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TRELLIS Pilots Group

UW TRELLIS Pilots Meeting

Minutes

November 5, 2001 - 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Porter Library Room 428

Present: Lois Clifford, Carolyn Dirks, Betty Graf, Alex McCulloch, Patti Metzger, Darlene Radicioni, Dan Sich, Gail Sperling, Linda Teather (facilitator & recorder), Charles Woods

  1. Recorder

    Linda volunteered to record.

  2. Agenda review

    Added topic: Patron updates (Alex).

  3. Pilots membership & communication paths

    Some questions and suggestions about membership and communication paths were raised in an email conversation following the last Pilots meeting. Sam Steiner is on the Pilots membership list for receipt of agendas, minutes and other messages. He is usually represented at meetings by the members from St. Jerome's and Renison. Linda has asked Richard to review UMD's need for representation.

    For communication, the Pilots alias (LibPilots@library.uwaterloo.ca) can be used for any information of potential interest to the group. Email lists or aliases have been set up by Library functional managers for communications directed to specific groups of users (e.g. all areas using circulation, all UW cataloguers).

    For technical information regarding software upgrades and patches, Charles informs a workstation support contact at UG, UW and WLU. At UW, Carl Nagel arranges for the system support person at each affiliated library to get the software. Charles copies his messages to the TUG Prototyping Team and he will begin to copy them also to Pilots to ensure that the managers of the affiliated libraries know to follow up with the appropriate support person.

  4. Patron updates

    Extracts of patron records from the new Student Administration system are not yet on a regular production schedule but Vivienne Ballantyne is continuing to work with the Library on the problems. A large file was received in early September, an update batch of approximately 4,000 records in mid October, and another small file last week.

    Vivienne has asked us to find a way to simplify the patron expiry dates. Alex will be working with her on this and will review a proposal with Pilots before implementation.

    Alex has been advised that, after November 26th, no further changes to patron update will be permitted until February.

  5. Update from the TRELLIS Operational Management Group (TOMG)

    Charles highlighted some of the items included recently in Brooke Skelton's TOMG reports to tugstaff-l (all Pilots are on this listserv):

    • TRELLIS budget: TOMG is preparing one- and two-year replacement scenarios for the TRELLIS servers for the next fiscal years, when the servers will reach 5/6 years of age.

    • VDX: TOMG is trying to obtain information about how Voyager works with VDX (the new Ontario College & University Libraries ILL system to be implemented in 2002).

    • Endeavor visit: TOMG is planning a visit by TUG's Endeavor Account Rep, Mary Sue Iddings, and Endeavor CEO, Jane Burke.

    • Enhancement Subcommittees: There are several vacancies on the Voyager User Group's enhancement subcommittees. Two TUG staff members have received the TRELLIS Steering Committee's support and have submitted applications (Alex McCulloch for the Circulation and Charles Woods for the Technical Subcommittee).

    • Software patches: TOMG is refining the procedure for distributing Voyager software patches following the recent experience when four patches were distributed, then one was recalled after problems were detected. TOMG will add a testing/evaluation component for patches.

    • 2001.1: We have not yet heard that the 2001.1 Voyager release is in beta but the release notes have recently been revised. Linda distributed copies of the notes. Additional copies are available on Endeavor's SupportWeb or from Linda.

  6. 2000.1.3 post-upgrade review

    6.1 Significant outstanding bugs
    • Circulation/Backdating of discharges: The problem of back-dating working unreliably is of greatest significance to Porter and Davis. Currently, a report is run daily to attempt to capture unfairly assessed fines. A proposal for a three-day grace period is being reviewed by the senior administrators at the TUG libraries. This would decrease the amount of fines collected but is intended to improve library credibility. If approved, it would be set to apply to specific item types and have no impact on reserves.

    • Circulation/Self Charge: Self Charge doesn't reset the way it did in 99.1. This is supposed to be fixed in release 2001.1.

    • Circulation/Disappearing information: Information under various icons (Charged Items; Fine/Fee; Patron Notes; Hold Maintenance) does not always appear at first. The information appears after you go into that area and then back out again. Endeavor has acknowledged the problem and is working on it.

    • Circulation/Calendar updates: There have been problems updating some calendars (e.g. St. Jerome's Summer calendars).

    • Cataloguing/bad character in 050: Approximately 2,000 records with bad characters in the 050 field cannot be displayed and cannot be edited to fix the problem. Endeavor is working on the problem.

