Minutes of the January 19, 2012 Meeting

Present:

Stephanie Bartz (chair), Natalie Borisovets, Ellen Calhoun, Theo Haynes, Jane Otto (recorder), Bob Warwick; Melissa De Fino (guest)

Excused:

Joseph Deodato

1. MARC-Full display

• SC/UA comments contained recommendations for Manuscripts and Maps fields, as well as MARC (i.e. Books) fields. Jane will move recommendations on the other formats to the appropriate worksheets.
• There were four fields recommended for additions: 020 (ISBN), 022 (ISSN), 590 (local note), and 700 subfield 'e' (relator terms)
• 020 and 022 were proposed to facilitate identification of copies/variants. Consensus was to omit these from the Full display; users probably are not familiar with fine distinctions between identifiers, and some records will contain numerous numbers; the potential to confuse might outweigh the potential to clarify
• There are 252,000 occurrences of the 590 notes, including notes on Patron Driven Acquisitions, IJS database conversion identifiers (50,143 records, although in the Music format), and gift notes (3,890 records). A decision on this field will require further investigation into what kinds of notes will actually display to users. Bob will produce two reports: A sortable list of 590 notes, and the number of SC/UA records with record type 'MARC' with a 590 note. The size of the entire database should be considered when making the decision; 590s will not display on every single record, and in fact may display on relatively few MARC records.
• 700 subfield e displays relator terms, for example: Morgan, John Pierpont, $d 1837-1913, $e collector. The Committee agreed to add the subfield, since displaying it only adds information to a line (700) which is already displayed. SC/UA uses the subfield only for 700 fields but Melissa will identify other fields for which it may be valid. Bob also noted that subfields added to a full display will apply across all formats. However, this subfield is usually only used on SC/UA records; a similar subfield, 4, for relator codes, has been used in the past in the VM and Music formats.
• There was a discussion of some obscure, rarely used fields which perhaps should be cleaned up. There is a SIRSI limit to the number of fields which can be indexed, so if any of these fields are in fact indexed, we could eliminate them from the catalog and thereby free up index space for indexing of more important fields. This is not an LCC issue, however, but could be discussed in Technical and Automated Services.
• Fields 658 and 931 have no occurrences and will be removed.

2. Logout option

• Bob will modify the button so that it has a dark blue background with an image of a lock and the word Logout in white text. The new button will be put in test and then into production.
• Stephanie will draft a notification message for RUL-Everyone and update the User Guide.

3. Mid-year report

• Minor revisions were proposed and accepted
• Stephanie will reorder the list, originally drafted in chronological order, to order by importance, with major projects at the top

4. Finalizing VM-full changes

Tabled till the next meeting.

5. Continuing review of Project Chart

• Bob implemented the 'continue' button on three My Account pages that had used the old style
• Bob reviewed the testing problems and questions, will fix as possible, and report back
• Bob would like to actively work on the three items currently listed as "In Process";
  the Committee agreed to prioritize these:
  • Media booking button (only appears when an item is at a Media Desk)
  • Make Article Delivery more context sensitive
  • Make E-Zborrow more context sensitive (e.g., when all items are checked out or otherwise unavailable, button should display). Generate list of current criteria so we can determine what needs to be added.

6. Library Catalog feedback and fixes

• Several users have inquired about Permalinks breaking when emailed, and there was some discussion of whether there can or should be some instruction in the permalink popup. While technically that's possible to do, this is not a problem unique to the Library Catalog and the Committee agreed it was not desirable to start providing instructions on other applications. As an alternative, a tip could be added to the User Guide (for example, to create a shorter link using tinyurl.com), then a Link to the guide put in the popup.
• Stephanie will draft some text and forward it to Bob with a link to the User Guide, to test.

7. Information sharing

• Several Committee members reported on the VALE conference. Information and demos related to the VALE OLS project are available at "http://users.drew.edu/gdobson/voit/demo.html
• The 3.4 upgrade went smoothly; there were a very few small issues, all of them addressed immediately

8. Next meeting

February 16, 1:30 p.m. Remaining meetings for the calendar year continue on the third Thursday of each month.