Documentation Committee Meeting
March 11, 2005

Present: Ken Bolton (co-chair), Gail Steinhart (co-chair), Camille Andrews, Amy Blumenthal (liaison), Megan Perez

Announcements
The new ERM system will be implemented on Monday, March 14.

Wireless Documentation

• Amy reported the wireless documentation is up-to-date currently. She suggested that we may want to delete the "What kind of wireless card do I need?" question, since there is no longer a need to use a card from a specific manufacturer. She noted that when Guest Access is implemented, we will have to update the wireless information page.
• She also passed along an announcement from CIT's Shannon Osburn. CIT will be holding a RedRover overview geared at a basic level for those who interact with users on Thursday, March 24 from 2 -4 PM. If interested in attending or if any questions, contact Amy.

EJAC Cornell-Weill Documentation
We reviewed the "Cross-Campus Access to Cornell Library Materials" page created by Leah Solla to address cross-Cornell/Weill access; this was based on a template on Geneva access created by Marty Schlabach. Amy Blumenthal mentioned the following points:

Patrons from Weill who are based at Weill and want access to Ithaca/Geneva resources apply for a special electronic access proxy permit after they obtain a NetID from CIT, but the proxy permit isn't given automatically. It used to be that everyone with a NetID got access erroneously but George Kozak fixed this problem. Now, there are two other considerations beyond getting a NetID before a Weill patron might be able to access an Ithaca/Geneva resource:

• Administrative: Amy must clear issuance of the special proxy permit with an administrative librarian (Ross Atkinson) who will then contact the applicant's sponsor and get documentation of their special need (usually people doing large amount of research). If he deems the need sufficient, he will approve the permit and Amy will add the patron to CU Proxy.
• Technical: With resources that have a gateway-no-med clause, Weill patrons will not be able to get access even with the special proxy permit in place. It isn't possible to change the Gateway standard script to allow Weill access in general (everyone at Weill would then gain access, violating our licensing agreements). George Kozak will have to add their specific IP addresses manually to the authentication server.

Camille will note this in the minutes and send to Gail so that she can forward to Leah. Camille will also serve as Amy's "document buddy" for editing.

Help Pages Mentioning Weill
Megan noted that only five Help pages mention Weill and most of those discuss the fact that Weill's catalog is separate. However, there are two areas that need revision:

• In "Using Library Resources Off-Campus," replace the second sentence with "For more information on accessing library resources from Weill, please click here" (where "here" is a link to Leah's new "Cross-Campus Access to Cornell Library Materials" page).
• Under "Research Services and Support," add a link to the "Cross-Campus Access to Cornell Library Materials" page Leah created.

Changes to Set-up Page and Browser Pages
Amy recommended that the browser capability page (http://www.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/res_tools/find_articles_dbs/browsers.html) be changed to a much more general version that says to check that you are running the most recent version of your browser rather than specifying specific browsers and browser versions. The current page has not been updated and is too difficult to keep updated given the constantly growing and changing ranks of browsers and browser upgrades. Also, it focuses too much on IE and Netscape, and perhaps presumes to regulate which browsers users can use. Amy suggested keeping the page instead of cutting it, since having a page to check for specific browser flaws can help users diagnose technical problems, and making it more general will eliminate some of the difficulties of updating and allow us to cut many of the browser-specific help pages.

Amy has also created a "Touchy Resources" page which will help indicate specific problems that users may encounter with particular resources; after some discussion it was decided that similar information provided in the new ERM system would be slower in coming and also buried deeper in areas that a user might not immediately see, so this page will still be useful in the future. This new "Touchy Resources" page should also be linked under "Problems with Specific Resources" and "Technical Support."

Amy also recommended getting rid of the browser test on the "Computer Set-up for the Library Gateway" and "Problem Connecting"/Technical Problem report form since the results it gives are incorrect (it has listed users' browsers as "Netscape 5.0," which does not exist). Amy will write this up and send it to LIBIT and IRPC before implementing this. Camille will be "document buddy" for editing.

Assignments for FA/FD/FeJ pages

• Camille tried making the new Cornell logo for the updated template page but failed. Gail will try making it and send if successful. Camille is working on the FA Quickguide and Search FA tips pages inherited from Lynn and will make PDFs. She noted that Adobe Acrobat was only available at Mann and Engineering (ETA: actually available in all CIT labs). Megan is looking into getting Acrobat for Olin's Electronic Text Center. Camille will let him know differences between Standard and Professional versions.
• Gail will send a message to IRPC about combining the Quickguides and Search Tips sections for FA/FD.
• Camille and Amy have been working on the Frequently Asked Questions page and will do another revision before sending to the group.
• Ken Bolton will work on the changes to Find E-journals necessitated by the change to the new ERM system. Gail will let Maureen Morris know that he is doing this and forward the information she has sent. We briefly looked at the new ERM system.

Meeting was adjourned at 3:05.

Next meeting:
Friday, April 1, 2-3pm
Olin 106
Minutes: Ken Bolton