Minutes of September 5, 2002 Meeting

Present:

Judy Gardner, Nancy Hendrickson, Rhonda Marker, Ann Montanaro, Mary Page, Kayla Reichardt, Christopher Sterback (recorder), Bob Warwick

1. Upgrade to 2002 on test system

Chris reported that Systems would upgrade the test system to Unicorn 2002 by approximately the first week in October. In addition he summarized some of the more salient changes in this next release.

• SIRSI will deliver an all-tools toolbar that will contain all the modules and all wizards related to the module
• there will be larger versions of the Workflows icons; the ability to switch between larger and smaller icons will be set under the Preferences pull-down menu
• Workflows will launch more quickly than the previous version
• there will be new helpers to print the entire user or entire item record
• the new Acq order wizards represent a comprehensive change to the way orders will be processed; Acquisitions should review and be prepared for the changes
• coinciding with the new order wizards, the DISPLAY2 ORDER command will be removed
• there will now be X12 support for ordering and invoicing for books and serials as long as the vendor supports the standard
• there is a new ILL toolbar with a configuration to OCLC ILLIAD. SIRSI has no plans at this time to offer configurations to other ILL systems. The new ILL toolbar is a separately purchased feature
• the Request commands have been turned into wizards
• the discharge/checkin wizard will now display hold comments
• there is a change to the demand management algorithm to accommodate library groups; with this change the algorithm for hold satisfaction will first check whether the hold can be satisfied by an item in the pickup library, then the group the library belongs to, then finally any library in the system
• in addition to hourly, daily, and monthly, fines can now be defined on a weekly basis
• there is now support for graduated fines; this means you can have a set fine rate for a specific period, then change the fine rate for the next period, and so on
• there is a new zjunktags file so that sites can specify tags that should not appear when patrons display records retrieved via a Z39.50 client
• Z39.50 broadcast searching has been added to Webcat. Once a patron retrieves a hit list, Webcat will display a link to broadcast the search to other Z39.50 compliant databases; sites can configure up to three system wide broadcast search sites
• DUBLINCORE is now being delivered to new sites as a cataloging format; existing sites that plan to use it will need to configure it manually

2. Unicorn 2002 release notes

Chris reported that the Unicorn 2002 release notes have been updated on the library web pages and that he and Tracey will be working on updating the rest of the SIRSI delivered documentation. LIS members recommended that the date the files were placed on the web page be added to the table of contents page

3. Patron File Privacy and Confidentiality Concerns

Ann expressed privacy and confidentiality concerns about the patron file on the SIRSI test server. (This file was loaded a year ago to test the changes to the patron loader.) Chris responded that while some records are used to test changes to Unicorn, over 95% of the records are dormant and have no associated transactions. LIS recommended that 1) records with no transactions should be purged, and 2) records that aren't purged should be modified so that name, address, and SSN information does not contain live data

4. Retention Rate for Unicorn Transaction History Logs

Following on from the previous discussion, Chris inquired about the retention rate for Unicorn transaction history logs. All Unicorn transaction history logs back to January 1998 still exist on the SIRSI production server and Chris wanted to know if there was a policy to remove old history logs after a defined period of time. No written policy exists but after a discussion by LIS team members, the group recommended that Systems should only keep the current and one past fiscal year. For example, this year we'd keep July 2002 to the present and July 2001 through June 2002. In July of 2003, the July 2001 through June 2002 logs would be removed.

5. Information sharing, announcements

Chris - working on preparation for the upgrade to Unicorn 2002, ARL e-journal survey, preparing the Systems machine room for new servers, and post patron-initiated holds follow-up tasks

Judy - so far feedback on patron-initiated holds has been positive; the units are doing the final searches on the LOST items migrated from Geac; Judy is in the planning stages for the implementation of the billing process

Bob - the reconstituted IPAC had their first meeting; more members still need to be appointed including the IPAC chair; Bob is working with Rhonda, Gracemary, and Ellen Calhoun on MARCIVE update records; Bob is also working on the OCLC reclamation project and loading the Pinyin records

Mary - working on PromptCat for YBP materials with Rhonda and Ruth Bogan; also working on the same ARL e-journal survey that Chris reported above

Kayla - Collection Services is working on the Marcive workflow; Collection Services is more than halfway done creating Marc Holdings records

Ann - inquired whether LIS wanted the SIRSI consultant to come out again this year; She asked LIS team members to review upcoming projects and whether we could get a jump start by working with the consultant

Rhonda -

• there are now five separate sets of records being delivered by Marcadia. They are gifts, unit receipts, History Annex, the Douglass Rationalization project, and new receipts
• working with Chris on loading both the replacement as well as new EEBO records
• working with Bob on loading the Pinyin records
• cataloging staff have begun to work with OCLC's CATME product
• the catalog department reviewed whether the Geac Circ-only records should be removed from the IRIS database. The records are extremely brief and provide very little, if any, reliable match points to upgrade the record. Also, since the items have a barcode and record in IRIS they do not go through the standard circ-on-the-fly procedures. If the records were removed, as the items circulate the current circ-on-the-fly process would create a better record. Rhonda asked Bob to take this issue to IPAC.

Nancy - working with Chris to routinize the Rias invoice transmission workflow and to routinely receive a weekly update of new vendors added to Rias

6. Next meeting

October 3, 2002 from 1:30 to 3:00 in the TSB conference room