Minutes of March 30, 2004 meeting

Present:

Sal Cardinale, Megan Doyle, Marc Forster, Priscilla Lee, Michele Tokar(recorder), Nicole Warren, Paul Young

Absent:

Ray Balter, May Chin, Will Torres, Dave Warner

Agenda

• Mid-Year Report
• FAQs
• Two Email Addresses for RA and Surrogate Users
• Add Brief Title Updated
• Goals for Next Year
• Information Sharing

1. Mid-Year Report

Michele handed out copies of the Mid-Year report to the entire CFG. The Mid-Year report outlined, in brief, all the projects the group had worked on throughout the fiscal year, including the survey, the training, and Checkout: simple vs complex analysis. The group will look over the Mid-Year report and determine if anything else should be added for the final year end report. The group decided it would be a good idea to include Marc Forster's development of the Webpage in the annual report.

2. FAQs

Michele asked the group their opinion on sending out the FAQs via the listserv. Everyone agreed that it should work well. We would try it out and see the response. The group thought an FAQ every two weeks would work. The group is going to work together to create some logo, or catchy phrase. Some members of the group submitted suggestions and will work on them back at their units.

3. Two Email Addresses for RA and Surrogate Users

The group talked about the recent problem regarding the change in the system after the upgrade and how the two e-mail addresses in WorkFlows were not functioning. Chris Sterback investigated and found that there was a problem with the system being able to read the two e-mail addresses in the current configuration. The solution was to omit the space between the two e-mail addresses. The e-mail addresses will appear as "mtokar@rci.rutgers.edu,pris@rci.rutgers.edu" (not an actual record, an example). The Systems department ran a report of the non-working records (usually RA and surrogate records) and the CFG took out the space in 104 pre-existing users' records.

4. Add Brief Title Updated

In the previous directions for Add Brief Title for Circ on the Fly, the "Shadow Title" option was erroneously checked off. This feature is under the properties for Add Brief Title. This will help the coordination between Database Management Team and Access Services run smoothly.

5. Goals for Next Year

• The Circulation Manual is in its final stages. All the wizard and instructions have been completed. The introduction and instructions need to be edited.
• Welcome Notebook for Access/Collection Services department. The group talked about creating a notebook in conjunction with the other functional groups that could serve as a general manual for staff members. The manual would contain an introduction to the department, information about how the department works, and other key points about each function within Access Services, i.e. circulation, RDS, Reserves, Billing, Student Coordination. Circulation could include information about the phones, how to use them, e-mail, customer service, where to find information about confidentiality and disability, and a list of libraries and their collection. The other functional groups could provide an overview of the services they provide and include some statistics. We thought this would be helpful, especially to a new staff member. Would be great for training.
• Training: The CFG talked about different ways to train. Perhaps training could be year round at each unit and take place during staff meetings. Different members of the different functional groups could train on one topic at a staff meeting. This could be an idea to present to the coordinator's group.

6. Information Sharing

E-mail Quota - The group discussed the new quota limitations on their RCI accounts. This is causing problems for some people. Systems is looking for a way to download e-mails from netscape onto a CD.

Alexander:

- Received 75 new chairs. Erica resigned.

Chang:

- Quiet. Nicole is working on the manual and the Access database. Nicole said that Chang would find more directions for M/film useful. She would like to see directions on how to circulate M/Film or Fiche for RUL to another unit if a machine is broken or they cannot view at a particular unit. This would include M/Film for RUL and for ILS.

Chemistry:

- Quiet. Megan working on the Flash project for Douglas-the digital map.

Collection Services:

- Sal said that CS is very busy with the weeding project. Sal asked about Gov Docs - how to tell when they circulate or do not. He also asked about different parts of the collection such as periodicals shelved in the regular stacks, annual statistics, and annual reports: why some circulate when they should not. Michele will look into this.

Kilmer:

- Moved the career and career ref section. There is more room for study tables. New furniture and furniture repair taking place. Paul said he will help edit the annual report.

LSM:

- Access checking Fire doors. Still waiting for new signs for the stairwells asking patrons not to use cell phones.

- Weeding: over 11,000 titles weeded.

- Special Collections: working on an inventory of the titles added online. Marc still busy working on the webpage, updating it and upgrading it.

Next Meeting - Thursday, April 22nd