Public Interfaces Committee
January 5, 2005
Sterling Lecture Hall
9:30-11:00
Present: Dale Askey, Katie Bauer, Debbie Falvey, Julie Linden, Stephen Naron,
Karen Reardon, Earl Roy, Andy Shimp, Kalee Sprague, Rick Zwies
Absent: Tao Yang
Minutes: Dale
Announcements:
- Emily Horning requested that we delete the information for 655a genre searching
from the help files. This field is not routinely used by catalogers at Yale,
thus searches using this index are less than helpful. PIC agreed with her request
and this information will be deleted. Kalee noted that it is possible to search
this index via the Advanced Search screen in Orbis; we will consult stats to
see if this can be eliminated without causing concern.
- Steven Arakawa would like to add a local note to dissertations to let users
know that they may be available in fulltext online via ProQuest's database.
PIC saw no problem with this. Andy noted that Ann Okerson gave ProQuest money
to digitize all Yale dissertations in UMI's archive and add them to the online
product.
Reactions to Orbis changes:
Kalee reported that reaction to the recent round of Orbis changes had been
mild, with some messages expressing support for the changes. One comment came
in about the wording of the new call number search, but the commenter had no
suggestion for improvement. There were no significant objections to the removal
of the call number redirect from a bib record.
Language links:
PIC viewed the various options that have been presented, settling on placing
the links at the bottom of the FD. To reduce the amount of text in the footer,
PIC agreed to place the text only link and the last update information on the
same line, removing the underlining from the text only link, and editing the
last updated information to read "Last updated: dd/mm/yy." Russian
needs to be added to this design, the slashes should be removed, and Arabic and
Hebrew need to be reversed. French is in too large of a font and should be changed
to match the others.
HR/Job opportunities links:
Changing two links to one was no problem for HR, but Diane Turner was adamant
that it read Human Resources. PIC prefers for a variety of reasons based on our
guiding design principles that it not read that way, preferring either Job Opportunities
or, as a compromise, Working at the Library. Julie will revive her e-mail discussion
with Diane and send to us her message for review before sending it to Diane.
Hours:
PIC liked UCLA's presentation, but not their handling of exceptions, since
we have a lot of those. Penn's calendar was appealing, but questions remain,
such as whether it can present multiple entries for one day (necessary for libraries
such as Classics and the Walpole) and how data is added (day by day, or using
batches). Rick will contact Penn for more information on their program.
The "What could we do" document:
This was originally conceived to support the request for a full-time Web Coordinator
position. While that position is not forthcoming, Karen does have a new staff
member who can provide some Web support. Ideas that came up during our discussion
were:
- Ongoing training for library Web specialists; what can/should PIC offer
- Helping the helpless: what to do with departments/libraries that lack the
staff and skills to maintain adequately their own Web pages
- Karen reported that the drop-in sessions show an increase in popularity and
will continue
- Rick will speak with Kate Reynolds about Dreamweaver and HTML training via
the Learning Plan or other paths; Stephen asked why, if the work is part of
someone's job, this training isn't required
- Karen will be chatting with Meg about helping the helpless and will report
to PIC
- Libraries/units with designs that are very different from the Front Door look
are, e.g., Art, Music, Fortunoff (under revision, however), GIS, Maps, Walpole,
etc.
- Beinecke will begin using Macromedia's Contribute to manage their Web content
- Aesthetic guidelines - local autonomy is strong here, so how can we enforce/encourage
compliance
- Karen is working with the Slavic collection on maintenance issues; this is
something of a test case to see what models can be set up
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