Information Services Management Committee

Minutes of the Meeting of May 15, 2001
1:30-3:15 P.M.
Porter Conference Room

Present: Maureen McCormack, Doug Morton, Susan Moskal, Shabiran Rahman, Susan Routliffe (Chair), Mary Stanley, Linda Teather, Rose Koebel (Recorder)

Regrets: Marlene Laurence, Wish Leonard

Guests: Helena Calogeridis, Yulerette Gordon

1. Minutes of Previous Meeting

   The minutes of the May 1, 2001 meeting were approved with one change.

2. Report from the Ad Hoc Publications Group

The Committee reviewed the outstanding questions associated with the Ad Hoc Publications Group Report as follows:

1. numbering the new Library Guides series: A number will appear on each publication, but not on the Web page listing the series. The scheme proposed by the Ad Hoc Publications Group will be used but will be modified to accommodate the categories for government publications and maps.
2. subject categories: A suggestion was made to replace the term "Interdisciplinary" with "General and Interdisciplinary." Maps and Government Publications will be separate categories, falling alphabetically within the other subject headings. It was also suggested that there be links at the top of the Library Guides page to the subject headings throughout the document.
3. re-naming new publications: Each title heading will begin with a word which clearly reflects the subject content, e.g. the titles for publications about French literature will begin with the word French to force these titles to sit together on the online list of titles.
4. electronic links: The Research Guides by Subject page should be linked to the Library Guides page, and vice versa. It was suggested that a "comments" button at the bottom of the Library Guides page be created to facilitate feedback to Sue Moskal and the Ad Hoc Publications Group.
5. reviewing out-of-date publications: Each Titles and How To publication will be converted, including those which don't reflect current dates. A mechanism needs to be introduced to ensure publications are reviewed. Helena will send an e-mail to liaison librarians addressing the issue of timely revisions.
6. referring pages for previous How To and Titles series: Those who use bookmarks to the PDF versions of the publications will not get a broken link. A referral page will direct them back to the Library Guides page. Mary will speak with Esther about clarifying #5 on the Report.

Susan R. will prepare a memo about converting to the new Library Guides series for the liaison librarians. It will be accompanied by the Ad Hoc Publications Group Report to ISMC.
3. Planning for Future Meetings

ISMC discussed the following with respect to future meetings:

1. vacation plans and impact on ISMC's meeting schedule: It was agreed that the Committee would not meet if Susan R. was away, and that a minimum of three committee members from ISR be present. It was likely that ISMC would not meet in July. The Committee will decide when/if it needs to meet based on the topics and people required to be present for each upcoming meeting. Members should notify the Committee when they are planning not to attend a meeting.
2. ISR Training Committee: It was agreed that ISMC did not need to meet with Jane Forgay about the work of the ISR Training Committee at this time. It will decide whether to meet with her on a term-by-term basis. ISMC noted that the training committee had an informative Web site, and it was obvious by the favourable comments ISMC made that it was impressed with the work the training committee has done.
3. upcoming topics:
• User Services and reference questions: Melanie Watkins and Sharon Lamont will meet with ISMC on June 12 to review this issue, which arose last fall.
• AskLib: ISMC will invite Michele Laing and those involved in responding to queries to AskLib to meet on June 5, to discuss ideas on how to improve the AskLib service.
• information services statistics: ISMC needs to determine:
• what types of statistics the Library is collecting now
• why these statistics are being collected and what is being done with them
• what is being collected, but is not needed
• what is not being collected, but is needed

Amount of time spent on individual reference questions was also discussed. Doug will send a query to a listserv to ask how/if other libraries keep track of how long it takes to answer reference questions. Susan R. will ask Maureen to post to a listserv as well. Susan Bellingham, Richard Pinnell and Connie Pantic will be invited to ISMC's next meeting on May 29 to discuss statistics.

4. information literacy: Linda has completed a draft of notes from ISMC's meeting on information literacy with the liaison librarians on May 11. ISMC will review these notes on May 29, and invite Erin Murphy and Margaret Aquan-Yuen for this portion of the meeting. Once finalized, the notes will be put on ISMC's Web site, along with notes from Susan R.'s opening comments.
5. other topics for future meetings: ISMC needs to talk about its membership (a portion of which will rotate in September), the Systems/ISR Report, and laptops in the Library.

Next Meeting
May 29, Porter conference room.