL experience.

5.Ex Libris recommended that all public services people participate in the planned training in circulation and acquisitions functions in June.

6.The five colleges all need to re-consider the issue of union view and make a final decision on what to do. Ex Libris noted that not all problems with the system will be solved by dropping union view (e.g. PDQ issues).

7.Ex Libris recommended that the AMC shrink in size when the new administrator is hired.

Specific issues:
1.Relevancy ranking of results: Ex Libris feels there is a solution and points to the TTU catalog implementation.

2.Doing SIs for problems is strongly recommended.

3.For journal searching, Ex Libris feels that the SFX A-Z list is a solution.

4.Initial article issue: Ex Libris does not strip initial articles. They suggest a java routine or more prominent user help.

5.Modify search box on results screen: possible to do.

6.Context sensitive help: a java script problem; but if fixed, then JAWS will not work.

7.Navigation problems within the opac: Ex Libris has a recommendation for a fix.

8.Serials sorting: possible to fix.

9.Keywords in title results issue: should limit the tags searched (now 43 tags are searched; should we limit to the 245s?)

Sherre recommended that RIO begin working on these Ex Libris issues as soon as the report comes out. RIO should urge AMC to begin work on solutions as soon as possible.

The DEDCC Committee is exploring options for a new front end for the opac system. They are not looking at Primo, but will be organizing a demonstration/discussion of some other possibilities. RIO would like to get direction soon from the Five College Directors on where they stand on the adoption of a different front end for the OPAC system. RIO members felt a need for clarification on this issue prior to devoting a great deal of resources on making incremental improvements to the existing OPAC.

The committee discussed its role as an opac advisory group, a role which has taken up almost all of its time over the past two years. RIO members have been frustrated by the resulting lack of time to address other reference and instruction issues. And RIO members have been puzzled by the misperception by other 5 college library committees that the RIO committee has been resistant to change. We discussed ways to overcome that misperception.

Changes to the ALERTS function in the opac have been discussed via email and Barbara has summarized RIO’s opinions on vocabulary and fields to suppress for those screens. RIO would like to try out the ALERTS pages on MIT’s opac. Sherre will try to get a guest user account there so that we can take a look at how they have set up this service.

D. Bonner and Bryan will look at MIT’s method of dealing with problems with saving records (.sav file extension) from the opac. They will try to run the MIT process on the test server and Bryan will let us know the results of that test.

RIO’s next meeting will be on April 7th at 9:30am (a half hour later than usual) at Hampshire College.

Submitted by:
Bonnie Vigeland, Hampshire College


	03/10/2008 Minutes March 10,2008 RIO Meeting HampshireCollege March 10, 2008 Present at the meeting: Barbara Polowy, Susan Kimball, Beth Lang, Sherre Harrington, Bonnie Vigeland and Bryan Goodwin, chair. Sherre explained that the report from Susan Stearns on the issue with Ex Libris at the Five Colleges is still confidential. The Five College Library Directors have discussed revisions to the report, and Susan Stearns will issue a final report that incorporates those revisions. In the meantime, Sherre gave the committee some idea of general themes emerging from the report that are relevant to RIO’s work. General issues: 1.RIO members need to do a better job educating themselves on how Ex Libris works by becoming more involved with Ex Libris user groups. One specific recommendation is for RIO members to attend ELUNA meetings for public services people. Ex Libris feels that RIO should take a stronger role in researching whatother Aleph institutions have done in order to find solutions for our own OPAC problems. 2.Several bugs were acknowledged by Ex Libris, e.g. the EDI system. 3.Ex Libris felt that communication among the 5 colleges needs to improve for dealing with Ex Libris issues. 4.Ex Libris recommended that the new administrator have SQL experience. 5.Ex Libris recommended that all public services people participate in the planned training in circulation and acquisitions functions in June. 6.The five colleges all need to re-consider the issue of union view and make a final decision on what to do. Ex Libris noted that not all problems with the system will be solved by dropping union view (e.g. PDQ issues). 7.Ex Libris recommended that the AMC shrink in size when the new administrator is hired. Specific issues: 1.Relevancy ranking of results: Ex Libris feels there is a solution and points to the TTU catalog implementation. 2.Doing SIs for problems is strongly recommended. 3.For journal searching, Ex Libris feels that the SFX A-Z list is a solution. 4.Initial article issue: Ex Libris does not strip initial articles. They suggest a java routine or more prominent user help. 5.Modify search box on results screen: possible to do. 6.Context sensitive help: a java script problem; but if fixed, then JAWS will not work. 7.Navigation problems within the opac: Ex Libris has a recommendation for a fix. 8.Serials sorting: possible to fix. 9.Keywords in title results issue: should limit the tags searched (now 43 tags are searched; should we limit to the 245s?) Sherre recommended that RIO begin working on these Ex Libris issues as soon as the report comes out. RIO should urge AMC to begin work on solutions as soon as possible. The DEDCC Committee is exploring options for a new front end for the opac system. They are not looking at Primo, but will be organizing a demonstration/discussion of some other possibilities. RIO would like to get direction soon from the Five College Directors on where they stand on the adoption of a different front end for the OPAC system. RIO members felt a need for clarification on this issue prior to devoting a great deal of resources on making incremental improvements to the existing OPAC. The committee discussed its role as an opac advisory group, a role which has taken up almost all of its time over the past two years. RIO members have been frustrated by the resulting lack of time to address other reference and instruction issues. And RIO members have been puzzled by the misperception by other 5 college library committees that the RIO committee has been resistant to change. We discussed ways to overcome that misperception. Changes to the ALERTS function in the opac have been discussed via email and Barbara has summarized RIO’s opinions on vocabulary and fields to suppress for those screens. RIO would like to try out the ALERTS pages on MIT’s opac. Sherre will try to get a guest user account there so that we can take a look at how they have set up this service. D. Bonner and Bryan will look at MIT’s method of dealing with problems with saving records (.sav file extension) from the opac. They will try to run the MIT process on the test server and Bryan will let us know the results of that test. RIO’s next meeting will be on April 7th at 9:30am (a half hour later than usual) at Hampshire College. Submitted by: Bonnie Vigeland, Hampshire College