Minutes of April 12, 2004 Meeting

1. WAC-C (Vib reporting for Theo)

• Revision of how to new license databases. (after Cathy,Systems and Cataloging have done their part) Go to Sam, then selector will be contacted for description, then to Harry for notice, then to WAC-C. Up in 3-4 days.
• Descriptions still need to be completed. Theo will keep the ones she has, some will be passed back to selectors, and some WAC memebers volunteered to handle some.
• Reviewed spreadsheet of goals, objectives and tasks to see if they are on target.
• Review needed of "How Do I" documents.
• Research Guides - Au is awaiting word from some, will try to nudge them along.
• African American Poetry Database. The database has been installed for months on a systems server and is awaiting a description. Sam will talk with Linda lanschied about this.
• Trials discussion. Should they be proxied ? Feeling from systems is no. Should they be on a trials page (should a trials page even exist) ? Some felt that trials should only be sent in email to people who need to evaluate them for purchase. Putting them on a web page adds to user expectation that they are going to be purchased.
  
  The trials discussion stemmed from the UMI addition of databases for ABI Inform Global customers and the offer of 2 databases from EBSCO.
  
  In the UMI case the vendor was contacted and we were assured that the new databases were part of the package for ABI Global customers and would continue to be available as long as the subscription to ABI Global was renewed. As such it would have made sense to add these to the Forthcoming page as well as the Indexes and Databases page once we got descriptions for them. (Since it is expected that BSP will replace ABI action will not be taken on this).
  
  In the EBSCO case, the 2 databases (Communication & Mass Media Complete and American Humanities Index) were only being offered as free access for a year. This was an unsolicited offered. It was assumed that the proper people at Rutgers would evelaute the resources and then make a decision on whether they should be purchased or not. In this case the selector reviewing said they would be of value, and even if we did not purcahse them, they should be put up for users. So the question was do we take free offers from vendors, raise user expoectations, and remove them after a period of time ? Au contacted Bob Sewell who said put them on the web page.
  
  This whole issue of trials, forthcoming, free with print, freely available with no IP restriction needs to be looked at more closely.

2. WAC-D (Rebecca and Sam reporting)

• Currently working on prototype of front pages.

3. Systems (Dave reporting)

• RLG will be changing hostname and Internet providers and asked all to verify the names they are using. All Eureka databases are ok.
• RLG will be eliminating telnet access to RLIN and is introducing RLIN21Web. Do we need to worry about scripting a new web service that we can put on our catalogs page to replace the current Rlin - Staff Mode link. I was asked for Ann M to take this to public services.
• OpenURL (LinkSource) was released for use. Still tweaking some aspects of it.
• Web of Science had old links to full text that were turned on that have never been maintained (Cathy didn't know about them as Bob Terrio was the one to have them turned on). Among other things, it had the entire ScienceDirect package activated not just the NERL titles. Since the LinkSource button was being added to Web of Science, we told them to turn off the old direct Full Text links.
  
  Note: This is becoming a bigger issue as more and more vendors are just turning on links by default. We may need to have a discussion about the best way to proceed. Should LinkSource, be the only way for one citation database to relate to another?
• EBSCO A to Z list is being worked on by Cathy.
• Due to problems with the IRIS webserver shutting down systems asked Sam to change the the way the top level IRIS search interface was constructed on the library web page. The problems stemmed around the cursor focus being in the search box, an empty search term being able to be sent, a <CR> launching an IRIS search, and IE being slower to start up Webcat. Essentially we were seeing 100s of webstarter sessions being started up from the same host all coming from the top level search page. We asked Sam to check for a search term and make a use click on the Go button to launch an IRIS search. We have seen no recurrence of IRIS webcat shutting down since the change.
• Question asked about Genderwatch not being on Indexes list. Contacted UMI and VALE and they both agrred we should not have it. It has been removed from the UMI site, so we have nothing to add to our web pages.

4. Instructional Services

• Progress is being made on adapting SearchPath for RU use. Hope to have something up in the Fall.

5. Update on Assessment

• Karen Hartman checked and we do not need Human Subject Review. Some preliminary qustions to be asked have been prepared. Groups to be surveyed small student groups, work study students. Not given go ahead due to other surveys that are being conducted. Question raised - Are we expecting answers to help the current web page redesign effort?

Next meeting May 10, 2004

Dave Hoover (recorder)