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Public Interfaces Committee
PIC Minutes
October 13, 2004

Present: Dale Askey, Debra Falvey, Julie Linden, Stephen Naron , Karen Reardon, Earl Roy, Kalee Sprague (recording), Rick Zwies
Absent: Katie Bauer, Andy Shimp

1. Announcements

The Nov. 24th PIC meeting is canceled.
Stephen announced that MSSA is close to releasing its new web site; Stephen will present the new web site to PIC for comments and suggestions before it goes live.

2. Request for Quick Link to citation management software page (Julie)

The group discussed the new Citation Management page Katie has created to describe tools like RefWorks and EndNote. The group agreed to the following:

- Citation Tools would be a better name for the page
- Adding a Quick Link to the page from the front door would allow for explanatory text. There was some question about whether readers see the Quick Links. Rick will talk to Katie about a WebTrends report about usage of home page links.
- Adding a link to the Databases & Article searching submenu is a good idea, although the menu is becoming cluttered and should be reorganized (and possibly some links can just be dropped). Julie will mention it to Katie, since it's in Katie's "triage" area.
- Adding a link to Citation Tools from the Workshops and Tutorials page is a good idea
- The group was undecided about whether to add a link from the Research Tools section of the front door. This issue will be discussed again when Katie is present.

3. OPAC stats (Kalee)

Kalee presented data available on the number of '0' hits searches performed since the implementation of the javascript to add automatically add the Boolean 'AND' operator to Keyword searches. Statistics show a 1% drop in the number of '0' hits searches.
The group also discussed the 6-month accumulation of statistics now in hand for the OPAC, and talked about ways to use that data. Dale suggested creating a one-page report for reference staff highlighting the most frequent causes of '0' hits searches. The report will emphasize the types of mistakes that reference staff might be able to help users correct. Dale, Tao and Kalee will work on the report.

4. Consideration of items on the new Orbis change requests list

PIC discussed the new list of Orbis change requests, and decided to implement the following changes prior to spring semester:

1. Add links to 'Help' and 'Ask! a Librarian' from the 'System could not interpret your search' message.
2. Bold 'Select a pickup library' in the recall and staff search request forms. Julie will also contact Sue to recommend that the location name for Sterling and CCL be 'Sterling Circ Desk' and 'CCL Circ Desk' as opposed to 'ACC/SML Circ Desk'.
3. Add the descriptor 'Law Library Catalog' to Morris in the Library Catalogs list.
4. Add the 505 second indicator 8 to the display constant 'Contents'.
5. Add the Music Library to the top tier of locations in the Location Limit drop-down.
6. Divide the Call number index into discrete indexes (following the localyale call number cleanup, possibly in December).

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