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Information Services & Resources

Email Reference Group
Notes of Meeting
March 15, 2006
10:00 a.m., Porter 428

Present: Rachel Caldwell, Helena Calogeridis (facilitator), Marian Davies, Judy McTaggart, , Barbara Menich, Jon Morgan, Carol Steele (recorder), Amy Townsend.

The group discussed the pros and cons of using Docutek for email reference.

PROS:
* Docutek is the same software as chat
* Statistics function is good.
* Assigning to people could be a pro.
* Interface looks nice. Not as clunky as Pine—can mouse through text. (Although Pine has shortcut keys)
* Multiple simultaneous users available.
* One person can do chat and email at the same time.
* Accessible from any workstation.

ACTION: Marian will demo Pine at the next meeting.

CONS:
Marina’s list:
1. We need to be notified of returned email when the patron has not filled in a correct email account.
We can check for a correct email address if we do receive any notice of undelivered email. Not knowing can create a big problem for us in terms of reputation and patron relationship.
2. We would like to track cc (copy) activities. It would be good if we can blind copy a reply too.
We used to cc (copy) or bcc (blind copy) to other staff for verification of detailed answers. At times blind copying to other library staff or administrator was found to be necessary. In Docutek, we can cc/copy but we cannot track in the correspondence as to whom a message was sent. We can not do blind copy at all.
3. Is it possible to save a draft or postpone a message?
This feature seems to be standard in most electronic applications when composing text.
Without this feature, it is not simply frustrating (especially if the set of instructions to a patron requires careful planning and wording on behalf of the staff member), but it becomes a workload issue - either you lose your message (through a time-out or some other unfortunate event), or if you circumvent that possibility from happening by composing in Word and then copy and paste back into Docutek.
4. There is no spell check, grammar check, or any control over the font size. The last is an accessibility issue. We have received complaint on the font size.
5. It is not easy for patrons to reply to us.
After answering a question, we apply the status 'closed - answered'. The patron has to go through the whole process of resubmitting a request if more information is required. Alternatively, if we leave the status 'open', the workload issues resulting in leaving a message 'open' for possible replies would be a major concern.
In the pre-Docutek days staff often received feedback. The Docutek environment makes the feedback from patrons almost nonexistent. We need to make it easy for patrons to provide feedback, to gage how we are doing.
6. We still experience occasional time-outs.
We cannot establish a pattern for the time-outs. 
For example, yesterday, one staff member was timed out when interrupted for help to other students.  Yet, earlier in the day, the same staff member was able to stay with the server for a long time, working on other tasks in-between replying to email reference questions
Additional CONS discussed at meeting:

* Assign feature could be useful but no one outside Email Ref Group wants to work in Docutek interface.
* No addressbook, although does retain address history.
* Don’t receive feedback—no thank yous, few follow-ups.
* Don’t know how long it takes for email to be delivered—e.g. patron asked question in chat after email answer sent.
* Time is displayed as Pacific Time —apparently cannot be changed.
* Question is repeated—we don’t know why; doesn’t look clean and tidy.
* Search feature doesn’t work well—may search on first few words of question—recommend using Ctl + F.
* Cannot organize answered email in folders; currently have pages of answers in chronological order; search for a previous answer can be frustrating.
Question: Is knowledgebase function available in Docutek email?

The Email Reference Group needs to make a recommendation regarding Docutek by early May.

Meeting adjourned at 11:15.

Email Reference Group
libRefEmail@library.uwaterloo.ca
March 16, 2007