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Web Operational Management Group

Minutes of the Meeting of March 21, 2007
2:00 - 3:30 pm, Dana Porter Conference Room

Present: Chris Gray, Tim Ireland, Esther Millar, Doug Morton, Bill Oldfield (facilitator), Dan Sich, Charles Woods (recorder).

  1. Minutes of the meeting of March 7, 2007

    Approved with minor corrections.

  2. Business Arising
    1. Item 6 (Google Analytics) -- The creation of a wiki space to consolidate thoughts on log analysis is still pending.
    2. Item 6 (Google Analytics) -- Bill has sent the email on website use statistics to the people described there.
    3. Item 8 (WinHTTrack archive) -- Chris notes the program cannot be configured to exclude external links
    4. Item 7 (YouTube) -- Tim and Doug were asked to put up a demo page illustrating use of the YouTube widget and provide the URL to the group for examination. Esther and Charles will attend to UNIX group and Contribute Role settings.
    5. Item 7 (YouTube) -- Tim was asked to check with the IST CHIP desk regarding available video-editing software
    6. Item 14 (Web Page Ownership) -- Bill is endeavoring to obtain access to the PrinterOne help pages such that they can be maintained via Contribute.
    7. Item 10 (Wiki Training) -- Two training sessions, one each for Porter and Davis ISR departments, will be conducted on Friday, March 22. Bill will contact Library managers to determine what other groups desire Wiki training and orientation.
    8. Item 11 (Blogs) -- Chris reports success in building a VMWare server to serve blog and Wiki Space. WordPress MU is being acquired to provide multi-blog capabilities.

  3. Agenda review

    Wiki/Blog Official Support was added as agenda item 7.

  4. Google Gadgets

    Dan reviewed the potential for delivering access to library applications – such as TRELLIS and ScholarsPortal – to users’ customized Google homepages through the use of Google gadgets.

    See http://www.libtest.uwaterloo.ca/index_dan_sp11g2.html for proof of concept.  The TRELLIS and ScholarsPortal quick searches on the homepage are not widgets/gadgets themselves.  The “Add to Google” buttons permit Google account holders to add gadgets with similar functionality to their Google homepages.

    The code for these widgets can be found at:
    http://www.libtest.uwaterloo.ca/widgets/google/catalogue.xml
    http://www.libtest.uwaterloo.ca/widgets/google/articles.xml

    The group reviewed the approach and discussed several issues, including:
    1. Usability and accessibility -- are the pages too "busy"?
    2. the attractiveness of making library pages more interactive with the user
    3. Google-centricsm -- should this kind of mechanism work with other major servers providing home-page customizations, such as Yahoo, MSN. Facebook, etc?
    4. the use of these gadgets being commesurate with Web 2.0 principles

      Dan will attempt to quantify the number of users who have Google home pages. The LibWebReview group will review the usability issues.

  5. Contribute Rollbacks

    Esther and Charles noted that some large Contribute rollback files were the cause of the growth of the library website by 5 gigabytes recently. It was found that these were unneeded backups of large datafiles (>400 megabytes) that had been deleted.

    The immediate problem had been addressed but the group reviewed some of the configuration options available in Contribute, including the number of rollback copies kept (currently 3) and deletion of rollback files if the original file is deleted. Charles was asked to further profile the problem, typing files by size and age. The group will review the issue in a future meeting.

  6. Archiving SubSites

    Esther noted several issues regarding the use of the archive directory on the Library Website. It was decided that current procedures and practices for use of this area do not need to be changed at this time.

  7. Wiki/Blog Official Support

    Chris noted that some decisions need to be made as the Library wikis and blogs move from trial into production. Guidance on the appropriate use of wikispace needs to be established, and roles for administration and maintenance of the servers delineated.

    Bill will draft a memo outlining these issues and present it for review before the group before presenting it to Allan Bell.

  8. Next Meeting

    The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 4 at 2pm in the Davis Centre Conference Room.
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March 22, 2007