Coordinating Committees
LTCC Conference Call - June 30, 2009
Minutes
Present: Bolthouse, Brunsting, Doering, Knight, Lowrey, Lundquist, Muraski, Nordgren
Absent: Jewell, Musselman, Olle-LaJoie
1) SFX/MetaLib/Voyager Acquisitions and Cataloging Training - [Note: Lisa was not on the call, so Marlys gave what info she had on the first 3 agenda items]. Lisa received info from Ex Libris with SFX training options. Marlys asked Lisa to tell them we want the recorded sessions with a 1-hour Q&A with the trainer after a month of SFX and a month of ML. The acquisitions and cataloging training sessions have not been set up yet.
2) MetaLib X-server - status is unknown at this time, but Lisa was planning to purchase it with FY08-09 money.
3) New bX service in SFX - System might be able to pay for this, but it’s an annual cost. What if the charge is passed on to us next year? If a campus can’t afford it next year, they will have to turn it off--could be bad PR. Lisa decided to wait on this.
4) Webinar for Ex Libris URM - we are pushing this back to July so that more people can attend.
Possible dates are morning of 7/22, or anytime on 7/23. Both dates were acceptable to the group. Marlys will contact Nancy Taylor and let them choose a date.
5) Resource Discovery Task Force update - Mitch reported that the RDTF is writing up their report now. A webinar with Summons (the Serials Solutions product) staff will happen soon. Summons is a hosted A&I content service that would allow us to get access to data with APIs. By harvesting more data we would rely less on federated searching. The RDTF has been invited to attend the CUWL retreat. Their recommendation will be to continue work this year on the RDisco catalog interface and then evaluate it against WorldCat Local and Primo. They are still trying to get pricing on Primo, which is based on the number of objects you make available to users. RDisco developers are nearly ready to solicit functional input from staff and will need a structure to assess it. There was some discussion about the feasibility of putting this into the Common Systems Fund. It is not the typical proprietary vendor/RFP sort of proposal that they are used to. Whether we develop our own solution or purchase a vendor’s solution, there will be development on our end--all of our System automation purchases have required this to some extent.
6) Other business
1. The CUWL Reorganization Assessment committee met several times to discuss the survey results and the listening session. Some significant themes of the survey responses and the listening session at the summer conference were: a) all campuses should be represented on the committees, b) people are dissatisfied with communication in general, but the method of communication is not really the problem, c) we need to do better at telling new staff about the purpose of CUWL, the structure of the committees and how to get involved, and d) the majority think the current structure should continue either as is or with modifications. Marlys initially argued for adding all LAMs to the LTCC, but after extensive discussion with committee members and careful review of the survey results and listening session comments, Marlys suggested restructuring the LTCC as follows. Only half of the members would be LAMs and the other half would represent other functional areas (reference, access services, cataloging, acquisitions, web developers, etc.). This would ensure rotation of committee members and stimulate fresh ideas. The LAMs would continue to function as a resource group to the LTCC but would communicate more often and have more responsibility for the day-to-day troubleshooting and annual work, such as upgrades and contracts. The LAMs should develop a specific charge and the LTCC charge should be rewritten so that the duties of the two groups do not overlap. This would help to eliminate the confusion people have about which group is responsible for what. The charge for the LTCC should be more visioning and high-level planning whereas the charge for the LAMs should be more of the day-to-day or recurring work, such as upgrades. This would also help to reduce the workload of the LTCC chair. LTCC committee members agreed that this would improve the current structure and provided some suggestions for adding info to the wiki.
2. ALA will have a meeting on July 13 at 3:30, “Post-integrated library systems? - the Open Library Environment (OLE) and the Unified Resource Management (URM) Projects.” Jon Mark and Terri might be able to attend this.
3. WiLSWorld will have a users group meeting for Koha users. Jon Mark and Marlys are planning to attend this.
4. Voyager upgrade - we are planning to upgrade to v7.1 although it hasn’t been loaded on the test server yet (they just got the necessary documentation).
Submitted by Marlys Brunsting