PUBLIC SERVICES FORUM

9 October 2000

RWA Notes

1. New Staff:  We welcomed a new intern, Lee Lafleur, who will be working initially in OKU Reference.

2. Weekend Outage: The Voyager outage on Saturday, undertaken to make some repairs to the authorities file, proceeded very well. No one was aware of any significant concerns expressed by users. Lynne acknowledged the excellent work by many staff on this, especially Surinder. She also thanked Philip Herold for managing the public service side of this project.

3. Ubiquitous Returns: I reported that Susan Currie, Howard Raskin, Sharon Wargo, Don Fenton, and Linda Westlake recently met to talk about procedures and costs of allowing all users to return items to any library unit that were borrowed from any library unit (probably with the exception of reserve materials). Depending upon the costs and the complexities, this is something we would like to begin, if possible, next semester.

4. Voyager 2000: Lynne provided an update on the changes in Voyager 2000, as described at a recent meeting of (what used to be called) the Safire Group. The weakest part of Voyager, Lynne said, is unquestionably the acquisitions system, and many of the changes in V-2000 are intended to improve that. The other major change is an entirely new WebVoyage interface, which the OPAC Committee will be working with. In addition, JACKPHY languages in our records should finally display in V-2000, and some initial problems with SysAdmin security should be solved. V-2000 can be reviewed in Endeavor's preview server; Lynne said she would send us the URL for this. We will put it on our own test server as soon as possible. V-2000 moved from beta into production last week, so we need now to decide when we want to load it. We do not load it ourselves, Lynne said; this is done by Endeavor staff, and it takes 4-5 days. (A further enhancement is "continuous OPAC," which means that the OPAC can remain accessible to users during the upgrade process.) Clearly we want to implement this upgrade when there is as little use as possible--so the best time would be during the winter recess. Alternatively, we could do it during the summer--although Don noted that JGSM starts its summer semester immediately following commencement. Marty Schlabach wondered whether we could load only part of the upgrade; Lynne said this is not an option--we must take all or nothing. Paul noted that upgrades at the end of the CY are particularly problematic, since we have just taught students how to use the system in the fall semester. We need then to teach them a new system all over again in the spring semester. Philip agreed, but noted that we would not expect major upgrades to the OPAC annually--but rather probably every few years. This year, however, there will indeed be a major change to the OPAC; implementing this change, Philip said, over the winter recess would be an enormous job; we would need to make all of the decisions we just made all over again, and this will be difficult for both users and staff. Don said that, if V-2000 will give acquisitions staff anything approaching "a fighting chance" with Voyager, then we should nevertheless consider undertaking the upgrade as soon as possible; the alterations to the OPAC will cause some stress, but our users are becoming increasingly accustomed to frequent changes in computer services.

5. OPAC Committee: Philip Herold reported on the current work of the OPAC Committee, which includes Ed Weissman (Chair), Lynn Brown, Pat Schafer, Deb Lamb-Deans, Fred Muratori, Tom Gale, Lance Heidig, Elaine Engst, and Philip. The committee is currently concentrating on three areas. First, the committee has been working on the FAQ/known problem list. The responsibility for making this list available to the public has now moved to the Documentation Committee; the list will likely be accessible eventually through the Help module, and then will need to be regularly updated. Second, the committee has been concerned about methods to inform the public about the regular Friday shutdowns. One option might be to put an announcements box on the catalog home page, perhaps similar to the one now on the Gateway home page. [The Library is currently considering the possibility of purchasing a third server for Voyager; if we do this, it would mean that we would not need to bring the system down once a week to create back-ups. George suggested this possibility at the last PS Forum meeting.] Third, the committee has been discussing preparations for Voyager 2000. Although the committee is reading everything it can about V-2000, it is difficult to know what work will need to be done until the new version is in place on the test server. As for the future, the committee is intending to resolve all of the items on the known problem list--although some of these will depend mainly on work by Endeavor rather than by us. The patron log-in problem is particularly vexing, since we know we could fix it easily, if we had access to the code. Another problem, about which we have alerted Endeavor, is that CU ID numbers in the patron log-in are being sent in the clear; there is a strong sense that these should be encrypted. A further problem the committee will work on has to do with the fact that users are often not exiting the system, which means that other users, using the same workstation before the fifteen minute time-out, can see what the previous user saw by clicking the back button. There could be an exit button that would alleviate this problem, but since there are only a limited number of buttons available in the current version of Voyager, we are using that button now as a link to the Gateway. In V-2000, one can apparently have as many buttons as one wants, so this should no longer be as much of a problem. Lee Lafleur asked why the time-out is so long: could it not be reduced to something less than fifteen minutes? Philip answered that the committee has been reluctant to do that, because users often have several windows open at once; they sometimes look in several databases, and then they need to return to the OPAC to see if we hold the material they have found--and this can often take some time. Philip said that the committee has also been concerned about response time, and he urged anyone who has encountered a response time problem to let someone on the OPAC committee know the details. Kathy said it would probably be preferable to monitor the load on the OPAC at different times of the day: by doing that we could determine whether response time problems are likely to occur.

