k ELECTRONIC DATA SERVICE GROUP MINUTES OF THE MEETING SEPTEMBER 26, 2001 Present: Cooper, Jack Pinnell, Richard (Recorder) Moskal, Susan (Chair) Rahman, Shabiran Absent: McTaggart, Judy 1. Minutes of the Meeting of September 14, 2001: accepted 2. Business Arising: Susan Moskal reported that she has tested libeds and uweds and that both are still functional. She will check further to determine whether messages sent to uweds go to all members as well as the account, and will also check to find out how these two means of communication are accessed. There was discussion on how to add a subject line to uweds mailto links so that EDS members would know more about the pages our clients were accessing when sending us email. Susan will talk to Marina Wan about adding a subject line to each uweds mailto link 3. Additional Agenda: 10. TDR Administrative page 11. EDS Web page 4. Beyond 20/20 Browser Upgrade: Members discussed the recent upgrade to ver 5.2 of this software. Is this version available for download from TDR? What is the version currently loaded on the Library's staff and public workstations? There is no way to know which version is being used in various academic departments on campus. E-STAT will not function properly unless library clients are using ver 5.2. Susan will determine the version available for download from TDR and she will talk to Systems staff about ensuring library machines have the latest version. Richard will post a message to libeds e-mail discussion group to alert Advisory Committee representatives about the recent (and forthcoming) upgrades. 5. Faculty Advisory Committee: Members reviewed the minutes of the Advisory Committee meeting held on 6 June 2001. Some additional follow-up is required. Shabiran will talk to Bryan Smale about his article on how his students are using TDR data. Members discussed usage statistics and the need for data for external reporting (e.g., CARL) and for local/TUG-level reporting and monitoring. Susan will send out the URL for CoData to members of the Advisory Committee. Richard agreed to contact Amos Lakos to determine whether the license for Datastream can be broadened beyond Accountancy; for example, there may be interest in Economics. Members discussed possible dates for the next meeting and agreed on December 12 at 1:30 or alternatively December 13 at 1:30. Preferred location is Porter. Susan will confirm these dates with all members of EDS and will talk to Annette Dandyk about the availability of a meeting room in Porter 6. ICPSR OR Meeting: It was agreed that Richard will replace Susan as Waterloo's Official Representative to ICPSR effective immediately. Richard will convey this information to Laine Ruus, the Hub Coordinator. Richard expressed his interest in attending the OR Meeting in Ann Arbor in late October and indicated that he will be seeking travel funding. 7. ICPSR Direct: Members reviewed the requirements for implementing ICPSR Direct. It was agreed that Susan will talk to Charles Woods about the range of eligible IP addresses and will ask him about serving as technical contact person. Local support contact(s) and the email addresses for the ipbeta mailing list will be uweds members in both cases. Richard reported that he had contacted Michelle Edwards (Guelph, CCS) and that he was informed Guelph has not yet created a Web page to inform local users how ICPSR Direct works. The creation of such a page will be discussed at the forthcoming Operational Management Group on October 4. 8. Subject Headings from Other Sources: Susan presented the results of her investigation into the various schemes used by other data libraries/organizations to categorize datasets by topic. She presented the classification schemes (or subject themes) used by Eurostat, ICPSR, University of Saskatchewan, and Carleton. She also made references to schemes in place at University of Regina and elsewhere. Members preferred Carleton's scheme but suggested that the names of data providers and of broader datasets be added: for example, E-STAT, CANSIM, General Social Surveys, and ICPSR. Susan will continue to look at other data libraries and will present her findings at a forthcoming EDS meeting. EDS's final recommendations will be posted to the TDR Web Board for wider discussion. 9. Future Topics: deferred 10. TDR Administrative Page Richard reviewed the ways in which the Web Board can be accessed and talked about the Administrative page and how it is accessed from the link at the bottom of the TDR homepage. He distributed copies of a printout of the Admin page. Members expressed concern that our users will see the link but because the Admin page is password-protected they will not have access. Some members felt that a better solution might be to move the contents of the Administrative page to the TDR Staff Web. One problem will be that non-library members of EDS and TDR will not have Staff Web privileges. It may be possible to give these non-library members Staff Web privileges. It was not clear whether usage logs are appropriately located on the Staff Web; Richard will check to see whether ERL usage logs are maintained on the TUG Staff Web. 11. EDS Web Page: Susan distributed a list of the CD-ROM databases currently held by UW Library; some are Gov Publications, some are DSP, some are DLI. She would like to have a link from the EDS page to an electronic copy of this list; she also suggested a link from the UW Library Staff Web. Susan will talk to Marina Wan about doing this. It was agreed that a review of the EDS Web page is in order. End of meeting: 3:30 PM.