PIC Minutes
July 21, 2004
Present: Rick Zwies, Karen Reardon, Julie Linden, Kalee Sprague, Dale Askey,
Andy Shimp, Debra Falvey, Stephen Naron, Earl Roy
Absent: Tao Yang
Recording: Katie Bauer
1. Announcements
Sue Crockford-Peters has accepted PIC's suggestions for the course reserve book
purchase request form.
5-6 of the translated welcome pages are being worked on by curatorial staff.
Julie Linden, representing PIC, will go to Ann Okerson to ask her to fund graduate
students to do the other 4-5 of the 10 languages PIC had identified as desirable.
PIC Web Classes have been highly attended-more tried to register than we could
accommodate. After discussion, we talked about asking STOD to look at some of
the Web training needs in the Library (specifically HTML and basic Dreamweaver,
which we are not offering). Rick Zwies, who is now serving on STOD, will bring
our suggestions to STOD. WWDCS will rerun their two classes (web sites on the
pantheon and on the library web server). Once they set a date, Katie will announce
the classes. Instructors for remaining classes will turn away people who are
not on the registration list.
2. Triage System
PIC had divided up responsibilities for some areas in the past (see "PIC
members' areas of responsibility," http://www.library.yale.edu/fdc/picresponsibilities.html).
After some discussion, it was decided to keep this system, but responsibilities
needed to be reapportioned to account for new membership. Changes: Katie Bauer
will assume responsibility for the "Research Tools" pages, Debra Falvey
will take "About the Library," Stephen Naron will take "Libraries
& Collections," and Earl Roy will take "record display issues in
the OPAC."
3. Orbis Changes
The discussion of proposed Orbis changes was continued:
- Google search for Orbis Help Pages: decided not to implement it. It is too
misleading since after one search you are no longer searching the subdirectory
for Orbis Help.
- Images on Orbis take too much room: Suggestion: Ask for a design more like
the new UCLA catalog (http://catalog.library.ucla.edu/): the header is very
slim, no graphics. Dale will ask Bonnie Turner to do very slim horizontal blue
bar with a much smaller font for the Orbis title and a link added on the right
for Ask! a Librarian (this would no longer be a tab under the top banner).
- Decision to add the Java script to automatically AND keyword searches. The
java script is smart enough to leave an OR, recognizes quotes as a phrase search.
It was noted that this is important due to the high number of zero hits in Orbis
search logs that results from people trying to search phrases without quotation
marks using the Keyword search.
- Instructions for null results should be reworded to give users some ideas,
such as try a search in Morris: decided not to do this, partly due to the many
different ways users can get a null search returned.
- There was a request to add a field for the floor of Sterling where the call
number is located: the database would need to be updated constantly as things
are shifted. Decision: there is a page linked to for "location." There
will be a link to the Sterling Stack Guide from that "location" page,
under Sterling Memorial Library.
- 773 field will be broken into multiple labels. Also multiple labels for 505
field.
This concludes the list of current requests for Orbis changes. Requests for
additional Orbis changes will be gathered and then considered in October or November
(except typos, bug reports). This list will be posted on the PIC site.
4. Database Images
We looked at VERA, the MIT interface to their electronic databases and journals
(http://river.mit.edu/mitlibweb/FMPro?-db=RS_Items.fp5&-Lay=web&-format=ro_search.htm&-findany).
The larger discussion of display and searching will be undertaken as part of
Metalib. Julie wants to pursue a way categorization of databases in DBOW, so
that within subjects, databases could also be presented by type of material they
contain (e.g. images, numeric data). She will pursue this with Kim and Karen,
and will ask Hannah Bennett whether the Arts Library has any interest in this
functionality.
5. Hours of Operation
There is some general dissatisfaction with how the library presents its hours
of operation. Rick Zwies volunteered to look at other libraries for nice examples.
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