Minutes of February 10, 2005 meeting

Present:

J.Reinhart, N.Mukherjee, D.Meister, B.Lipinski, B.Warwick, J.Teichmann, J.Gardner, K.Anderson (at Camden), D.Voorhees, P.Weniger, E.McElroy, R.Smith, G. Sandberg, A. Martinez

Excused:

M.Tokar. We were unable to make a videoconference connection to Dana.

Agenda:

1. Upgrade to U2003.1.4.
2. ILL and PALCI Billing Proposal.
3. Misc. Items.
4. Announcements and Information Sharing.

1) Upgrade to U2003.1.4

This upgrade primarily fixes bugs, for example User Name browse will be restored, but we still need to test thoroughly. Staff volunteered for the following. Judy will email testers a reminder with test logins, users, the override, and IPs.

User Maintenance- Eugene; Charge and Discharge- Penny; Renew- Glenn; Create and Delete Brief Records-Roger (ILL records-Glenn); Check Item status, Manage Transit, Display Items-Andy; Holds and Recalls- Nita; Requests- Katie; Billing- Jeff; User Functions in Webcat- (unable to test because iLink is installed in the text system); Reserves- Zohreh, Darryl; Bookings- Jan; Reports- Dean

Please email Chris and Judy any problems and observations no later than MARCH 7th. Testers can work in pairs, and involve others. The upgrade will probably start the first Sunday of spring break (March 13) and run into Monday.

2) ILL and PALCI Billing Proposal

ASC made a number of suggestions and corrections to the proposal. Judy will incorporate them into a revised draft for the ILL Committee to review at its meeting next week. We also reviewed the latest Timetable of Notices, Bills, and Item & User Statuses for overdue books.

3) Misc. Items

• A comprehensive list of Notices and their texts will be created after the new ILL and PALCI notices are implemented.
• We discussed how to handle requests to place REF items, single issues of current periodicals, and single volumes on Reserve.
• The reserve syllabus format, currently in PDF, has problems with the new proxy and the working group will test an html format.
• Katie will look into creating generic screen shots for Robeson's ereserve tutorial.
• We will run a Barred user list for fall registration on the 15th and begin placing academic holds, even though the deadline has not yet been announced by Student Financial Services.
• An Alex recon missing book reports will be added to the suite of regular Missing Book reports.

4) Announcements and Information Sharing

• When the information in a user's WorkFlows library record is current but their RUOnline Directory entry is old, we refer patrons to OIT to make updates; options include-- the online make corrections forms, paper forms available from departments, visit a lab and speak directly with a consultant, and write to online help (helpdesk@nbcs.rutgers.edu in New Brunswick/Piscataway.)
• There has been a number of textbook thefts at Kilmer recently; students leaving items unattended for 5 minutes. Staff are posting signs, doing more frequent walk throughs, and working with RUPD. Alex also had cell phones and a laptop reported stolen.
• Systems is removing rejected Yankee approval plan records from the catalog.
• iLink, which will replace WebCat, is in the test system and access staff are encouraged to look at it: http://libserv2.Rutgers.edu/uhtbin/webcat. It's a work in progress; all functionality has been turned on and IPAC is working on the configuration. It is projected to go into production during May intersession and this may involve system down time for rebuilds. In response to questions, Bob noted that the link to Amazon has been turned off, the link to Google is on, and that the data stream (dust jackets, table of contents, etc.) was not purchased by RUL.
• RUL is in Sirsi's queue to receive Director's Station, probably the end of March or beginning of April. It will not necessarily eliminate the need for reports that trained access services staff are running.
• Part of SMLR's collection temporarily stored in the Annex has returned and is being shelved. SMLR can now honor RDS and ILL requests for articles.
• A meeting of the Ereserves Working Group will be held later in the spring semester.
• Will Torres last day is this Friday, Ines Gessner's last day is Monday, and interviews are being conducted for the LA2 position at SERC.
• Adobe 6 has been installed on all reserve services staff PCs. Users who reported they are unable to download ereserve documents probably need to upgrade Adobe on their PCs, version 5 is a happy medium. All library public access PCs are at 6. Darryl is happy to take referrals and answer user questions.
• NBL Reserve functional group will study the current schedule for removing brief records and may recommend changes to ASC.
• Reserve staff are reminded when providing links to e-journal articles to provide the same link as is provided in IRIS per our policy. Do not give article level URLs as these are not constant and will change. Students will need to further search by title, issue, etc. to reach specific articles.
• Transfers from the LSM special collections room are ready to commence, efiles of barcodes will be provided to Systems for batch updates in IRIS. Some items are in need of special boxes and this will be coordinated with collection services staff.
• Math Library is preparing backruns for transfer to the Annex.
• Annex staff is working with Chemistry faculty and preparing to receive and temporarily house over 300 archival boxes of data from NSF's Protein Data Bank.
• RDS and Reserves are busy at Alex and with staff absences, coverage is being shifted and staff pitching in.
• Katie videoconferenced from Robeson's digital lab, using a webcam and headset, since there were two systemwide meetings scheduled during this slot.
• Robeson is preparing for a display of Camden campus faculty authors and reception in March, recently received a donation of Disney books, working on job descriptions and posting for two open positions in technical services.
• Chang has gone from 60 degrees during boiler replacement in Foran Hall to 78 degrees now. Staff are learning how to user a new color scanner and with the new Adobe 6.
• Music needs to double its CD storage space and is working on a proposal, receiving a row of shelving from Douglass to ease crowding in the book stacks.
• ILL is looking to improve their user interface screens in IRIS, meeting with reference staffs in NBL, recently lost voucher and work-study students.
• Douglass too just lost 5-6 work-study students, has beta WorkFlows loaded on a staff PC now.
• The NBL building security and maintenance group will discuss thefts in the libraries and preventive measures/suggestions.
• Imaging services has been busy with software and hardware updates; flash drive sales are going well.
• Reviewed topics to be discussed at the Access Services symposium at Princeton in March, participants were urged to submit their travel reimbursement forms to Lucye.
• There will be a Sirsi Northeast Users Group meeting June 12-15 in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University.

* * * The MARCH 10th ASC meeting is CANCELLED. * * *

NEXT MEETING: Thursday, April 14, 2005, 9:30 a.m.