Minutes of March 8, 2004 Meeting
- Present:
- Ka-Neng Au, Stephanie Bartz, Karen Hartman (recorder), Theo Haynes (via teleconference),
Dave Hoover, Sam McDonald, Leslie Murtha, Robert Nahory
1. Design Group Report (Au for S. McDonald)
- The group is looking at the first level page, focusing on its overall look at this point. Nine iterations of the design
have been gone through. Language will be addressed later.
2. Content Group Report (T. Haynes)
- T. Haynes reported that there were 17-18 additional descriptions to update. Some of these were distributed to meeting
attendees (Au, Karen, Stephanie, Leslie) for revision. Theo will contact those who were initially responsible for the
remaining descriptions.
- Theo does not know anymore about the free databases provided by the State Library. She is trying to contact M. Page about
these.
- Question arose re: databases such as Trade & Industry offered by UMI because we have ABI Global (through Vale). Do we
write new descriptions for these, use the current pulldown menu, the choose multiple databases option, etc.? The business
bibliographers will consider what to do and Au will report back. It was also noted that both EthnicNewsWatch and
GenderWatch are options on the pulldown menu. We have a direct link from the Master List of databases to EthnicNewsWatch,
but nothing for GenderWatch. Is this part of the free package through Vale, etc.? Au will find out.
- The status of American Humanities Index and Communications & Mass Media Complete was also discussed. We have free access
for one year to both because we have an EBSCO subscription. Dave Hoover will mail Stephanie Bartz the URLs so that they can
be put on the trials page.
- Descriptions are forthcoming for the following new databases: International Medieval Bibliography, Congressional Serial
Set, Vanderbilt Television Archive, and LLBA.
- Au will seek information on the status of World Development Indicators and update the committee by email.
3. Liaison Reports (Dave Hoover)
- Hoover is asking Sam to redesign IRIS on the top level because as it stands it may be causing backend problems. When the
library homepage is launched via IE, the cursor appears automatically in the quick search dialog box, so users may begin
typing URL's there without realizing it and then hit enter. IRIS is also slow in launching via IE-Dave is also looking into
that.
- Bartz received an email re: a bad link on the electronic reference page, but the source of the webpage indicated was on
ELROS (development machine). Dave will fix this.
4. Webmaster Report (S. McDonald)
- Sam joined us after meeting consultants (Library Communication Strategies, Inc.) conducting the communications audit. A
report will be issued in July. Sam believes the main news page will be the focus of comments and he doesn't expect explicit
directives from the company.
5. Usability Study
- Discussion ensued re: timing and usefulness of a study of the current homepage. A study would best be conducted before
the finals push began; it was suggested that a "captive audience", work-study students might be enlisted. K. Hartman will
investigate necessity of an IRB review and mock up some potential questions for a quick usability study. Committee will
determine if such research is feasible.
K. Hartman (recorder),
updated 4/11/04