PUBLIC SERVICES FORUM

11 December 2000

RWA Notes

1. Voyager 2000:  Lynne Personius reported that preparations for the Voyager 2000 implementation are on schedule. The upgrade will take place in the week of the winter recess, when the University will be closed. Endeavor will take control of our system on 27 December, and it is expected their work will require 2-3 days. During this time, the OPAC (1999 version) will still be accessible, but nothing else. Those libraries that will be open some days during the recess (Olin, Mann, PSL) should not use the circulation client; that client should be disabled, so that the back-up circulation system is used. There will be major changes to the OPAC in the 2000 version. In the case of circulation, the functionality will be somewhat more robust, but essentially the same. Other major changes for public services will be the availability of image server, and the Annex connection.

   Joanne asked about whether recalls, holds, and Annex requests will be possible during the transition. Lynne said she would check, but she thinks not. Susan Currie agreed: presumably everything relating to the patron file will be down. We talked about the need to inform the public of this. Philip said that the OPAC Committee will look into providing the public with information through the OPAC about what is not available during the implementation period. Philip also said that some OPAC training for staff at service points will be provided next week. Further training for staff who are not at service points but want to know about the changes in the OPAC will probably be provided in January. The new OPAC interface is accessible in test at http://test.library.cornell.edu . Lance reported that the Documentation Committee has been working on new online help pages, which explain the new features. Susan and Carmen said that while training sessions for circulation staff will not be necessary, cheat sheets are being created, which will outline the changes in the circulation module. The changes made by Bill Kehoe to the patron long-in (so that users will need to type in only their ID numbers) will also be implemented in tandem with Voyager 2000.

2. Announcements:
   1. OKU Reference Candidates:  Lance said that there will be four candidates interviewing before the winter recess, and one after the recess, for the two reference/digital services librarian positions in OKU. Paul will be posting the dates of the presentations on CU-LIB.

   2. Abolitionist Pamphlets:  The Library is now working on a grant-funded project to digitize and conserve the ca. 10,000 abolitionist pamphlets in RMC. Two weeks ago Barbara Berger, Katherine Reagan, Suzy Palmer, Paul Constantine, Bob Kibbee and I met to begin talking about public service preparations for making this material available on the Internet. The grant runs through CY 2002, but enough materials should be digitized by this spring to begin to do some testing.

   3. CRL/OPAC Task Force:  A task force, chaired by Ali Houissa, and including Julie Copenhagen, Fred Muratori, and Carrol Tavelli, is considering how to make CRL holdings more visible to users through the CUL OPAC.

   4. E-Books Task Force:  Greg Lawrence is chairing a new task force, which includes Marty Kurth, Suzy Palmer, Lynne Personius, John Saylor, and Don Schnedeker; this new group will (a) monitor and suggest adjustments for our netLibrary experiment, and will also (b) stay informed of new e-book opportunities that arise. In considering new e-book possibilities, we need to examine not only digital monographs but also the new hand-held appliances that are intended for intensive reading of digital resources.

3. Middle States:  The Middle States Commission, which is responsible for higher education accreditation in New York, is urging that more attention be paid by higher education to information literacy. Tony Cosgrave reported on a conference he attended at RIT, which was called by the Commission to explore this issue. In 1994, Tony explained, the Commission included information literacy issues in its standards. Now new standards have now been drafted by the Commission (these can be found at http://www.msache.org/chx3b.pdf), which make the requirement for information literacy more explicit. The aim is for information literacy instruction to be embedded in courses, and that performance indicators, based on the ACRL guidelines, should be put in place at all institutions. In the spring, these new standards will be discussed and presumably adopted. Next fall, the Commission intends to call a meeting of chief academic officers, to encourage the creation of committees on individual campuses to increase the role of information literacy in instruction. Beyond that, a series of further conferences are being planned by the Commission. Tony also noted that the Commission will be looking for faculty who are particularly interested and experienced in this area to serve as speakers at these planned conferences. This initiative by the Middle States Commission is clearly a great opportunity to increase even further the place of user education in the curriculum.