6. Withdrawals in the OPAC: Linda Miller reminded us that we continue to have a problem in that we cannot easily indicate in the OPAC that an item is currently being withdrawn. The best we can do at this point is to say that it is missing. We asked Linda if she would determine whether this problem will be resolved in V-2000. If not, then the different options for managing this problem might be put on a future IRPC agenda, in order to obtain input from reference and instruction staff.

7. Eureka Telnet: We talked briefly about the fact that RLG is considering the elimination of telnet access to Eureka next summer. CUL is not RLG's heaviest user of telnet, but we are up there. Some other institutions (notably Columbia and NYU) have high telnet use, but they are considering mounting a campus campaigns to reduce use of telnet generally. I asked why so many users seem to prefer telnet. (In May of 2000, 58% of the access to Eureka was by telnet.) Constance suggested that in the list of options, telnet comes above Web (they are in alphabetical order): perhaps we should put Web access on top. Philip said that many staff probably use telnet; they are accustomed to telnet, since it is (and will remain) available for Classic RLIN. Kathy emphasized that we should determine which groups of users are using telnet, if we can, and then sample them as to why. Jill said the most likely reason is speed of access. Marty said that, in general, Eureka's Web functionality is not nearly as effective as it could be. We will continue to study this.

8. Chat Reference: Paul reviewed the current state of OKU's chat reference service. He noted that the initial study by OKU reference of software options clearly indicated that regular chat software was not an option; they therefore decided to use software designed for e-commerce. Some of the best software was, however, too expensive. They made the decision to sign a one-year contract, therefore, with Live Person; this software supported both PC's and Mac's initially (although, Paul said, their support of Mac's--and Netscape--has declined, in favor of support of PC's and Internet Explorer). It is entirely Web-based, so it can be used on any machine, without any special software. Everything is done on the Live Person server, so there are no server requirements for us. But a significant problem, Paul said, is that Live Person is intended primarily for commercial customers; libraries are a very small part of their business, and have therefore very little influence. The service has been available four hours per days, five days a week, since January. There have been some five hundred interactions. One of the main challenges has been staffing; reference staff are reluctant to participate in chat reference when they are working at the reference desk, because it competes with the needs of users asking questions at the desk: there is a feeling that the desk is simply too busy to absorb this extra responsibility. The software keeps excellent session logs; exit interviews are possible; and it is also possible to create a database of canned answers for frequently asked questions. Questions are answered that are received both from Cornell users and from people not associated with Cornell--in the same way that other reference questions are answered.

   The term of the license expires in January, so OKU Reference is now considering other software options. Some new companies have come into existence that cater specifically to libraries. Reference staff are learning more all the time about how to provide this service. The chat reference interview is not suitable for all kinds of questions. Some responses need a paragraph, but chat reference works best when there are one or two line interactive responses. Some questions could have been answered in a fraction of the time on the telephone. It would be helpful, Paul said, to create a system whereby OKU Reference could refer questions to other CUL libraries. Kathy suggested that we determine whether CIT is offering a similar service--and what software they might be using.

   Paul had noted that the Lippincott Library at the Wharton School is also using the same software for chat reference. Don said he had also talked with Lippincott staff about this service. He said they particularly liked the canned responses, and that they have decided not to answer questions from outside the University.

9. Mann Printing: Kathy Chiang reported that Mann has now discontinued all free printing. There has been so far little public concern expressed--perhaps in part because Mann has in effect been phasing this in for some time. There are 75 public access machines in the new Mann building--both PCs and Macs--and there will be some 20 laptops purchased with FABIT funding. There are two NetPrint printers, one vendacard printer, one color printer, and one plotter. With the vendacard printer, the user brings the vendacard to a student worker, who is in charge of the printer, and who debits the card in exchange for the printed item. Some items sent for printing have not been collected by users, in which case the library must absorb the cost. Users can, of course, e-mail information to themselves; they can also transfer the information to a diskette, and then print it out elsewhere. The price for all printing is $.10 per page--the same as a photocopy.

   Constance said that Hotel now uses mainly NetPrint printers, aside from a few remaining dot matrix printers. Hotel also sells diskettes, so that users can download material from Hotel computers. All Hotel students receive $20 worth of free printing per semester.

10. Distributed Learning:  We had only a few minutes to talk about distributed learning. I talked about the Library's planned Office of Distributed Learning. We are recruiting now for a Coordinator, who will be in charge of this new Office. This will be an excellent opportunity for some energetic individual, who wants to work on building a new and significant service from the ground up. It is important to recognize that this Office will not provide distributed learning support--but will rather coordinate it. The actual support will be provided by line staff, so it is essential that we begin now to consider how we will adjust services to support distributed users. It is also important not to view distributed and residential learners as a dichotomy. We have changed the term from "distance learners" to "distributed learners," because we recognize that some of these learners will not be all that distant--indeed, some will definitely be residential students. Eventually all of the students we serve, therefore, may well be distributed learners to some extent.

Minutes recorded by Ross Atkinson.

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