Public Interfaces Committee
PIC minutes
February 16, 2005
9:30-11 a.m.
Attending: Dale Askey, Debbie Falvey, Julie Linden (recorder), Stephen Naron,
Karen Reardon, Andy Shimp, Kalee Sprague, Tao Yang, Rick Zwies
Absent: Katie Bauer, Earl Roy
1. Announcements:
Julie is going to tomorrow's SQIC meeting to talk about PIC.
U. of Penn contacted Rick re their hours database. The database is still under
development and they used Perl and Oracle. Given those details, we're not going
to pursue it. At this point, we're just going to stick with our static hours
pages, as we haven't seen another database model that's appealing.
2. Request to change e-journals default search to Title Keyword.
Decision: Yes, and while we're at it, change drop-down menu of search options
to radio buttons, so users can see all the search options. Julie will ask Bonnie
to make the changes.
3. MetaLib follow-up
Katie has taken the "DBOW functionality" list and put it into a spreadsheet
with columns to indicate what DBOW can/can't do, what MetaLib can/can't do, and
what functionality is required/highly desired/we'd like. Kalee suggested splitting
the list into "functions" and "data elements."
Dale and Kalee answered PIC members' questions about specific aspects of MetaLib:
- There's no limit on the number of categories or subcategories that can be
created, and no limit to the number of databases that can be assigned to a category
or subcategory. This satisfied Rick's concern about granularity (Medical uses
30-40 subject categories for its e-resources).
- Julie asked about displaying databases in some interfaces but not others
(e.g. currently some SOM-only databases don't appear on the Front Door A-Z list,
but do appear on the SSLIS database list). Security profiles can be used to
display certain databases only to certain logins (can be done by user or IP
range). Julie will talk to the SOM librarian to figure out how to handle those
few "special" databases in a MetaLib context.
- Dale is going to try a "kludge" within subcategories to indicate
"core databases" and "related databases," so that several
databases can be listed, but prioritized. It was noted that consistency across
categories in using this kludge, and in setting up databases within categories
in general, was desirable.
- It's possible to have a database listed in the A-Z list of databases but
not assigned to a category.
Julie asked when it would be launched, so that PIC can allocate sufficient
time to make decisions about linking to it. Kalee and Dale felt that the federated
search portion could be launched post-spring break. Kalee added that in the first
launch, we would not replace the A-Z DBOW pages - that will require much more
work, and so for now, we can concentrate on pointing to the federated searching
screens.
Julie asked about how to get input from selectors and public services staff
about where to link it. It was suggested that for the initial rollout, it be
linked from the home page and the databases page with terminology like "try
it."
There was brief discussion about how to introduce it to staff. Dale argued
that staff wouldn't really engage with MetaLib until it was linked for the public.
Andy suggested that a mock-up of the pages that link to it be sent to staff in
advance of the public roll-out. In response to Rick's question about staff training,
Dale said that visiting various groups (PIC, Ref Services Group, RSC, SSL, SCI,
Med) was training, as it was introducing staff to the unfamiliar concept of federated
searching. There followed some discussion about marketing it by focusing on what
it does do - federated searching - rather than what it does not do. One specific
complaint - that it currently doesn't return results arranged by database - will
be addressed in a future MetaLib release.
While many libraries are launching their federated search products, with terminology
like "try it" or "beta," Cornell links to its ENCompass implementation
in a less tentative fashion. Interesting examples of how other libraries link
to and describe their federated search service should be sent to pic-list for
consideration.
4. Redesign parameters
Discussion centered on the proposed In Focus section of a redesigned Front
Door.
Issues raised included:
Who would maintain it? Maintenance of the News is in the job description of
the Development and Communications Associate (who reports to Diana Timlin),
but since that position is vacant, Julie has been doing the news for several
months. Maintaining In Focus needs to be part of someone's job so that the content
can be kept up to date. Who would have the good judgment to decide what deserves
to be In Focus?
We could have a database of In Focus items that could easily be drawn upon
- but someone would still need to populate that database. There could be seasonal
items that get revived at the appropriate times every year - alerts about recess
hours, for example.
Do we even need an In Focus section? Studies show that users want web pages
to be functional. Why take up screen real estate just advertising things that
users don't really need? And would the In Focus items be primarily from special
collections like the Beinecke? Who's the audience for the Front Door, since
other libraries have their own home pages?
In Focus could be used to push resources that are of potential use to a broad
audience, such as RefWorks. The argument for having In Focus as opposed to just
News was that the current News section was buried. What if we just moved the
News to the current Quick Links section - would that be enough to draw people's
eye to items we wanted to highlight?
Rick showed the latest draft of the Medical Library's redesigned site. More
than half of the home page is given over to news-like content: library news,
medical headlines, library classes, and featured resource. Their user testing
showed that users scan the page left to right; the page will keep the list of
"Major Resources" on the left so users will hit that first. User testing
also showed that people liked the news on the Med Library home page.
Another suggestion was to use the In Focus space for a calendar of library
events (classes, lectures, etc.) - but a central calendar from which we would
draw would have to be created and populated.
5. We ran out of time to look at the WebTrends home page links statistics.
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