   Lenore noted that each department and school in the University is periodically reviewed. These reviews provide an opportunity not only to say what has been done but also to propose plans for future directions. Library units should ensure that they are included in such reviews--which will give libraries the opportunity to propose increased opportunities for user education.

4. ILLiad Lending:  Susan Currie and Julie Copenhagen reported that an Access Services group is now looking into the possibility of implementing the ILLiad lending module--probably next semester. This will simplify and regularize how units receive lending requests. As this planning develops, individual libraries will be contacted to establish procedures.

5. Ubiquitous Returns:  Current plans for access services are to:
   • complete Voyager 2000 upgrade by early January,

   • implement e-reserves selectively (at first in Uris and Mann) at the beginning of the spring semester, with other units to follow in the summer

   • begin ubiquitous returns (i.e., any user can return CUL materials to any location, regardless of the location from which those materials were borrowed) on 1 February, and

   • begin planning for a pilot project for electronic document delivery, using the same or similar methods to deliver articles electronically among units that are currently used for delivering articles from the Annex.

   Next year, we expect to begin working also on ubiquitous delivery, i.e., the ability of users to request materials for delivery from one library to another. We still have only preliminary information on what each of these projects will entail; because the same staff will be generally working on all of the projects, complications in one project could conceivably affect the time table for a following project--but we are confident, barring unforeseen difficulties, that this ambitious schedule is practicable.

   Shipping will increase its route so that it stops at each library once per day. Items received for other units will be checked in for transfer; they will have a transfer slip put in them, and they will then be moved by Shipping to the owning unit, where they will (I now understand) be checked in again as having arrived. We do not know at this point--nor will we know until we implement this plan--what the effects of this new service will be on particular units. If there are any problematic pressures, we will certainly need to respond to them, but we do not foresee at this time any difficulties, once the new procedures are in place.

   • Judging from endowed unit statistics last year, 80% of the fines go through the Bursar. Lydia plans to reprogram the bursar interface, such that the fines will in future be credited to the owning library rather than the discharging library; this will therefore take care of most of the fine income. (Joanne suggested that this reprogramming be done soon, since there is presumably no need to wait until next year to test it.) The 10% of the fines that come across the desk could be affected by these new procedures, since we will be allowing users to pay fines at any location--but the total dollar amount of this should not be great enough to cause serious problems to any one unit. Some units will therefore receive the fines for items borrowed from other units, but this ambiguity will need to be viewed as simply part of the price of creating this new service.

   • Reserve materials will be exempted from this service: we will expect reserve items to be returned to the library from which they have been borrowed.

   • Recalls may be slowed down somewhat by this new procedure, and we have discussed the possibility of asking users to return recalled materials to the owning library. On the other hand, it is also possible that allowing users to return recalled materials to any location might also in some cases speed up recalls, since users may return materials more quickly to a location that is more convenient for them. Lenore noted that we are already experiencing some complications, since users can now select which library they want a recalled item sent to--and in some cases users may be making errors in their selections.

   • Some special training will be required for circulation staff in how to receive and discharge unusual materials, such as items in several parts. Our aim will be for all circulation staff to be familiar with all kinds of materials that presently circulate in the CUL system.

   • There may be some special seasonal pressures, especially as part of the end-of-semester deluge. The need for additional book trucks and even for some additional staff at that time, as a result of this new procedure, will be considered.

   • Plans will need to be made soon to publicize this new service, as something we will implement on 1 February. We also have to identify a more user-friendly name. Suggestions are welcome.

   • Lenore and Suzy both noted that the description "available" is confusing for items in the catalog that are not being used but that do not circulate. We have considered this problem before: the concern is that "available" may imply to many users that such materials do circulate--and that one could, for example, request them once we implement a ubiquitous receipts process.

6. E-Reserves:  In response to a question from Lenore, Susan talked briefly about e-reserves. A key component of this new Voyager service will be the image server. Access services staff will receive training on the image server from Endeavor this week. Susan explained that the image server has a large capacity, and that it can provide access not only to printed material, but also to audio and video. After the initial work in Uris and Mann in the spring, we should expect to bring up e-reserves in other units--probably one unit at a time, since each unit will have different requirements and different kinds of reserve materials.

Minutes recorded by Ross Atkinson.

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