    • Cataloguing/Run-time errors: Frequent run-time errors are being experienced when searching remote databases and when searching indexes that have been recently updated. Betty will follow up with the Prototyping Coordinator to ensure these problems have been reported to Endeavor as continuing in 2000.1.3.

    • Acquisitions/Serial cancellations: TUG Acquisitions has developed a new work-around which will work with non-predictive patterns.

    • WebVoyage/Sorting: The "Sort by" feature doesn't work reliably after following a link from a record back to an index. TUG OPAC is investigating.

      6.2 Updates from the TUG functional groups & affiliated libraries

  7. Circulation:
    • TUG Circulation is taking a 'wait & see' approach to VDX until more information becomes available.

    • TUG Circulation is working on a new request form for faculty and staff.

    • Work on Short Loans is on hold at St. Jerome's since comments about this feature in 2000.1.3 on voyager-l are not encouraging.
  8. Cataloguing:
    • TUG Cataloguing has updated the authorities manual and examples on their web page and will soon begin entering manual data (e.g. series treatment) into authority records.
    • All cataloguers now have acquisitions privileges and Betty will be arranging a training session.
    • The country code table is being re-ordered to place the most frequently used codes at the top of the list. The language code table will also be re-ordered.

  9. OPAC:
    The TUG OPAC group is meeting on Nov. 6th to review several items:
    • Changing the wording of the temporary location message that displays when an item is charged out for ILL.
    • The timeout change from 15 to 10 minutes implemented earlier this term.
    • A subject heading sorting problem.
    • The New Books report. Comments about the needs of the TUG affiliated libraries were forwarded to the TUG OPAC group by Linda in response to Brooke Skelton's call for input in September. Pilots also pointed out that no standing order or electronic item will appear on the list as it is currently designed.
    • Relevancy: Relevancy is indicated more frequently in 2000.1.3 than it was in previous versions. Should it be returned to former settings or left as is? Pilots recommended that user input be solicited before this is changed.
    • The brief and full displays: should both be retained? If the brief is retained, would add part (subfield p) to the title display. Also considering adding the table of contents to the full display and dropping the TOC tab since clicking on the tab often gives no information. Pilots would like to have input on this and Dan will notify the group when a sample is available for review.
    • Carolyn asked the group to consider displaying more than the first author on the brief record [Currently, the display includes only the 100, 110 or 111 fields.]
    • Print/Save/Email options: will try to make all formats the same.

  10. Renison:
    • Lois enquired about the status of CJK on 2000.1.3. Records should display correctly but CJK input will not be enabled until 2001.1 or later. Betty, Lois and Charles will locate records with 880 fields to test the display. If the CJK characters display correctly, TUG cataloguing policy should be revised to retain the 880 fields whenever they are received on an imported record.

  11. TRELLIS statistics & reports
    Linda distributed copies of the terms of reference of two new groups. Both will keep the UW Pilots informed about their work and may be seeking input from this group on some issues.
    • TUG Statistics and Reports Cognos Project
      This is a four-month project group with a core membership of Gail Sperling, Bill Halahan (Guelph), Linda Teather and Alex McCulloch (rep from the User/Access Services Statistics and Reports Review team).

    • UW Statistics and Reports Support Group
      Gail will lead this ongoing group that is being formed to provide support and serve as a resource for UW Library managers in the development and preparation of statistics and reports. Populating of the group is underway and work will begin soon.

  12. Around-the-table: other TRELLIS items
    • Renison:
      • Lois now has the Voyager clients running on the PC in her office and the public PC is working again. Impromptu will be installed on her PC but this will await the Cognos Project group's recommendation regarding version.

      • Debbie has been training Lois on Acquisitions and Lois is now checking in on TRELLIS and using TRELLIS in parallel with her old system for other acquisitions functions.

    • Linda:
      • Distributed copies of Endeavor's "Supported PC Operating Systems & Recommended PC Hardware Requirements" document for planning information for the affiliated libraries.

      • EZProxy is being investigated by a TUG Systems group as a potential replacement for the current proxy service which enables off-campus access to restricted resources for registered users.

  13. Next meeting
    The next Pilots meeting was tentatively scheduled for Monday, December 10th, 2:00 p.m. Linda will call for agenda and confirm the meeting in early December.
UW TRELLIS Pilots Group
LibPilots@uwaterloo.ca
July 27, 2005