Instruction and Reference Program Committee (IRPC) Meeting Minutes
02/21/2005

• Maureen Morris gave a demonstration of the public interface for the electronic resources management (ERM) system that CUL purchased from Innovative Interfaces, Inc. The system offers simple searches by title, keyword or subject. A simple search by resource name (for example, JSTOR) has not been activated. The IRPC attendees felt that the advanced search options should be available.
  
  The purpose of the new system is to synchronize the on-line catalog and the find e-journals list. The system will be up-dated on a monthly basis using the list from Serial Solutions. The titles in the on-line catalog that are NOT from Serial Solutions will also be up-dated.
  
  From the staff mode of the ERM system, there will eventually be a link to the actual license agreement for each aggregator. This may take as long as a year.
  The roll-out date for the public portion of the ERM system is mid-March.
  
  Find e-journals will be migrated to the new ERM and possibly Find Databases. Scott Wicks does not anticipate migrating Find Articles to the new system.
  
  Maureen also gave a brief introduction to CommonSpot, the Cornell wide web content management system. Oya Rieger is leading the CommonSpot Implementation Team. It will be about two months before the server is ready for use.
  
  Motivation for purchasing CommonSpot:
  • disperse responsibility of the maintenance of web sites, thus freeing time for information technology folks
  • easier maintenance
  • facilitate sharing between sites  (for example, the library unit schedule of operations)

The creation of templates will make creation and maintenance of web pages much easier. There will be training for staff.

• Thad Dickinson announced that the date for the IRPC Retreat has been set for March 21st from 9AM - Noon in 401 Warren Hall. The speaker will be Dr. Jeff Liles. The Retreat will take the place of the regularly scheduled IRPC meeting for March.
  
  IRPC Steering Committee will manage the refreshments and equipment for the session. The Instruction Working Group will handle publicity via IRPC-L and CU-LIB.
  
  
• Peter Hirtle mentioned that the draft White Paper on Information Literacy has been sent to the Strategic Planning Team #3 Team, which is being led by Kornelia.
  
  Priority Objective #3 Implementation Team: Charge Work with faculty and librarians to develop strategies to incorporate information fluency competencies into the curriculum at all levels.
  
  
• Fred Muratori led a discussion about featuring a database on the Library Gateway front page. Comments made include:
  • it is a good idea to advertise our new acquisitions
  • change databases every two weeks to keep up interest
  • library units will take turns nominating databases to be featured
  • create a template to make the process as easy as possible
  • Fred will spearhead this initiative
  • the news and announcements page gets about 1200-1500 hits per month

Peter Hirtle suggested possibly putting information about controversial topics such as google print in the news and announcement area.  Discussion was postponed until the next meeting.

• Ken Bolton announced that the IRPC web site re-design is not quite ready.  He will send the URL for the new web site to IRPC-L by the end of this week.
  
  
• Lynn Brown announced CUL has a trial for e-Marketer that runs through February 25th and encouraged the group to try it.
  
  
• Fred Muratori reported briefly on JAbbr Task Force.  It is not known at this time when the system will be available.
  
  From the "search by" menu, select Search by Journal Title Abbreviation
  http://test.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First.
  
  
• Bob Kibbee briefly reviewed the CUL Priority Objectives 2005-2006 Implementation Teams. For complete information, see:
  
  http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/PriorityObjectives/committees.html.

Bob also demonstrated the World Development Indicators Online.  It is possible to select data for several countries at once. You can view data as raw data, % change, or  index.

• Michael Engle demonstrated the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  The current set in hard copy has 61 volumes. The online version allows you to search the archives of all editions. To get into the system, it is necessary to click on the button "subscribers enter here" button. Several search options are offered, including an advanced search. The image collection includes information on where to find the original work. It is possible to search by photographer.