Information Services Management Committee

Minutes of the Meeting of October 2, 2001
1:30 – 3:30 pm
Porter Conference
Room 428

Regrets: Jim Parrott

1. Minutes of Previous Meeting

   The minutes of the meeting of September 25, 2001 were approved with changes.

2. Welcome to New Members and Review of How ISMC Operates

   Susan R. welcomed the new members of ISMC, and commented briefly on the Terms of Reference.  She also explained various aspects of the way the Committee has operated during its first two years as follows:

   1. Minutes: Rose Koebel is the permanent recorder for the Committee.  Members volunteer to take minutes if she is away.

   2. Web page: Cheryl Kieswetter maintains the Committee’s Web page.

   3. Agenda: Susan sets the agenda and e-mails it to committee members on the Friday preceding the next meeting.

   4. When ISMC meets: Meetings take place every Tuesday at 1:30 pm.  It does not meet if Susan R. is not here.

   5. Topics: The topics for discussion are usually relevant to the work of ISR, but are frequently directly related to the work of other departments as well.

   6. Relationship to others: ISMC regularly invites other Library staff and others to its meetings when the topics for discussion require input from others (e.g. UW faculty, TUG librarians).

   7. Ad hoc task groups: Keeping in mind the workload of its members, the Committee establishes task groups when needed to address issues, and these groups may include staff who are not members of ISMC (e.g. modification of the Ask Us/Tell Us page).

   8. Amount of work: The amount of work Committee members undertake varies.  ISMC is sensitive to their workload outside of the committee.

   9. Communication in between meetings: ISMC prefers the opportunity to discuss issues face-to-face; therefore it does not communicate much by e-mail.  When members issue e-mail messages to others on behalf of ISMC, or because of their role on ISMC, they should be sure to copy ISMC.

   10. Review of meetings: ISMC will next review the way its meetings are conducted in January and make adjustments, if needed, at that time.

3. Upcoming Topics

   Susan R. reviewed the topics that ISMC will probably deal with in the foreseeable future. They are:

   Topics already discussed, but not yet completed:

   • statistics relating to information services areas of activity
   • re-design of the Ask Us/Tell Us page:  Michele Laing will bring back a mock-up to the Committee

   • relationship of ISR and Systems:  a status report has been prepared; ISMC will come back to it in about a year

   Topics identified in September 2000, but not yet addressed:
   • review of terms of reference for the Library Instruction Committee
   • Electronic Reference Shelf

   New Topics:
   • virtual reference
   • review of reference service

4. Farewell and Thanks to Exiting Members

   Susan R. thanked the exiting members of ISMC for their work on the Committee.

5. Other Library Catalogues Web Page

   Susan R. provided some background on this page, which is currently being maintained by Larry Helfand.  ISMC reviewed the Other Library Catalogues page and a sample of other Web pages listing library catalogues. It determined that, rather than continuing to maintain our own list of catalogues, the page could point to other sites such as Libdex and the National Library of Canada’s list. The format found on the TUG Electronic Reference Shelf pages could be followed.  Helena agreed to act as the contact between ISMC and Larry.  Action items include:

   • Susan R. will inform Larry that ISMC is addressing this issue.
   • Helena will send an e-mail to ILL, Richard (for UMD), Special Collections, all of ISR, Debbie Tytko (for Acquisitions) and Betty Graf (for Cataloguing) requesting which sites people most use.