Minutes of July 20, 2009 Meeting

Present:

Joe Abraham, Stephanie Bartz, Mary Belasco, Ashwin Bijur, Anne Butman, John Gibson, Nick Gonzaga, James Hartstein (recorder), John Maxymuk, Kevin McGuire, Andrew Ruggiero, Rich Sandler, Chris Singh, Darryl Voorhees

Excused:

Pam Johnson

Absent:

Ka-Neng Au, Ken Kuehl, Steve Dalina

1. Systems Update

• The Carpet Removal and PC Machine moves for Alexander are behind schedule (due to issues with the actual scheduling of the rug installation), with Kilmer is moving along as planned. New Images will be made and done to the machines as they are replaced.
• The university car is now back in operation after some fixes and is available for usage again.
• August 3rd-6th will be the timeframe for the new department head interviews to replace Ann Montanaro.
• Server Backups to the new Powervault system are running well so far: Libsys, libpub, and Illiad. A 1 TB external drive in 4 loop rotation will be used for offsite storage of backups.
• Calendaring project: OIT will be supplying test accounts to try out their Zimbra offering. Anne will send out notifications when these are available and coordinate who will be a part of the test group.
• Grace has asked that PCWG take a more direct role in Software Approval and Research. As a result of this request Anne suggested that PCWG should work toward interfacing with all other library committees and groups to determine areas where optimization in Software packages can be achieved to allow for overall greater efficiency and productivity. A request was made to have Grace appear at her convenience at a PCWG meeting to explain her vision for this mandate and for further ideas for it's implementation along with Anne's suggestion. Additionally it was suggested that we review our current supported software list and consider development of a black list of unauthorized software as well as a "suggested" list. As a result we would then publicize these docs to the entire community.
• Rich outlined the current state of testing on desktop video conferencing solutions being evaluated by RUL. Things are being narrowed to a few possibilities, with a list to be developed that outlines their major benefits/negatives. One-to-many and one-to-one solutions will be suggested. The major issues are cost and ease of use.

2. Old/New Business

• Joe discussed a situation that occurred in regard to usage of Google Books. A blind patron was unable to adequately interact with the system due to the image based nature of some of the documents. It was suggested that we reach out to organizations for the blind to determine if there were any work arounds being used for this situation. It was also noted that this may be an unfortunate "by design" element of Google Books which may not be easily circumvented.

3. Local Updates

• The Fordham lab will be switching to an exclusive OS X environment. Bootcamp, the system to log into Windows XP on Apple hardware, will be removed due to a general lack of usage by patrons. This will simplify support and maintenance on these machines. A new Staff oriented area is being set up which will not be a general access location (by appointment only) which will be designed as a Captivate/Camtasia creation location.

5. Next meeting: TBD

September 15, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
August meeting to be skipped due to large number of unavailable attendees.

7/27/2009 JH