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Web Operational Management Group

Minutes of the Meeting of October 11, 2005
1:30 - 3:00 pm, Davis Conference Room

Present:Christy Branston, Chris Gray, Esther Millar, Bill Oldfield (Recorder), Marina Wan (Facilitator), Charles Woods, Marian Davies

Regrets: Linda Hastings

  1. Minutes of meeting September 21, 2005

    Approved with minimal change

  2. Business Arising

    LibWebReview draft minutes
    Charles Woods asked the question about the role of CNAC for possible future WebOps or LibWebReview surveys.  The group agreed that it would be ideal if these surveys were handled by CNAC.

    5. Library and Staff Web Template Change
    The attempt to redo the Template to reduce the need to access all files on the site when changes are made to style sheet references has proven impractical.  Because some of the style sheet references are controlled via template properties they cannot be placed in a server-side include.  As a result the current template will continue to be used as constituted.

    7. Google Scholar
    A meeting was held among the TUG Libraries regarding SFX. Bill is currently working with Doug Morton to see to some automated means of updating the SFX Knowledge base. Once this is completed, Google Scholar participation will be pursued.

    The question ,"What does Google Scholar index was asked. Kevin Manuel is working on an FAQ for Google Scholar which should answer this question. He will be kept informed about the SFX and WorldCat initiatives

    Christy and Marian will pursue the issue of UW participation or subscription to OCLC's WorldCat.  This would make our catalogue available through WorldCat and Google Scholar. If there is a cost involved they will take the issue to IRC.

    9. Around the Table
    Charles met with Bill about Contribute Administration and will meet with Esther for more orientation.  Charles is also learning about CPS (Contribute Publishing Services), which is an https server, that runs Contribute authorization through UWDir and maintains some maintenance logs. There is also some Microsoft firewall settings that are required when users from outside the Library's domain require access to CPS (e.g. Musagetes, Optometry, etc.)

Action: Charles will meet with Esther and continue to become aquatinted with Contribute and CPS administration so that he can act as a backup.

  1. Agenda review

The agenda was unchanged

  1. Graphics site for staff

    In the past Linda Hastings had access, through a subscription, to a graphic site but because of some unclear use requirements the decision was made to drop the service and use free sites hiring Graphics for any special requirements.

    Apparently Laura Briggs is currently trialing a graphics subscription service.

Marian Davies is investigating available free sites and requested clarification on possible usages.

It was suggested that a graphics page with free graphic resources could be added to the Online Reference Shelf for use by students and staff.

It was also suggested that a collection of local photos taken by staff could prove useful.

Action: Marian will continue her investigations.

  1. Subject Guides and more - searching capabilities

    The possibility of using a database delivery method for the Library's Subject Guides has been on the web development project list for some time. The list is currently under review. Bill will raise the profile of this issue.

    Action: Marina will setup a Google search capability for the subject guides directory.
Action: Bill will raise the profile of the issue of the database delivery of the Library's subject guides.
  1. WebOps Terms of Reference

    A revision proposal for Terms of Reference for WebOps were discussed and some minor changes suggested. 

Action: Marina will make the changes and wait a week for further comments. The revised Terms of Reference will then be sent on to our sponsors, Susan and Mark.

  1. FireFox/IE Plugins

    Charles introduced the idea of an evaluation of various FireFox and IE plugins by WebOps.  A list could be prepared and responsibilities assigned to various WebOps members for evaluation. Chris mentioned that the extension for FireFox are XML (text) files and can be installed on a machine without requiring administrative privileges. 

Not all WebOps members have Firefox installed and Dan Sich needs a patch installed. Patches and installation require administrative privileges.

Action: Chris will take installation and patch requirements to Carl for action. Dan needs a patch and Christy, Marian and Rose need to have FireFox installed. Doug Morton was mentioned and Chris will contact Doug about FireFox. It was mentioned that the Web developer Tool should be a regular part of any installation.

Action: Chris and Charles will prepare a list of available FireFox extensions for the next WebOps meeting that can be evaluated by members.

Action: Charles will will work with Wolf to ensure that a patch notification and update process is established.

  1. Around the Table

Dreamweaver 8

IST has planned a session on Dreamweaver 8. Upgrades cost $35 and new copies $80.

Esther and Bill have encountered problems with trial versions of Dreamweaver 8. Reference to directories are automatically adjusted by Dreamweaver 8 making our use of subdirectories for the storage of area specific CSS and SSIs problematic. Jesse Rodgers has forwarded a work around. This problem must be solved if we are going to use Dreamweaver 8.

Bill's problem relates to caching by the ColdFusion server. Changes during develop,development work are not being returned by the ColdFusion server. 

Chris has still not heard from Jesse about the use of link tags to access CSS in the template.

Action: Bill will contact Jesse about the problem.

Action: Chris will look into Jesse's work around to solve Esther problem with Dreamweaver 8.

Staff Homepage Text Revision

Charles requested that the introductory text on the Staff home page be revised.  Nothing has yet happened.

Action: Marina will contact Susan about this issue.

Web Development Priorities

    Linda Teather, Bill Oldfield and Chris Gray are examining the projects on the web development to-do list.  This evaluation is also looking at some big picture issues.

    Jim Parrot has applied for a study leave to work on a better structure to control the historical data is has collected for his Scholarly Societies Project. Making the data searchable and dealing with the early evolution of abbreviations using XML is part of the proposal. The use and handling of XML has potential for other Library projects.

  1. Next Meeting

    The Oct 19th meeting has been cancelled.  The next meeting will be November 2 in the Davis Conference room (DC1568).

 

 
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November 16, 2005