Coordinating Committees

Library Technology Coordinating Committee Conference Call Minutes
March 20, 2008

Present:  Jon Mark Bolthouse, Marlys Brunsting, Bill Doering, Sharon Knight, Jim Lowrey, Mitch Lundquist, Terri Muraski, Jon Musselman, Maureen Olle-LaJoie, Leanne Hansen

Absent:  Lisa Jewell

1. Notes from the Chairs March Conference Call were posted on the wiki.  Summer meeting updates:  Waiting to confirm Susan Gibbons as a plenary speaker.  The chairs are working on finding speakers for the breakout sessions and facilitators for the roundtables.  Kathryn Harnish from Ex Libris indicated they should be able to do a session.  Marlys suggested they cover Voyager 7, Primo, Verde, future of company and products (e.g. Aleph/Voyager).  Other suggestions:  Voyager 8 and 9 have been announced; SFX and MetaLib updates would be nice.  People would like to see a Verde demo but this could be lengthy.  See if we can add a roundtable for the ERM people and have Ex Libris demo Verde at that time.

2. Goals – Updates

a. D2L/Library Integration - Pat Fellowes from UW-Colleges said DoIT can’t help with this.  It needs to be the SIS person on each campus.  She recommends setting up 2 training sessions - one for IT folks on the interested campuses and one for their librarians. They can provide their script, explain how they did it, and answer questions.  She will talk to Lisa about this.  She is also willing to present this at the ITMC meeting at Green Lake--if she is able to attend.  Terri heard Marc and Pat present this at EDUCAUSE last week and it was very well received.

b. LibGuides - this is something Milwaukee has purchased.  It is used for creating subject guides and has some Web 2.0 features.  Jim says there isn’t an automatic hook into D2L for this.  Archives staff are considering putting finding aids in there.  La Crosse uses LibData to create course guides.  Madison reference staff are also looking at LibGuides.  Jim is not sure how Milwaukee is currently integrating library resources into D2L.  There is a way to integrate it with Facebook. After they get more of it set up, Jim will show us what they have via a webinar.

c. Distance Library Services Committee - they have their first teleconference on Monday.  Leigh Dorsey (UWM) is chair/co-chair.

d. Review UB consistency settings across campuses - they had a conference call and discussed Allowing UB Pickups at Holding Library.  Mary Rieder was going to expand on the charge for the group and get it approved through CRSCC.  There is no conference call scheduled at this time.  Correction:  Mary stated later that there is no plan to revise the charge.

e. Perform an assessment of MetaLib (Terri) - the working group has had 2 conference calls so far.  They are reviewing articles to look for protocols for their assessment.  Although they hope to present something at the June conference in Madison, the testing might not happen until this fall--it depends on which protocol they decide to use.  They will look at Quick Search sets, and some design issues (tabs, results views).  They should know in 1-2 weeks which direction they will pursue.

f. Review Voyager invoicing and licenses - Linda Voyles said a snapshot of all campuses is OK but we need Webvoyage, Z39.50 and OPAC Server sessions (for simulsearch which does not go through webvoyage).  She needs at least 6 months of data.  Our maintenance agreement payment is due in July so we can’t get the pricing change done this year.  Mitch will check to see if Madison’s script captures all 3 sessions.  Why do they need 6 months of data?  Would capturing data from the busiest 1-2 months suffice?  Marlys will check.  Brian had indicated previously getting the data won’t be a problem.

g. Create a UW functional contacts lists  - Paul got a list from Eau Claire.  He will give all the files to Lisa and she will finish it.

h. Discuss a needs assessment for an ERM - (Sharon) - no word yet.

3. Other Business

a. Voyager upgrade (Bill/Marlys) - Voy 7 is in field testing now (starting with the client changes).  Library staff will have to do some work because the ini files are going away.  If we decide to upgrade to v7 during the winter break we need to schedule it now.  We won’t be able to get v7 early enough to test and upgrade this summer.  Upgrading/patching during the winter break is difficult for many staff, especially when regens are required.  So we are definitely going with the patch this summer.  In order to save time, we would like to upgrade Oracle this summer so we have more time next summer for dealing with the many webvoyage changes in v7.  The Oracle upgrade will require a change to ODBC drivers.  Brian said he needs the software by June 1 and know by June 15 it is relatively free of bugs.  Bill will talk to Paul and Brian about setting up a schedule for the campus upgrades and make sure the LAMs are OK with it.  Bill recommends we set a policy to do the upgrades at the same time every year so staff can plan for it.

b. Interest in a MetaLib refresher session? (Jim) – there have been some staff changes at Milwaukee and they have 4-5 people interested in SFX and MetaLib refresher training from Ex Libris.  Terri would like to learn more about making interface customizations.  Sue and Curran at Madison might be able to help with some training.  Jim contacted Paul and Lisa so we’ll wait to hear if there is any training left in the contract or if there is a fee to buy more training time.   If there is, then we need to find out if staff at the other campuses are interested.

c. Sharing Access queries (continuation of previous discussion) - Bill sent a link to the Access databases he has.  Several people thought it was helpful, but it is difficult to sort through all the queries to find what you need, and you often have to modify them in some way.  There is also no way to easily copy the reports, just the queries.  For now we will put a link on the wiki to direct people to the zip file on Bill’s web site.

d. Writing an ERM using Access at La Crosse (Bill) - their electronic resources librarian is going on maternity leave.  Bill is creating a basic ERM with Access and is willing to share it.  Madison has created some local database applications to help with electronic resource management. Whitewater has also created a database for ERM.   Bill’s should be ready in about a month.  He will flesh it out later, possibly incorporating suggestions from others.

e. Green Lake meeting - none of the various library groups will be invited to attend this year’s meeting with the CUWL directors.

f. Delivering content to mobile devices - Mitch is in a group that is starting to look at delivering library content to cell phones, PDAs, etc.  Contact Mitch if you have investigated this.  Jim mentioned LibGuides has a widget to do this.  Terri heard a program on this at EDUCAUSE and will send the presenter’s contact info. 

g. Jon Mark is looking for a way to send a Voyager results list to a cell phone.  Their students want to send the call numbers to their phones so they can go up to the stacks and find the books without printing the info.  If anyone knows whether Voyager can do this, contact Jon Mark.  As people get these various projects up and running it would be helpful to have some documentation on the wiki so others can benefit from it.

h. Google Books API - if anyone is working on integrating this into Voyager, talk to Jon Mark because there are a number of versions to choose from.