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CUWL Library Technology Coordinating Committee
Conference Call Minutes
June 19, 2008

Present: Jon Mark Bolthouse, Marlys Brunsting, Bill Doering, Lisa Jewell, Sharon Knight, Mitch Lundquist, Terri Muraski, Maureen Olle-LaJoie
Not Present: Leanne Hansen Jim Lowrey, Jon Musselman

1. UB Working Group report – Jean Gilbertson emailed a question about which campuses, other than Madison, block patrons with lost books from making ILL requests or accessing electronic resources. Due to technical setups, blocking users from database searching is not possible at most other campuses. Stevens Point doesn’t block faculty with lost items from making UB requests. The LTCC will review the blue highlighted items from the Sysadmin setup document prepared by the UB Working Group. We will include the LAMs on the discussion via the cuwltech listserv and will focus on the technical aspects rather than the circulation or collection management items. (Note: it was later decided to schedule a conference call). Jon Mark will check with Mary Rieder to determine a deadline for responses. The UB Working Group plans to have their report ready prior to the CUWL meeting on July 22.

2. UW Libraries Staff Conference – people thought the conference was good and would like to see it happen annually. Everyone is encouraged to complete the survey by Friday.

3. Goals

a. ILLiad Upgrade – The upgrade itself was easy and seemed to go very well, but there are some security issues that arose from this. Some library staff, including student workers, have the ability to go into any of the modules (User Manager, Customization Manager, Bililng Manger, etc.) and make changes to other campuses ILLiad settings, see email passwords, etc.. These areas need to be restricted to only those who need the access. Jon Mark will draft a recommendation outlining generally who should have access to what (e.g. ILLiad sysadmins should have access to everything, ILL department managers should have access to everything under their home site, student workers should have even more limited access, etc.). This will be sent the Wisconsin ILLiad mailing list.

b. Voyager upgrade – Lisa reported that the schedule is confirmed with everyone. We discussed whether a delay in the renewal bug fix would force us to cancel the upgrade. It would not be an issue for semester loans, but the 28 day loans and course reserve renewals would be a problem. We have some time before the problem would surface, but we would want it fixed by the first week of classes. Lisa will contact Linda Voyles and Jenny Lexau at Ex Libris to let them know we are counting on this fix to be released soon. Although we won’t delay the upgrade if the fix is not released, we do anticipate it will be released soon since it affects many sites other than our own. We expect our annual maintenance fees to cover things like this.

Other upgrade points: the wiki is setup for Brian to post his progress reports; Marlys will post the upgrade checklist that the hub has used in the past; we will need to send a reminder about turning off UB one week before the Stout upgrade and again before the rest of the campuses upgrade.

c. MetaLib assessment; conference session (Terri/Maureen) – the session at the conference went well. Next steps: Steve Frye will finish the protocol and they will schedule dates and locations for usability testing. Jon Mark said the MetaLib usage reports referred to in the session, such as Users with Personal Lists, are inaccurate for Colleges, yet Maureen thought the reports for River Falls were accurate. She will check with Sue Dentinger to see which reports aren’t working correctly.

d. ERM assessment (Sharon/Bill) – Chris Kline has contacted the committee members and setup a timeline. They will do a literature review, a needs assessment and a survey and they will be using the wiki. Bill presented his ERM Access database at the conference and will post his handouts on the wiki.

e. Brownbag/web training sessions (was MetaLib/SFX refresher sessions) (Jon Mark) – Jon Mark and Bill discussed the idea of EDI and Promptcat web sessions. Jon Mark contacted Jim Lowrey about doing a session on Google Analytics to track web site usage, such as the Voyager OPAC. Jon Mark will figure out who the audience will be for these various topics and then coordinate the timing with presenters.

f. Madison’s Resource Discovery Exploratory Task Force Report (http://uwlibdiscovery.blogspot.com/) – where do we go from here? – Jean Gilbertson emailed to say that the LSC accepted the report but has not yet discussed the recommendations. Mitch thought that would be happening fairly soon. His team is looking at the technical aspects of the recommendations. There is still some concern about how well Universal Borrowing can integrate with WorldCat Local and that there are some local collections that can’t yet be included in WorldCat Local. Jean also emailed to see if anyone is planning to attend the WilsWorld Camp, but no LTCC members have signed up at this point. LTCC members will review the detailed report and discuss it within the next couple of months.

4. Analysis of progress this year; Feedback on strengths/weaknesses of new committee structure after first year – Marlys will prepare a report for CUWL listing the goals and our progress to date. There is some concern that the LAMs should meet more often or even participate in the monthly LTCC conference calls. The meeting minutes are naturally not as helpful as listening to the actual discussions. Newer LAMs who are not on the LTCC would have a harder time keeping up with the issues. The mailing list has also not been as effective as we hoped at generating discussions.

5. Schedule for future conference calls – tentatively agreed to keep the same schedule: the third Thursday of every month from 8:00-9:15 am.

6. Other business

a. After speaking with Jean Gilbertson, Marlys learned that new coordinating committee chairs are always appointed by the CUWL Executive Committee, not elected by members of the committee. Chairs serve for a one-year term with the possibility of serving for an additional year. Marlys indicated she would continue as chair for another year.

b. Mitch reported that Oracle Access Manager was purchased for UWS to deal with authentication issues. Lisa’s name was given as the contact person to coordinate this for the UW libraries. More information will come later.