Public Interfaces Committee
PIC minutes
March 16, 2005
9:30-11 a.m.
Attending: Katie Bauer, Julie Linden, Stephen Naron, Karen Reardon, Earl Roy
(recorder), Andy Shimp, Kalee Sprague, Tao Yang, Rick Zwies
Absent: Dale Askey, Debbie Falvey
1. Announcements
Julie reported that a Ukrainian fellow offered to translate the welcome message
into (of course) Ukrainian, and there was discussion concerning whether the offer
should be accepted, and if additional languages should be considered for inclusion
in the list of language links on the Front Door. There was general agreement
that enough time has been spent on this issue for the time being, and that the
offer should not be accepted at present, but that the fellow be told that it
would be added to the list of possible future changes. Contact information for
her will be collected.
Karen will meet with ITS concerning possible central support for blogs on campus,
and she will monitor the situation, since no decision has been made to date.
PIC considered its role regarding blogs used as library public interfaces (e.g.,
as subject guides), and discussed whether a subcommittee should be formed to
formulate standards and guidelines for future blog development. It was pointed
out that PICs control may be limited, if ITS decides to support blogs centrally
(and therefore not on library servers). There was some debate on whether there
should be control of blogs at all-or, if there should, to what degree it should
be exercised-and if it makes sense at this early stage to consider the issue
formally. Since there was no consensus on the immediate need for attention to
it, it was agreed that we should wait for more activity on the blogging front
and for an ITS decision before determining a course of action.
2. Front Door facelift
Julie announced that Danuta has asked for a cost estimate for the facelift.
To that end, and to start a conversation concerning the design, a meeting with
the designer will be held, tentatively on March 30 at 3:30, attendees to include
Julie, Katy, Andy, Earl, and Stephen. The designer will be presented with Katie
and Stephen's preliminary sketch and a list of problems with the current design
in order to elicit a useful response. The proposed "In Focus" section
met with universal approval as a clearinghouse area for announcements of beta
tests, new software, etc., and one that will not be in need of constant attention
during periods of institutional torpor. Julie will extract the Front Door design
parameters laid out by Stephen in the March 2 minutes for presentation to the
designer, and will send them out to PIC for comments.
3. Analyzing search strings from Google, etc.
Katie presented a table of searches made using "Search this Site"
gathered over two days, which she divided roughly into five categories of information
sought: library, staff, subject, library collections, and Yale. Even based upon
111 searches, the low number attributed to the obscurity of the "Search
this Site" link on the Front Door, it was clear that subject searches dominated
the count-by Katie's calculation, 57% of the total. The possibility of federated
searching was discussed, but it was agreed that this option lay too far in the
future to offer timely relief. Rick demonstrated a compromise that he fashioned
for the Medical Library (at www.med.yale.edu/library/netsearch.html), which,
by making choices for the scope of the search explicit, guides the searcher in
the desired direction. It was agreed that this approach may mitigate the above
problem until a more satisfying solution presents itself. Katie agreed to forward
her results to pic-list.
4. Electronic Resource Management System and what it could mean for
public presentation of e-resources (Kimberly Parker, guest speaker)
Kim described the Electronic Resource Management System (or ERMS) as a kind
of ILS for e-resources, in that it performs many of the same functions, but also
manages relational information peculiar to electronic materials, such as copyright
info, consortial relationships, vendor contacts, tutorials on vendor sites, etc.
Development of ERMSs is still young, with only one system, Innovative Interfaces'
Millennium, in production. YUL is looking at three vendors, Endeavor, Ex Libris,
and III, and evaluating ways in which their products will interact with Voyager,
SFX, and MetaLib. Verde, Ex Libris' product, which uses SFX dynamic links (allowing
avoidance of duplication of data already in-house) and offers an open architecture
and OpenURL support, is available at an early-adopter price if purchased by the
end of March. Even if YUL decides to adopt it in April, Kim foresees that its
implementation would be gradual, taking a year of more to populate, with Verde,
supplemented by SFX and Metalib, eventually superseding YELMO. The first to populate
the ERMS would be e journals and e journal packages, for subscription reasons;
YELMO would be needed for some time, at least for the journal list. Eventually,
there would be a unified source of data feeding the ERMS, the catalog, and SFX.
Kim anticipates that, even if the March opportunity is not taken, we could have
an ERMS by the end of June or July, or at latest by the end of the calendar year.
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