Minutes of the April 15, 2010 Meeting

Present:

Stephanie Bartz (chair & recorder), Natalie Borisovets, Ellen Calhoun, Theo Haynes, Li Sun, Bob Warwick

Excused:

Sara Harrington

1. Symphony 3.3.1

Bob has done some additional work on the Rev C pages for Rev D and hopes to have enough of the changes in place to demo at the May meeting.

2. Media booking button

• Additional work was done on the Media Booking button and it's now ready for review by the Media staff. The question of whether undergrads can use the booking option to have films delivered between Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and/or Newark was raised. Camden currently does this with staff intervention. Stephanie will contact Jane Sloan and Ka-Neng Au about testing the button, booking for undergraduates, and updating the booking page to which the button connects.
• In the process of setting the parameters which cause the Media Booking button to display, additional limits were set to make the Book Delivery/Recall button more context sensitive. It will, for example, no longer display for media, reference books, or material that is on order. Bob will move these enhancements into the live catalog.
• Additional parameters for suppressing the Article Delivery button still need to be determined. Is Article Delivery ever appropriate for material that circulates (-Y)? Stephanie will contact Judy Gardner.

3. Book Delivery/Recall page

The latest version of the Book Delivery/Recall page is an improvement, but there are still outstanding concerns about the arrangement and the varying use of the word campus. The difference between the services that can be used between any of the seven campuses and those that can only be used between Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and/or Newark needs to be better explained. It was also suggested that the section that lists other options might be easier to follow if the button images were aligned. Stephanie will redraft the page and send the revised version for posting and further review.

4. IRIS feedback and fixes

• The problem with the Book Delivery/Recall button not appearing as an option when a record is retrieved via a call number search has been fixed. Stephanie will notify those who recently sent messages about the issue.
• Feedback was received asking that we look into adding a "Bookmark this item" feature to IRIS so that users can link to specific catalog records. This feature became available with Symphony 3.3 (release notes p.184) and will be looked at along with other Rev. D features.
• A complaint about the length of the IRIS timeout was received. It was agreed that the timeout should be extended to 20 minutes. Bob will implement the change.
• IPAC was notified that changes in cataloging standards have resulted in some records displaying multiple 260s (Publication info). The "Journal of Anglican Studies" was cited as one example. The years relative to each publisher are currently suppressed in the IRIS display. Adding the delimiter 3 information to the default display for the 260 field will make the years visible. Bob will implement this change in the test system for further review and check to see how many records with multiple 260s are already in IRIS. The catalogers are also looking at this issue, so we'll need to coordinate any changes with any decisions made there.
• It was suggested that library groups should be implemented in IRIS so that users can limit to more than one library when doing a search, and more specifically, so that users can limit to any library plus RU-ONLINE. These would have to be predefined groups, so Bob will create some in the test catalog. There are multiple issues to consider such as:
  • Can one library be included in multiple groups?
  • Should there be other groups besides each library + RU-ONLINE?
  • Is there a way to display the search limit so that users can always tell what library limit they're using?

5. IRIS Guide and checklist for testing software updates

The IRIS Guide was divided into seven parts and each IPAC member was given a section to review. (Stephanie - Reserves; Natalie - Basic Search; Ellen - Call Number Search; Sara - Search Results; Theo - Advanced Search; Li- Requesting; Bob - My Account). Instructions will first be tested in the production system so that the IRIS Guide can be updated as needed. A list of steps for future testing prior to a catalog upgrade will be created at the same time. Finally, the steps will be carried out in the test system to insure that there are appropriate records available to match what's described in the testing checklist.

6. Information Sharing

• The final report from the ethnographic research project, "Studying Students to Enhance Library Services at Rutgers: Principles and Priorities for Moving from Research to Redesign and Development of the Libraries Website," recommends the creation of a new group that will include representation from IPAC.
• Tibor Purger, the Director of Integrated Information Systems, has been invited to attend the May 13^th meeting of IPAC.

7. Next meeting

May 13, 1:30 p.m., University Librarian's Conference Room

5/6/2010sb